Greetings, help convince my wife she will like a 99 Riviera

Hello from "Sweet Home Alabama".
My wifes daily driver is a 2000 Regal LS with 136,000 miles.
My daily driver is a 95 Park Avenue with 81,000 miles.
I also have a 03 Silverado that I use when I need to haul stuff and as a backup work vehicle for the both of us.
In the garage is my pride and joy, a 1970GS455.
Let me start off by saying, I am addicted to v8buick.com

I have not went and looked at the 99 Riviera yet but I know I will like it and feel like it is probably a good deal, I just need to convince the wife that she will like driving the car daily even more than she likes her 2000 Regal..
The car is a 99 Riviera with 77,000 miles in mint condition with no dings no scratches no nicks, nothing, mint condition. Well maintained and serviced.
Looks new(according to the gentleman who owns it), midnight blue/gray leather, pwr everything, traction control, auto level control, cd player
sunroof...
Asking price $7000.00
She is petite, so I figure right off the bat she will complain of poor rear visibility concerns. Is that a valid complaint with these cars?
Is Premium fuel necessary with this vehicle?
Anybody got some pics they could post of a 99 Riviera in this color " Midnight Blue" ?

Thanks for any more tips and information about driveability or reliability as well as any potential problems that we should be concerned about.
Sorry about such a long winded first post, it wont be the norm.

Thanks again.
Bert

Id say the car is only worth what your willing to pay............ IM NOT saying thats a bad deal, or a good deal.......... BUT no one really knows the condition of it....... So i'd say if it is prestine and clean than you should for sure shoot for the moon and do your best to get her........... and yess the car does require premium unleaded fuel........ BUT thats a small price to pay for what it does for you....... you get less knock, more hp, and its just flat out better for your engine.........

Hope that helps man

WELCOME ,
98riviera98

I have a 98 riviera and my GF has a 98 regal GS. She was really fond of her GS because it was smaller and handles better stock. I don't know how the regal LS is, but my GF likes the firm steering and firmer suspension of the GS. The stock riv suspension (FE1) is very soft.

Now that I have added addco swaybars and modded my car, she really loves the riv. She says rear visibility is good, it's just that the car is a lot bigger than the regal. Parking in reverse and parallel parking is made easier by the auto tilting mirror.

I think overall your wife will love the riviera. Pretty much all the options in the LS should be found in the riv, and there might even be more (auto dimming heated mirrors, etc). I also think she will enjoy the power of the L67 engine. Women say that it isn't important, but I've seen my GF bragging about beating ricers at a stop light.

I really wanted a Park Ave but my wife insisted it was an 'old people car'. The Riv was my compromise

Yes, it requires super to drive. But let her test drive it, the car will sell itself. Most comfortable seats I've driven!

My wife hates my Park Ave, mostly I think because of the pillow like ride. She likes the firmer ride and lower stance of the Regal. After driving both cars extensively it seems to me the PA will handle a curve just as well as the Regal, its just a different feeling ride.

If she dont want the Riviera I might just get it for myself. Every time I go to the Nats I catch myself making eye love to the Siver Arrows.

How about a link or pic to the color choices in 99 on the Riv ?

Bert

deekster_caddy wrote:

I really wanted a Park Ave but my wife insisted it was an 'old people car'. The Riv was my compromise

Yes, it requires super to drive. But let her test drive it, the car will sell itself. Most comfortable seats I've driven!

Hey Bert, glad to see you made it over here. You already have my views on that car, so I won't say it all again.

As to the rear view, the driver seat is 6-way power. I'm sure it will raise up high enough for her to see just fine. Might even have lumbar control. Soft ride? Give it some new KYB struts up front, decent performance tires, and a $30 Caddy STS strut tower brace in 10 min. It will handle like a different car. If that's not enough, you can do the sway bar upgrades mentioned above and it will REALLY corner. But if you just can't convince the Mrs to go with the Riv, absolutely buy it for yourself and sell the PA. I don't think I could give up my 98 for any other car in the price range. BTW, as described, that 99 is a STEAL at $7k and 77k miles. If you don't take it, MY wife will. I can hardly keep her away from mine.

it sounds like a great car, i would go for it.

