Most reliable old man car: Grand Marquis or Buick Lucerne?
- Thread starter Elkins45
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My parents' 03 Buick PA, 3800 v6, 99k, fell to me some yrs ago. Absolutely trouble free, no leaks, doesnt use oil & every feature on the car works but this has been a garaged car since purchased new. Only thing that bothers me is how hot the alternator gets, like real hot. Its been ckd out by "starter & alternator" shops and they all say its fine. And even offer to do an "unnecessary replacement" if thats what I want. Guess I'll just live with it.
If you can find one, get a LaCrosse Super with the LS4 
If you can find one, get a LaCrosse Super with the LS4
Not quite an LS4, but I was eyeing this up while it was on auction. It was local, clean and tempting...but I need another car like a hole in the head.
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2010 Buick Lucerne Super - Rare Super Trim, 292-hp V8, Mostly Unmodified, Nevada-Owned Since 2013
This 2010 Buick Lucerne Super is for sale on Cars & Bids! Auction ends October 23 2023.
Neither to me is an old man car because of the low entry point. A Subaru Forester screams old man in my parts (New England) or even Outback because of the easy of entry/exit. My parents dumped their old Acura Legend (too low) and Toyota Tundra too high for my dad in bad physical shape(back) could not enter either. He likes the Subaru Outback or my wife’s VW Tiguan .
Yeah, a rental I had ages ago for a trip to Jeresy from the Boston suburbs got me close to 30. I am good at back peddling the go pedal - but, sure, I was going down to Jersey.
That engine was taching well under 2000 rpm If I recall correctly.
Nice floaty ride - like a Chris-Craft on plane.
A recent rental of a pentastar motivated dodge charger 4door was very close but not quite there.
Shel_B
Site Donor 2023
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IMO, both are good choices, but the care, maintenance, and use of the car itself are more important than the brand. I've owned a Buick LeSabre, and in many ways, it was the most satisfying car I've owned. Actually, I'm sort of half-heartedly looking for a replacement.
That said, a good example of a Panther-platformed car is right up there as an excellent choice as well. I just came across this video this morning:
That said, a good example of a Panther-platformed car is right up there as an excellent choice as well. I just came across this video this morning:
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Based on your extensive Panther ownership experience or just TDS? We've owned two panther cars, still own one, my dad is 71, TCO for the Townie has been extremely low.It be like that sometimes
Toyota Avalon is simply a better old man car, maintenance and repairs wise.
What chronic flaws are those? The crossover coolant hose failure on some of the 4.6L engines and the rare, but annoying timing chain guide issue? LIM's on the 3.8?
The 1MZ is prone to sludge and massive amounts of oil consumption. The 2GR:
The 2GR has abnormally high rates of water pump and ignition coil failure, the former which can lead to scored cylinder walls, which necessitates binning the engine, since it can't be re-bored.
This is exactly what I'm talking about with Toyanon, reality doesn't matter, nothing Toyota produces ever has issues in their mind, it's a condition.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Are you seriously asserting that the 4R70W/4R75W/4R75E were prone to premature failure in non-LEO service?
I didn't say that. But here is what I did say:
I'm not hating on either the 3.8L or the 4.6L, not sure why you got so wound up about it. I'd happily drive a (lifted safari spec) Crown Vic or a (lowered sleeper spec) Regal GS with that lovely supercharged 3800 and a smaller pulley. But that doesn't mean I'll just be completely blind to their issues. I am the one maintaining vehicles for everyone in the family, so being aware of potential issues on the vehicles I maintain is very important to me.
Had an Oldsmobile Intigue with the 3.8L. Amazing car, so soft and plush. The ideal highway cruiser. The perfect old man car. BUT annual maintenance & repairs costs were still higher on it, than the 2003 Honda Pilot that ran along side it. And that's considering the fact that the Pilot was bought before the Intrigue, went through 3 transmissions in 360K miles, and outlasted the Intrigue by a few years. And still the annual upkeep cost was lower for the Pilot than it was for the Intrigue.
While working at AutoZone in Greensboro I had the pleasure of dealing with a shop that maintained 10+ Crown Vics for taxi. In the 1.5 years I worked there that shop bought A LOT of plastic cooling parts, spark plugs, and helicoils for the stripped heads, and timing chain components. So that's the extend of my "experience" with the 4.6L.
We had four 1MZ vehicles so far. All were bought past 150K miles with unknown maintenance history, and driven until 220k-260k before being sold. Neither had any sludge under the valve covers, and only one had oil consumption at a rate of 1qt/5k miles.
We had four 2GR engines in the family so far, neither had the issues you speak of. The ones with 2GR currently in the family are Highlander Hybrid with 200k miles and Sienna with 160K miles, both still have factory installed water pumps and ignition coils.
