One of the more interesting side effects of writing about cars is that your friends and family always seem to ask you for an opinion about cars. Either they’re looking at buying a car and want to know if it’s good or they already bought a car and want to know if they got screwed. My father bought a second-generation Chevrolet Avalanche and its Active Fuel Management system (cylinder deactivation) had already failed so horribly that you could hear metallic clanging from down the street. Oof.
When people ask me about reliable cheap cars, I often point them toward cars with proven reliability records, like something powered by a GM 3800 V6. Today’s Shitbox Showdown was a competition between a 2000 Buick LeSabre Limited and a 2002 Toyota Avalon XLS. Neither are thrilling cruisers, but both are comfortable. Today’s COTD winner is RootWyrm for preaching the values of the mighty 3800:
This isn’t even a contest.
The LeSabre is a Buick. A Buick with a 3800 Series II and a 4T65E. And it’s a high spec LeSabre; leather was decidedly NOT a standard feature on these. (Don’t look down on the cloth; it’s actually ridiculously good too.)
200,000 miles? You might need to do the coolant elbows, oil, and transmission fluid.
300,000 miles? Oil and transmission fluid.Toyota’s mythology doesn’t hold up to reality. Especially not with timing belts. How many Avalons you still see on the road? Yeah. About none. Their V6 and transmission are good for maybe, maybe 200k.
We had over a dozen regulars (LOF, tire rotation) with 3800’s that had well over 250,000 miles on them. A mid-90’s Regal that had over 400,000 and was only on it’s second transmission. We had a livery company that put over 100k a year on LeSabres. We had a 3800 Supercharged that drove in under it’s own power with 5 fingered pistons. We had a 3800 that bent 4 rods from hydrolock and still ran (found it because it failed compression.)
You CANNOT kill a 3800 with anything short of gross negligence and abuse. And even then, the damn thing will still drive itself off the flatbed.edit: oh, and these 3800’s? They’re a LOT more efficient than you think. 32-35MPG highway is typical. High speed cruise can hit 38+. City can reach 20.
While I have no experience with that Toyota engine, I can back up some of RootWyrm’s 3800 claims.
My wife, Sheryl, bought an Oldsmobile LSS with a naturally aspirated 3800 Series II.
When that engine was healthy, it sipped on fuel at highway speed, scoring above 30 mpg. Power numbers also weren’t bad for the day, as the engine laid down 205 HP to the front wheels or 240 HP with a supercharger. Amateur tuners have also found these engines to be easy to work on and receptive to modifications. Sheryl’s 1997 LSS hit 60 mph in 7.5 seconds, not bad for the 1990s and that wasn’t even with the supercharger.
Unfortunately, her engine died at the hands of a local shop. The only certified technician in the shop went on vacation, letting his non-mechanic brother run the establishment. That brother cracked the engine’s plastic intake and also performed a coolant flush without any bleeding.
I was performing an airport run in the car when it hydrolocked on its own coolant on the highway. A different shop performed an autopsy and found four cylinders full of coolant. The damage report included four bent rods, scored cylinders, a cracked block, and a blown head gasket. The technician believed the engine sucked in coolant from the intake but also just couldn’t keep itself cool from the terrible coolant job. He wasn’t entirely sure what failed first, but I guess that didn’t matter.
Sheryl won her lawsuit against the shop, but by that time it was too late. Incredibly, the car still ran on the two cylinders that survived. When Sheryl sent her “Lissy” to the junkyard in the sky, it limped itself onto the flatbed. That engine didn’t want to die.
If you’re looking for a cheap car that will take care of you, consider something powered by a 3800. Just take it to a real mechanic…
I had a 2000 Grand Prix GT (I couldn’t talk my exwife into the P) and absolutely loved that car. The 3800 is precisely why I voted Buick
I test drove a Grand Prix with the supercharged 3.8L back in around 2004. I found it to be kind of a dog. Could hear the engine lumbering to accelerate over the sound of the creaking plastic dashboard on rough roads. This was a new car. It wouldn’t downshift except in rare situations and resisted going into higher RPMs. Must have been something wrong with it because older Buicks with the 3800 II NA performed better. Test drove a year old Mitsubishi Galant at the same time and it out classed the Grand Prix in every measure. Ended up with an Acura TSX in the end.
same here. I remember being really underwhelmed when I drove one.
Just needed a smaller diameter pulley to get more power.
