One more old pic

[gm4ever]

Look at these teenage grunge delinquents! You can almost hear Nirvana on the stereo!

My brother Dave sent me this....very 90's New Jersey pic. It's him driving at age 17 with his buddies in my mother's then brand new 1993 Cutlass Convertible. It's too bad that car was such an unreliable POS, it was sure sharp looking!

Am enjoying these old pics he keeps sending!

[65stang]

Lol. I knew someone that had a hardtop like that. It would have been a nice car if it didn't have so many problems.

[gm4ever]

It was a great car for the first few years and then it just totally fell apart. Real shame too, my Dad thought it would be their retirement toy and they planned to keep it forever when they bought it. Whoops.

[96pushrodford]

GM, was it bad like the old chrysler lebaron's ?

[gm4ever]

Oct 19, 2011 13:33:35 GMT -5 96pushrodford said:

GM, was it bad like the old chrysler lebaron's ?

It was very flexy, even when new. You could tell it was never designed to be a convertible. The cowl shake was shocking...over bumps or uneven pavement, the dash would swing left and the floorpan would swing right. The console sat just below the bottom of the dashboard and you could sit in the passenger seat and while riding down the road watch the dashboard moving just above the console.

That was not a reliability issue...it was a structure issue.

GM paid Cars and Concepts to convert these. The top always creaked, and the rear power windows were aftermarket and were much slower than the door glass...and fell off the tracks often. Also the speaker covers looked SO cheap!

The dash warped, the CD player failed twice, it went through rear brakes once a year, the padding in the seats collapsed, so the sharp looking leather seats turned flat as pancakes. The a/c would never keep up...ever.

The black painted trim around the windshield bubbled up twice, and the paint on the tops of both front and rear bumpers faded out.

The car has the new "twin-dual cam" 3.4 V6 engine....and it was quick, but the engine was too big for the car. Any service was a nightmare. The alternator failed twice, and to replace it you had to drop the subframe....no kidding.

The biggest issue was that this was one of the first cars GM built with a timing belt, instead of a chain. It has four cams, and no room to change the belt. GM put chalk marks on the cams for timing alignment....chalk marks.... Most foreign brands use indentions. The belt broke, while Mom was sitting at a light idling....thankfully....or it would have bent valves. It took FOREVER to replace that belt and line up those cams.

We sold it soon after that.

I believe on ending on a high note. The car looked fabulous, was fast, rode smooth, was roomy (four bucket seats!), had a great sounding stereo and cool redundant controls on the steering wheel..before that was a common thing.

I miss those first few years when it was new. It was awesome when it was new.....

-Mike

[65stang]

The non convertible one my friends girlfriend had was just like Mike said almost exactly.

[gm4ever]

Oct 20, 2011 2:12:12 GMT -5 65stang said:

The non convertible one my friends girlfriend had was just like Mike said almost exactly.

It's such a shame too. GM did iot to itself with cars like these that fell apart. As a kid, EVERYONE in my extended family drove Oldsmobiles. My Dad was the rebel...he bought Pontiacs.

We always had good service out of our GM's until that Cutlass. Other family members traded in their 80's GM's for 90's GM's and had similar stories, it's sad. Now most drive Japanese cars.

Oh well....I'll keep my OLD GM's running!

-Mike

[63vair]

I had a 89 Cutlass with the 3.1. Nice car and didn't have problems but at 60,000 I did trade it for the 91 Jimmy I still have.

[gm4ever]

Oct 20, 2011 18:20:29 GMT -5 63vair said:

I had a 89 Cutlass with the 3.1. Nice car and didn't have problems but at 60,000 I did trade it for the 91 Jimmy I still have.

You sold it just in time!