None of my experiences discredit what you said, and none of your experiences discredit what I brought up. My simple point is - be aware of potential issues, regardless of the bias. Based not on bias, but on my personal experience - an Avalon/ES300 or Highlander/RX300 has higher chances of trouble-free ownership in the "old man car" service duty. Your experience may vary. Cheer up @OVERKILL, no need for name calling. Hope your day gets better from here on out. Same for everyone else reading.
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Just saw this after posting previous message. The transmission issues I refer to are based on the feedback from the same Taxi shop I mentioned above. Supposedly having 2 large ATF coolers in-line helps the longevity, and fixes the issue. But again: no personal experience, just going off the taxi shop in Greensboro that lives and breathes Crown Vics. or at least it did back in 2014-2016. These days they switched to Prius platform for all things Taxi.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
And did you deal with a comparable fleet that ran the Avalon in a similar service profile? No? Clearly you can see that's an issue, right?
But you've got no first-hand experience with the 4.6L or the Panther cars, per your own admission. So, you are characterizing their reliability, and making firm statements to accompany that characterization, leveraging that to then recommend something wholly out of scope of what the OP was soliciting advice on, based solely on 2nd or 3rd hand information exclusively with respect to the parts you sold to a Taxi fleet when you worked at AutoZone, where the vehicles will be beat on like a red-headed step-child.
You are then turning around and characterizing the Toyota vehicles based on a personal usage profile that one would assume in no way resembles that of the taxi fleet.
Do you not see the obvious problem with that?
Furthermore, all the issues I mentioned are well-documented but that doesn't mean you are going to necessarily experience them, and the same goes for the relatively minor issues with the Panther and the 4.6L. Severe service in a fleet environment often makes issues crop up that are not observed, or observed with the same frequency, in standard service.
You are missing it.
I'm not knocking the Avalon, I'm simply taking issue with your characterization of the reliability of these vehicles based on a first-hand sample size of zero for the Panther cars and a leisurely personal usage profile for one you felt compelled to recommend, despite it not being an available option as presented by the OP.
The inherent bias should be blindingly obvious here, yet it still seems to be escaping you
Put more plainly:
- You have some first-hand experience from which to claim that the Avalon has a low cost usage profile in "old man service", ignoring for the moment that the OP did not present that as one of the available options in his query.
- You have zero first-hand experience from which to claim that a Panther car would have a lower chance of providing that same low cost of ownership in the same "old man service" profile.
Yet you continue to assert that this is the case.
Parts purchase history for Taxis getting the living crap beat out of them by 3rd parties is not a suitable proxy.
And, since this apparently needs clarity, I'm not name calling, I'm giving a label to something that has been readily observable from a certain segment of the userbase here with respect to Toyota vehicles. If you don't see how I arrived at applying that here, based on the above exchange, then that's a demonstration of exactly what I'm talking about.
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I usually prefer GM's of that era but I prefer rear wheel drive, so probably the Grandma Marquis. I did own and 88 for one winter....until the frame rusted through. It ran like a top with about 170k miles but after that winter it was scrap and I went back to my 83 Caprice. I drove that car mord than 10 years as my winter beater and it recently sold for $700 more than I paid for it 14 years ago and the 2 owners after me paid for it.
Thank you for that explanation. My fingers are itching hard to throw a mountain of counterpoints to some statements, but a certain level of respect for you tells me it's best to stop here. I agree on some things, and I hope we can agree to disagree on the others.And did you deal with a comparable fleet that ran the Avalon in a similar service profile? No? Clearly you can see that's an issue, right?
But you've got no first-hand experience with the 4.6L or the Panther cars, per your own admission. So, you are characterizing their reliability, and making firm statements to accompany that characterization, leveraging that to then recommend something wholly out of scope of what the OP was soliciting advice on, based solely on 2nd or 3rd hand information exclusively with respect to the parts you sold to a Taxi fleet when you worked at AutoZone, where the vehicles will be beat on like a red-headed step-child.
You are then turning around and characterizing the Toyota vehicles based on a personal usage profile that one would assume in no way resembles that of the taxi fleet.
Do you not see the obvious problem with that?
Furthermore, all the issues I mentioned are well-documented but that doesn't mean you are going to necessarily experience them, and the same goes for the relatively minor issues with the Panther and the 4.6L. Severe service in a fleet environment often makes issues crop up that are not observed, or observed with the same frequency, in standard service.
You are missing it.
I'm not knocking the Avalon, I'm simply taking issue with your characterization of the reliability of these vehicles based on a first-hand sample size of zero for the Panther cars and a leisurely personal usage profile for one you felt compelled to recommend, despite it not being an available option as presented by the OP.