They weren’t fast. Don’t know if it was the heft of the car, but they were definitely underwhelming, like a co-worker’s couldn’t beat my 5MT FWD ’90 Legacy wagon in an impromptu parking lot drag race underwhelming.
Personally I like the Supercharged Variant. I would love to take a late 1990s 3.8sc and put it in a Fiero.
My ’02 Malibu didn’t have the 3800, but I’d like to think its 3.1-liter V6 is from the same family. That car was not great by any means, but it was surprisingly efficient for its size at highway speeds, and damn comfy. And even when an injector clogged or a spark plug blew out–the last one was my fault–the V6 just kept chugging.
I’m sorry you had to own one of those. One of the worst cars of all time imho.
That was a different family of V6s. The 2.8/3.1/3.4 was a 60° engine that originated with Chevrolet.
My dad had a 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo he drove for several years. I then bought it around 2003 from him and drove it through college. It was a tank. That thing would not die. I was sideswiped by some drunk girl that then ran me into a boulder on the other side of the road. Insurance totaled it out. I bought it back from them and drove it for another 1.5 years.
I’m certain that engine would go another 200,000 miles.
I remember those! They were rare even when new, but I always thought they were great looking cars, though oddly named.
Yes, gorgeous things! I’d love one in red, pearl, or black, roughly in that order. Red and pearl white are more or less tied for favorite – and I’m a person who typically dislikes white cars.
I got the ancestor to the 3800 in my 87 Delta 88. The LG3 Red Dot 3.8L. At that time, it wasn’t called the 3800 yet (that came with the redesign a year later). It was still based on the V8 block as it got a a BOP V8 bolt pattern. That engine is stout but the timing is the real Achilles heel of this version. The nylon gear and follower would disintegrate within 100 to 160000 miles and would ruin the engine. I done the timing on mine at 66k (and 36 years) miles and the gear was missing a few tooth, was cracked and the follower were non existant. Now it’s got a upgraded kit and I think that this engine will not die ever.
I have a 1967 Jeep with a Buick 225 Odd-fire. It is the grandfather of the modern 3.8 L Buck. The 225 was converted to even fire and bored out to make the Buick 231 (or 3.8 L) That motor is a beast. It just wants to run. The only issues I have had with it were from the carb float filling with gas and flooding the engine.
I had the absolute worst luck with one as my first actual car, 98 Buick Lesabre limited, when i got it i immediately changed all the spark plugs wires etc average maintenance for a car a year younger than me lmao just because a family friend owned it and it had literally just under 100k miles on it! Drove it around for a year and a half and then bam radiator, coolant overflow, and head gaskets went all at once. Ended up just fixing it enough to sell it. It was an amazingly comfy car and could fit all my friends in it though with it’s DOUBLE BENCH SEATS.
Just picked up a 94 Bonneville SSEI with the supercharged 3800 after searching for years. Fortunate enough to find one with just 80k miles which is a rare find. In my search, a majority of Bonnies for sale had very high mileage, high 200k, into the 300k even one at 400k miles. It seems like the car ends up dissolving around the engine, especially in the rust belt states.
I love the 2nd generation of W body Bonnie’s, but the first gens are tanks and last forever. Great find!
My sister is still driving my late fathers 1990 Park Avenue.
Unless I misremember, the Avalon – which was, in fact, about as close as you could get to a Lexus without paying the full-boat price for one – was also the first real dent put in Toyota’s theretofore unassailable reputation for reliability. The engines would sludge themselves to uselessness, and Toyota was uncharacteristically slow to respond.
I had a 3800 in a Bonneville. 95 model, bought used in 04. Damn thing got me through college with no issues. Traded it in for an Alero. Shouldn’t have.
+1 on the 3800. We had a 3 Lesabres, 1 Park Ave, and 8 Olds 88s with this engine, never had a lick of trouble.
I had a 92 Olds 88 that when it got to about 150,000 miles, the seat cushioning wore out, and I was kind of tired of the car. My father in law owned a service station, and called me in, and said he had a car for me. Turns out it was a 1993 Olds 88. Sold my 92 for $3500.00, bought the new car for $3500.00, and spent $1,000.00 fixing some damage to the bodywork and getting it cleaned.
Best part was that it was literally a little old man’s car. I know this because the seat was way up, and there was a black spot of soot on the ceiling that corresponded with the end of the old geezer’s cigar.
Even better was that about a year or so later I sold the car to a woman (who was about 70, married to a guy who was about 80, which is an important detail) for her 35 year old daughter, who wanted mommy and daddy to buy her a Miata. Woman said “I’m willing to help her out, but I’ll be damned if I get her a Miata.”
