NickD said:
Except for the ones that got DexCool and melted intake manifolds before they hit 50,000 miles.
Ouch. It still hurts.
1988RedT2 said:NickD said:
Except for the ones that got DexCool and melted intake manifolds before they hit 50,000 miles.
Ouch. It still hurts.
Cause and effect.
The upper intake manifolds would warp because the EGR passages were right next to the coolant passages to the throttle body. Nothing related to Dexcool.
Mud in the cooling system because the coolant got air entrained in it because it was run a long time with coolant leaks... that's a Dexcool problem. But that is also kind of a user generated problem, because it started from someone driving a car with a coolant leak instead of fixing it.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Yeah, yeah. You sound like a GM lawyer. I know how it works. I also know the car in question did not exhibit any signs of overheating and wasn't puking noticeable amounts of coolant. By the time the gauge started reading almost imperceptibly above normal, the damage was done. How often do you check the coolant level on a car 3 years from new with less than 58,000 miles on it? Probably not often enough to prevent Dexcool sludging.
It's history now, and the class action suit was settled, but pardon me if I get a bit rankled when people start talking about the GM 3800 as some paragon of reliability.
In reply to johndej :
I need context...
1988RedT2 said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Yeah, yeah. You sound like a GM lawyer. I know how it works. I also know the car in question did not exhibit any signs of overheating and wasn't puking noticeable amounts of coolant. By the time the gauge started reading almost imperceptibly above normal, the damage was done. How often do you check the coolant level on a car 3 years from new with less than 58,000 miles on it? Probably not often enough to prevent Dexcool sludging.
It's history now, and the class action suit was settled, but pardon me if I get a bit rankled when people start talking about the GM 3800 as some paragon of reliability.
All I am pointing out is, the intake gasket issues were because the gaskets were made of plastic, didn't matter what the coolant was. And the upper plenum issue was entirely different.
Ford used the same kind of gasket on the twin port 3.8/4.2 engines and they also had gasket problems, and they didn't use Dexcool.
In reply to 1988RedT2 :
Yeah dexcool sucked, but that doesn't mean 3800's sucked. Having a sedan that could easily seat five and knock down 30 mpg avg with the reliability they had and enough power to get merged on the highway may not seem like much now but for the late 90s it was a pretty amazing engine.
There were some shortcomings. The upper plenum mentioned above, also a plastic coolant bypass tube under the intake was dumb. Both of these were fixed by the aftermarket.
Meanwhile in Canada:
In reply to gearheadmb :
They got 30mpg...maybe...on the highway. We had a couple of Buicks we the 3800 and an Olds with the 3300 (destroked 3800) and theyd average about 25mpg. Still not bad, but not the stuff of the internet legends.
Kinda like the 4.6 Grand Marquis...everyone claims those average 25 mpg but all the ones owned by family members and friends I recall used to get at best maybe 23, on the highway.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
The 3300 was neat because it kind of begat the 3800 Series II. But they never really got awesome fuel economy because they were only ever mated up with the 3 speed auto in the small cars, for whatever reason. The 3100 and 3400 could get 4 speeds in the same chassis.
A 3800 Century very well did get 30mpg without really trying. Yes, that is highway, but you don't buy these cars for putting around in the city 
EGR played a large role in the fuel economy, too, if it wasn't working properly then economy suffered.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
A friend of mine is into the A body GMs, and has a couple with 3300s and overdrive transmissions. It was an option, towards the end of the run.
Our Oldsmobuicks were used as suburban runabouts, and got about 25 doing that from the day they were new. On long family trips on the highway they would get nearly 30.
Meme added for meme-yness
volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
A friend of mine is into the A body GMs, and has a couple with 3300s and overdrive transmissions. It was an option, towards the end of the run.
Our Oldsmobuicks were used as suburban runabouts, and got about 25 doing that from the day they were new. On long family trips on the highway they would get nearly 30.
The N bodies (long wheelbase J bodies) never got the 3300/4 speed as far as I could tell. The 3300s had 3 speeds and when they went to the 3100 (maybe the 3.1?) then they got overdrive.
My mom had a '93 Grand Am with the 3300. She had it around the time I got my driver's license and I borrowed it a couple times for longish trips with my girlfriend because it had good A/C and my Thunderbird didn't. It was exactly as C&D complained, at 85mph it really wanted to upshift but had nowhere to go, and if you wanted to accelerate there was nowhere to downshift to. But it was happy cruising at 75-80. And the A/C worked great. And Delco radios were pretty good for OE in that timeframe.
Just change the water pump every 30k and clean the throttle body while you have the hood up, and they would run forever. I could not begin to estimate how many 3300 and 3800 water pumps I replaced in that timeframe, but I was able to get the job down to 45 minutes drive-in drive-out. Not sure if the bearing was too small or the accessory drive layout just plain overstressed it.
Wally (Forum Supporter) said:
Fake news. There are no Walmart cashiers.
In reply to Duke :
In reply to Steve_Jones :
The same could be said for bourbon. And beer.
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