The inherent bias should be blindingly obvious here, yet it still seems to be escaping you
Put more plainly:
- You have some first-hand experience from which to claim that the Avalon has a low cost usage profile in "old man service", ignoring for the moment that the OP did not present that as one of the available options in his query.
- You have zero first-hand experience from which to claim that a Panther car would have a lower chance of providing that same low cost of ownership in the same "old man service" profile.
Yet you continue to assert that this is the case.
Parts purchase history for Taxis getting the living crap beat out of them by 3rd parties is not a suitable proxy.
And, since this apparently needs clarity, I'm not name calling, I'm giving a label to something that has been readily observable from a certain segment of the userbase here with respect to Toyota vehicles. If you don't see how I arrived at applying that here, based on the above exchange, then that's a demonstration of exactly what I'm talking about.
On the bright side - now OP has a nice bank of info, from different ends of the spectrum, in a single thread to look through and consider, before making a final decision on the ride. Minor issues for some consumers could be huge deal breakers for others. And vice versa. Good luck
I worked at a Ford dealer in 2003-2004 and we didn't have a single crown Victoria transmission failure. Most were local police cars. We had a ton of transmission failures because it was a Ford dealer...but they were all Windstars, Freestars, Taurus, etc.
Later in life I worked at a Goodyear independent shop and then the taxi company across the street (who we did repairs for as well)...they had a mix of Crown Vic and Marquis 4.6 cars and a bunch of 3800 impalas and Buicks. Both of them blew up transmissions but if your precious Avalon was driven by those idiots, it would likely have scattered its guts all over the highway as well. The 2005 impala ex police that I was driving for my short time working nights for them had 200k miles, ran and shifted like a top. No leaks until the oil filter rusted out after 60k miles of hard service on one oil and filter change. I hope this is a reminder that you are comparing apples to oranges.
Oh and my sister has a 2005 Camry which we got (on my recommendation) a couple years ago. 180k miles or so and the transmission is actually on its last legs. So yes, any of them can fail. Maintenance and driver car makes a huge difference, if you forgot that.
4WD
$50 site donor 2024
We ran the CV’s down bad gravel roads all week in S Texas - idle with hood up and AC on at 100° - then on Sunday heading to Dallas at cruise speed … do that for 100k and you’d get a new one …And did you deal with a comparable fleet that ran the Avalon in a similar service profile? No? Clearly you can see that's an issue, right?
But you've got no first-hand experience with the 4.6L or the Panther cars, per your own admission. So, you are characterizing their reliability, and making firm statements to accompany that characterization, leveraging that to then recommend something wholly out of scope of what the OP was soliciting advice on, based solely on 2nd or 3rd hand information exclusively with respect to the parts you sold to a Taxi fleet when you worked at AutoZone, where the vehicles will be beat on like a red-headed step-child.
You are then turning around and characterizing the Toyota vehicles based on a personal usage profile that one would assume in no way resembles that of the taxi fleet.
Do you not see the obvious problem with that?
Furthermore, all the issues I mentioned are well-documented but that doesn't mean you are going to necessarily experience them, and the same goes for the relatively minor issues with the Panther and the 4.6L. Severe service in a fleet environment often makes issues crop up that are not observed, or observed with the same frequency, in standard service.
You are missing it.
I'm not knocking the Avalon, I'm simply taking issue with your characterization of the reliability of these vehicles based on a first-hand sample size of zero for the Panther cars and a leisurely personal usage profile for one you felt compelled to recommend, despite it not being an available option as presented by the OP.
The inherent bias should be blindingly obvious here, yet it still seems to be escaping you
Put more plainly:
- You have some first-hand experience from which to claim that the Avalon has a low cost usage profile in "old man service", ignoring for the moment that the OP did not present that as one of the available options in his query.
- You have zero first-hand experience from which to claim that a Panther car would have a lower chance of providing that same low cost of ownership in the same "old man service" profile.
Yet you continue to assert that this is the case.
Parts purchase history for Taxis getting the living crap beat out of them by 3rd parties is not a suitable proxy.
And, since this apparently needs clarity, I'm not name calling, I'm giving a label to something that has been readily observable from a certain segment of the userbase here with respect to Toyota vehicles. If you don't see how I arrived at applying that here, based on the above exchange, then that's a demonstration of exactly what I'm talking about.
Never even serviced the driveline …
Gas, tires, Mobil 1 … that’s all …
4WD
$50 site donor 2024
I had the 3800 in a Chevy and two Pontiacs - no issues …
Brother had a Buick … no issues …
Pretty basic interiors - leather helped a bit …
The 2006-2016 Impalas strike me as good old man cars.
The only problem with them is they were mostly fleet sales, so they were used and abused. Finding a well preserved example today will be difficult.