I said “I have the perfect car for you. It’s safe, comfortable, and reliable, and she’s gonna hate it.”
About 6 months later, I asked her “How’s the car doing?”
She said “Well, my husband was going to give it to her, until he drove it around for a few days, and decided he’s keeping it…”
One thing to keep in mind with the Avalon is numbers, far fewer Avalons were sold than 3800s, and I still see plenty of Camrys with the 3.0 on the road, but it just gets up there so much that it’s not worth putting a timing belt on again.
I think both engines and or cars are good for 300k miles. I ran a full service shop that did smogs and we had a couple of Avalons that came in for smogs with 300k on them and both passed with flying colors. I had to look at the tach to see if it was running. And like most Toyotas non interference engines so if it did break, get it towed to a shop get it replaced (along with the water pump, maybe the tensioner and idler pulleys)…and drive away. Agreed the 3800 with a timing chain saved it’s owners maintenance money there. But we did have to replace plastic intake and coolant parts on those..Bottom line, as long as you did your maintenance, didn’t run em low on oil or coolant both are high mileage champions. Buick get 5 stars for their slogan, When better cars are built, Buick will build them.
My grandfather managed a Buick dealership for 25 years. Anytime he’d start talking about the 3800 engine, he’d look off in the distance like he was remembering a beauty queen he almost married but didn’t. Then he’d say, “That 3800 powertrain was the best engine I’d ever seen,” and trail off for a few seconds. I’m not even joking.
I owned a ’94 Buick Regal Gran Sport with the 3800 (basically this car, but with the optional luggage rack), and I can confirm the surprisingly good gas mileage. I swear I could hit 35 MPG highway when I put it in overdrive.
The 3800 was a great little motor, here in Australia Holden put them in hundreds of thousands of Commodores from the mid 80’s through to the late 90’s.
Relatively under-stressed it soldered on longer than it had any right to.
For a time the 3800 was quite a common choice for engine conversions into 4x4s – mostly Toyota Hilux’s, so common was tis particular conversion you could by complete kits making it a very straightforward bolt-in exercise.
I always thought the 3.8 would make a great motor for a 4×4, nice and torquey at low revs.
Yeah they were quite popular, you used to be able to buy a wrecked (rear ended) Commodore for less than $1000 then you would have the gearbox, fuel system, and computers as well.
Hilux drivers loved replacing the old carby 4 banger with a torquey v6 with EFI
My first car was a ’99 VT Commodore with the 3800. While not exactly fast it never felt particularly slow either, and it paired well with the rwd layout of the Commodore.
Bought it at 200,000km, put on 50,000km over 6 or 7 years with only a couple of easily-resolved cooling system issues that my dad and I fixed up in the driveway.
Good car. Sold it to an acquaintance who crashed it a year or two later.
“If you’re looking for a cheap car that will take care of you, consider something powered by a 3800.”
In my experience these are the poster car of low income single mothers.
That’s what came to mind when I saw the Buick LeSabre in today’s showdown. Now it all makes sense.
I suddenly have more respect for a vehicle I used to scoff at.
Damn you Autopian! Stupid knowledge and acceptance. I’m running out of vehicles to scoff at thanks to you people.
Until the market went nuts, these were the absolute best deals on a used car—reliable, roomy, comfortable, better rust protection than some competitors, and much cheaper with likely lower miles and with better chances of not being abused than anything else in similar condition and year would be since nobody wanted an “old person’s” car even though that meant they had few and easy miles on them.
Are they not still the best deal?
I can’t say nationwide, but in the Boston area, when I looked about 2 years ago, they had just about caught up with their contemporaries. They were still a little cheaper, but not, say, 1/3 the price or less of a contemporary Camry with more miles like they used to be. Add to that, those Camrys have gone up 3x+.
My first new car purchase was a 1991 Buick Regal with the 3800. What a nice car, could almost plow snow it was so good in the winter.
I had a 96 lesabre I inherited before I went off to basic training. I changed a battery. That was it. It was like driving a couch and I could fit all my friends comfortably in it to go to concerts and blend right in with traffic after. What a great car.
Get at least 3 Fiero owners together, at least one of them will have swapped a 3800 into it. Superchargers are a popular option, so there are lots of 300 horsepower Fieros that will be on the road for many years to come.