I just got back, sure enough the car runs/drives as new. The interior and under the hood and the trunk area are as new. Michelin tires, good shape.
Loaded, I guess its got everything available except the chrome wheels, not sure about that.
The window sticker was just shy of $40,000.00

I asked if the supercharger had been serviced and he said the service dept at the dealer that sold the car when it was new serviced the car when he bought it and they checked the oil in the supercharger and it appeared as new, no reason to change it...
The owner says he uses regular grade unleaded with no ill side effects. Are there any potential problems from the use of regular fuel instead of premium?

Cons:
On the drain channels that run the length of the roof on each side of the roof-the paint is thin, like there was hardly any paint applied, mainly toward the back of the roof.
Also at the very base of the front A pillars the paint is gone like it was never sprayed , its below the hood line and not very noticeable, very strange.
Is the thin paint something that you guys have seen before on these cars?
Also the trim black paint on the sunroof molding is coming off.
The automatic trunk release wont open the trunk, you can hear the electric motor running but it wont release, no big deal.

At low RPM I could hear a very faint ringing like noise, he said its the supercharger and is normal?

It was raining, I am going back and smoke it over again tomorrow to make sure the rain was not hiding anything, and crawl up under it to check for leaks and damage.
I will probably buy the car, if the wife wants it she can have it. If not I will drive it.
Either way I will be asking lots of questions, dont worry though once I get time I will start searching the posts and learn everything I can...
Thanks for all the help.
Bert

ibmoses wrote:

How about a link or pic to the color choices in 99 on the Riv ?

Bert

COLOR AND TRIM CHARTS 1999

CODES ... EXTERIOR COLORS .................. CODES ... INTERIOR TRIMS
*12.............. Sterling Silver Metallic ................................Seats
-16 ..............Bright White .............................................Leather Buckets (Standard)
-28 ..............Midnight Blue Pearl ......................174 .........Light Gray
-38.............. Emerald Green Pearl ..................*274 .........Medium Blue
-41 ..............Black ...........................................*424 .........Light Autumn Green
-51 ..............Bordeaux Red Pearl .....................514 .........Bordeaux Red
-53 ..............Santa Fe Red Pearl .....................564 .........Taupe
*55 ..............Titanium Blue (available 02/99) ...*New for 1998
*60 ..............Gold Firemist
*76 ..............Dark Bronze Mist Metallic
-78 ..............Bright White Diamond Metallic
-83 ..............Platinum Beige Metallic
* New colors for 1999

ACCENT STRIPES (optional)
10A ..Light Gray .....71A ..Claret Red
20A ..Dark Blue ......87A ..Pewter Gray
46A ..Beige ............88A ..Dark Brown

Standard
• Operating console with storage armrest and wood
grain trim
• 6-way power seats, driver & passenger
• Power seat recliners, driver & passenger
• Leather wrapped steering wheel with air bag
• Rear seat center armrest

Optional
• Memory heated driver seat and mirrors with parallel park assist and new passenger heated seat - part of Personal Choice
• Driver and passenger power lumbar control
• Radio/temperature controls on steering wheel

1998 Riv wrote:

BTW, as described, that 99 is a STEAL at $7k and 77k miles.

It is around half way between Private Party Value and Clean Retail Value. It sounds reasonable to me and I bet if you make the guy an offer you might get it for less than $7,000?

how long has he owned the car?

Albertj

if you decide to run the car only on regular, performance will suck and you'll be replacing head gaskets soon. At mid/full throttle you WILL be detonating and the knock sensor will be holding you back. Continually 'bouncing' against the knock sensor will damage the engine sooner or later.

Sorry for the long PM, but everything I have to say is in there.

Definitely go for it! Start at $6,000.

I also say go for it! With a '99 you get the best of the years and the newest model you can get. It's a very nice $6000 car. It's worth $7000 if it is in that nice condition.

IBx1 wrote:

Sorry for the long PM, but everything I have to say is in there.

Definitely go for it! Start at $6,000.

Thanks for the info, it is appreciated.

I looked at the car again today, the trunk release does not work and the power antennae does not work. Other than that it seems to be a very fine auto.
I looked at the window sticker again. It listed for just shy of $37,000.00 not $40,000.00 like I had posted earlier.
I told the guy I did not want to hurt his feelings but we were way off on the price, he said well I cant be that far off...
I told him I wanted to buy the car but $6000.00 was all I was going to pay for it.

He puffed up and said he would take $6600.00 but not less.
I told him I could not give more than $6000.00 but wanted the car, and said I would give him my number and if he changed his mind to let me know...
So anyhow to get to the point, he eventually agreed to sell it to me for $6000.00!!!!