Can’t go wrong with a 300 horsepower mid-engined light-weight death trap. I approve!
plastic intake manifold could, and did leak coolant into the motor
I drove from Ohio to New Orleans to Disney and back with a bad intake on mine. They handled it like a champ. I fixed it with a metal one when I got back
Correct. I bought my 1996 LSS with non-supercharged 3800 around the same time as wife o’ Mercedes and mine started to eat coolant. The shop diagnosed a crack in the plastic manifold. I had them replace it with same since I figured the first one lasted 120K miles/26 years. Runs great now but that plastic piece is a weak point for sure
The 3800 is cool, but they should’ve been able to give it more than 200 hp. Even 240 with a supercharger isn’t great. They could’ve gotten more than that without the supercharger. Perhaps 250-260 hp NA and 300 hp with the supercharger would be realistic. However, there is the aftermarket, and of course, an LS4 swap may be possible too 😛
And they never updated it to an aluminum block and heads, even though the V8 it was based on had that shit in the fucking 60s.
The 3800 is good but overrated IMO.
The 1MZ makes 200 hp from just 3.0L and is all aluminum. Yeah it has a timing belt, but it’s non-interference. Oh also, the transmission actually has a drain plug, something the LeSabre doesn’t have (from the factory–there are aftermarket pans with the drain plug available).
240HP out of an S/C V6 was nothing to sneeze at 20 years ago. We’re talking about a period of time when the Mustang GT made 260, the Cobra 320, and the LS1 in the Camaro only made a little more than the top end of your figures (around 325 IIRC?). The understressed nature and ancient tech are probably key to its longevity.
The 3800 isn’t about horsepower. It’s an undersquare bore, with a big crank and a long stroke. It’s a torque monster, and gives you nothing if pressed above 3500 rpms.
Bore 3.8 in Stroke 3.4 in Not sure about your comment?
If they had updated it, sure those numbers might have been achievable, but for the time it was introduced, up to 205hp for the Series II 3800 in 1995 on regular fuel was quite good and pretty on par for OHV motors. Nissan had 190hp out the VE30 in 1992, but then the VQ30 sat at the same power rating, recommended premium, until 2000.
Ford got 200hp out of both the 3.0L Duratec in the Taurus and the Essex 3.8 in the Windstar in 1996, both of which were also good outputs for the time.
I can’t think of anyone that came close to the 3800SC’s output for a few years more, until the 2002 Altima, and then a year later Honda hit 240 hp on regular with the Accord.
Mitsubishi in 1995 made 250hp from a 2.0.
It got 30+ with cheap gas on the highway and shrugged off a couple hundred thousand miles? The 3800 made torque enough to have barely any load at very low rpm at highway speeds on a larger, not very aero car. It wasn’t meant as a lower end performance engine back when the Japanese overbuilt the hell out of them thanks to a favorable exchange rate and smart, non-Western long term thinking, it was a low stress engine meant to run forever cheaply. A Ferrari V12 makes more HP than a semi truck engine, but which can haul 50k+ lbs for hundreds of thousands of miles? HP is a stupid metric, but I guess we’ve been sold on it for far too long to change and there’s no good alternative shorthand for an engine’s capability, though what rpm the hp peaks at is closer to the mark, if mostly only with N/A engines.
How many of those are still on the road?
Chrysler’s 3.5 hit 253hp in ’99, and a 242hp variant was put in the Intrepid by 2001.
I see 20+ year old Buicks all the time. Surviving LHs are much rarer than Lamborghinis here.
Sorry, just adding to the timeline of bigger power in large affordable sedans, which still backs up that the 3800 made good power for the time.
That said, the LH’s issues were more transmission related – the 3.2/3.5 were perfectly fine, but could munch transmissions (mark of death for a cheap car), the 3.3 was fine (and gentler on the transmission) but they stopped using it 26 years ago. We don’t talk about the 2.7.
Haha, I had in my head, “Yeah, but the 2.7” until I got to your last line. It’s a shame, though, I really liked the direction the LH cars went in. I especially liked the looks of the Eagle Vision. Of course, it didn’t hurt that this hot redhead I knew had one, but it was still a good looking car with an advanced platform for the time.
Ah yes, and I was even thinking of the LH cars but only thought about the gen 1 with 214hp. So maybe another 3-4 years after the 3800SC’s intro.
Those were new engines at the time, with more sophisticated OHC drivetrains. The 3.8 was already 30 years old by that time.
How many of those 3.5’s are still on the road, and has anyone ever referred to one as “legendary”?
The lack of stress and the iron is what makes the engine un-killable. They also had a decent torque curve and low RPMs at highway speeds which made for good mileage. I vote venerable.