Bert

congrats!

deekster_caddy wrote:

if you decide to run the car only on regular, performance will suck and you'll be replacing head gaskets soon. At mid/full throttle you WILL be detonating and the knock sensor will be holding you back. Continually 'bouncing' against the knock sensor will damage the engine sooner or later.

Are there some audible/visible knock sensors for these vehicles?
I used to have a 87GN, it had both.

Him driving the car on regular worries me but it seems fine...

Bert

you could buy a scan tool. There is one on most of the performance sites called 'aeroforce'. It plugs into your OBD-II port and you can read many sensors from it including the knock sensor.

there are also complete scanning packages that involve an interface box and connect to a laptop PC. Autotap is my favorite one of those.

Regular is okay on the car if you don't redline the car. As stated earlier regular can damage a motor over time if the motor is driven hard. The main problem with running regular is that it is not cost efficient. The reason is that when you get knock the PCM will try to protect the motor by dumping more fuel to keep the car from going lean. So your fule economy will suffer with regular. When you get the car your are going to want to do two main things.

First will be to change the supercharger coupler to fix the rattle it has. The coupler is about $30 bucks and you will also need 2 bottles of gm supercharger oil, which you can get at the dealer for around $7 a bottle. To cahnge the coupler you only need to loosen the alternator and just get the bolts on the snout. Before that don't forget to drain the old oil with a syringe or spray nozzle.

Next you will want to change the O2 sensor because of the mileage the car is probably running with the original O2 sensor, which probably went around the 60k mile mark.

Other than those 2 things just regular maintenance after that.

Congrats man! Welcome, officially, to the site! As you can see you've already gotten some help, and the O2 sensor is definitely something you should change. A bad one of those uses up too much fuel while also decreasing horsepower a lot.

You can buy small electronic readouts that do KR as well as everything else. They take a bit of wiring to install, but if you feel like taking the driver's door panel off you can put one in place of a vent! A lot of people have done this here, and it looks great and makes the remaining vent on the door much more powerful. If the gague is black faced, you can't even tell it's there unless you know what you're looking for, great for a sleeper!

Agree with Buickman104's comments regarding using 87 fuel. Our engines need premium to operate correctly, however the PCM is programed to take action when the wrong fuel is used. Not only will it protect against knock, it will learn when bad fuel is used and substitute a "bad fuel" timing table to decrease power and potential harm to the engine. Point being, using 87 won't kill the motor if driven reasonably, but if raced it's a possibility. And if the previous owner didn't care enough to use premium, who knows what else they didn't bother to check/do. That's the real problem... you just don't know how well the car was cared for.

Congrats on the purchase. I hope this car is worth every penny! My guess is, the engine still has many trouble-free miles. These old iron blocks are really tough. And now that it's in your hands, at least you have a team of Riviera experts to advise you when you have concerns.

I would also change the fuel filter asap. Good luck!

You're the man.............

jimmyriv wrote:

You're the man.............

Sounds like a great deal to me!

Thanks for all the input so far guys.

I went and picked the car up today, according to the title, the guy I bought the car from has had it since January 06 and has put just over 8000 miles on the car. Before that it was supposedly owned by a older woman who bought it new, so who knows about service intervals...

As posted earlier he had the rack/pinion replaced by the dealer when he bought it, and said the dealer inspected the oil in the supercharger and it appeared as new so there was no reason to change it.
Is it possible to inspect the supercharger oil or is he BS'ing me?
He also claims the gas mileage is better than what is listed on the window sticker, so I may not change the 02 sensor if the mileage is good.

He gave me the receipt where he had the dealer replace the batterry in June of 06. He also had the dealer change the oil/filter twice while he owned the car

On the way home today I had the brakes inspected(look great) and bought fuel and oil filters.
Filled her up with Amoco Super Unleaded.

I have not heard any "rattling" noise from the supercharger so I probably wont replace the coupler for a while.

Bert

SC oil is clear when new. It becomes dark brown over time. An easy way to tell is to unscrew the plug and use a dropper or straw to take a sample. Like motor oil, if it's brown or black, it's a good idea to replace. Check around for good deals on SC oil. Takes maybe 30 mins to do on your own.

I wouldn't worry about the SC coupler. Mine was good at 120k miles. Never heard of one actually breaking from old age.