“And they never updated it to an aluminum block and heads, even though the V8 it was based on had that shit in the fucking 60s.”
That would be the Rover V8, not exactly a pinnacle of reliability and fuel economy.
There’s overrated, and there’s overrated. What are you rating? If you’re looking for power, turn up the knobs until the 3800 is blown, intercooled and snorting out a solid 400 horsepower. It’ll do it, it’ll even do it kind of reliably, but it becomes kind of a peaky, bitchy mess and unless you’re looking for that, is a pain in the ass to drive. 300 is nothing. 200 is a fraction of nothing.
But to do it, you wander away from other desirable characteristics, like smoothness and durability. Peaky and bitchy aren’t what most people are looking for. If smoothness and durability are your higher criteria – and this engine got screwed into a lot of intermediate mid-lux family movers where those might be the only criteria – then it’s not overrated in any way.
Why does it matter that it wasn’t aluminum and had large displacement when it was still wasn’t very heavy and it still made good power for the applications it served while also having very low running costs? Did literally anyone cross shopping Avalons and Lesabres care about specific output? Did literally anyone cross shopping Avalons and Lesabres care that the engine block was iron specifically so the engine wouldn’t be the disaster that its aluminum block parent was for the entire 40 years it was available?
By the time the High Feature V6 came out it in the mid-2000s it was at about the end of its competitive life without a substantial redesign, but GM also replaced it in short order at that point anyway.
Keep in mind this motor dates from the 1960s. Sure they could have squeezed more hp out of it, but at what cost?
It’s not always about peak hp numbers, I’ll argue that figure is actually relatively arbitrary. The 3.8 makes great torque, low in the RPM range where people actually drive. That’s why the 3.8 could chug down the highway loafing along at 1500 rpm getting 30+mpg and not needing to downshift at any little grade, unlike the peaky V6 in my 4Runner.
These cars came out the same time the 345 and 460 V8’s only made 230hp,but had enough torque to pull your house down the street off idle.
According to a quick google search, it weighs less than an all aluminum Subaru FA24. Admittedly, it’s not the lightest aluminum engine—especially for a 4 as it has 2 heads and a large split block—but that might make the 3800 a decent reliable swap for an FA20 twin (this is only a joke . . . sort of)! OHV is light and compact with a lower cg compared to OHC (especially DOHC), two valves breathe well at low rpms, negating the need for high rpm (why it has a less impressive hp number even though it has a good torque curve), allowing for taller gearing, increasing longevity and mileage. People look at the HP per displacement and laugh, but I look at the mileage capability and durability and laugh at the shorter-lived weed whackers with their “more advanced” (by 1910s standards, I guess, since OHC dates to at least 1912) heavier, more expensive to produce (which the customer pays for), harder on oil, and physically larger OHCs that can often only match or beat the mileage of that bigger engine when driven with an egg under the throttle and likely needs premium fuel that the other does not. It’s not the answer for every case, but it is for a lot of cases with how large and heavy modern cars are and for how most people use their cars.
Many GM cars of that era don’t have drain plugs on the trans pan since you are supposed to change the filter at the same time as a fluid change. Yes, being able to drain the fluid before you remove the pan would make it less messy, but I guess they figured too many people would change the fluid and not the filter.
Oh also, the transmission actually has a drain plug, something the LeSabre doesn’t have (from the factory–there are aftermarket pans with the drain plug available).
I never understood the logic of excluding a drain plug from anything that contains fluids. They can’t be saving much and it makes any servicing so much more of a PITA.
I’ll step up to defend the Toyota 1MZ-FE.
It’s the most shockingly smooth V6 you’ll find this side of an Alfa Romeo. I’m sure plenty have gone to the grave because the 5th owner of a shitbox Camry doesn’t know to change the timing belt on schedule, but as someone who does a lot of prophylactic maintenance, that’s not an issue for me.
Who actually changes the timing belts on shit-boxes? The reason its a shit-box is no maintenance has been done.
I thought the dig at the Avalon was a bit hyperbolic especially since the 3800 can stand on its own. Like I commented on that same post, I see a lot of Avalons, it and the Buick appealed to the same type of demographic that actually will follow the maintenance schedule, and are plain easier on the car. Even a V6 Camry is likely to see a harder life than an Avalon just by nature of being more affordable.
I mean, you gotta have respect for any machine which will actively drive itself up the metaphorical steps to the gallows with only 2 of 6 healths glowing