My '95 Riviera

Hi there! A few of you may have seen me in the New Members area. I just bought a 1995 Riviera a month ago to replace my 1988 Bonneville SSE (shame to see it go - someone bought it and fixed it though). I got the car for a bargain because no one wanted to fix the rust underneath the car. Needed a few structural repairs and new brake lines as well as the usual tune-up schtuff. I honestly have seen it only twice since I bought it as it's been at my cousin's getting repaired. It'll be done by the end of the week and on the road by the end of next week! I hope..

It has all options but the chrome wheels and towing package (as far as I know). Has a decent dent in the driver's door and needs roof and trunk paint, but I'll be taking care of the paint as soon as I get it. Needs some interior repair - seats and mirrors do not work right now. I may just take it to the Buick dealer down the road if I can't figure it out. Also, some panels need painting - such as the cupholder door and ashtray door. They're all scratched and chipped from lord-knows-what. Other than that the interior is perfect. The wheels are immaculate and the engine is almost spotless. I'm very happy with it, especially the 110,000 miles on the clock. I plan to strip the paint off the wheels and polish them to a mirror finish and remove the 1/4 panel RIVIERA emblems. I think it'll be neat making the car even more mysterious in its origins than it already is. There's a long list of little things I'd like to do to it, and you can be sure I'll be updating as soon as I take care of them! But for now, pictures!


















Hope you enjoy my 'restoration'! Thanks for looking!

-Andrew Z

VERY niceee! thats the samecolor i have.
the 95's dont have OEM chrome options from my knowledge. i just bought 7 spoke chromes a couple weeks ago.
i also dont think there was a towing package.

what the hell was put where the cigarette lighter and ashtray cover was? lol

your dash looks in good shape!.

Do you know how your cousin is going about fixing the dent?

Thanks guys!

I'm not having him fix the dent right away. I don't have the money for it at the moment. I needed to get it mechanically up-to-snuff first. I imagine they'd go from the inside and knock it out as much as possible. However, I've heard of him cutting out big dents like that and welding new things in if it's bad enough. That's how he did a rocker panel on my dad's '87 Regal Limited. It was dented too badly so he put a new one on it. Who knows - that'll come soon enough. Like I may or may not have mentioned, it needs paint on the roof and trunk and rust on the A-pillars so I can take care of that. Once that's done, the only body work it'll need will be that dent so he won't have much work to do.

I hope we can meet up in a few weeks Scott! For some reason these cars are very scarce in my area and have only ever seen one other one - faded bl ack- in person and I couldn't stop to look at it. Also, yours is the first I've seen that's the same color as mine - itll be cool to get pictures together!

yea well get together..definitely. ill be home the 19th-21st. im waiting to hear back from a job this week..if i get it..ill start august.. so i should have some free time. also i need to take a day to work on my car, install calipers and fixing the exhaust leak.
if u havent seen ur riv clean and in the sun...its a much better color.
are u planning any mods?

theres a few rivs in pgh...i dont think ive seen one in as good as condition as mine..(mine has 62k) u should check out my grill...i had 3 dif grills so far..the stock one. i had different varitation of the popular grill done on here(my profile pic, i have pics of it on my comp if u want to see)..and the one i have now. its cheap and looks great!

it will be cool too get some pics together! btw..all the rims in good condition? center caps?

Yeah I really can't wait to get moving on it and get all the little things on my list done. I'm not planning any huge modifications besides an intake. I KNOW those help. I just have to find a place where people actually MAKE major modifications for the Series 1 - like cams and crazy things like that. Other than that, I don't plan modifications for now - just cosmetic things. I'm sure I'll be happy with the power it has for a while anyway.

I have seen your grille, Scott. Very clever way to do it too and it looks AWESOME. But yeah we'll get together - PM me whenever you know what's going on for sure!

beautiful color for the riv. i bet she would look evan nicer with a black interior....

yea good luck finding a series one shop. let me know if u find sumthing. id possibly be interested in having them do some work.
the stock power is ok. the SC really makes u feeel a lot better.

ill PM u when i get home. in about 2 weeks! time is flying

I should be getting the car back Monday or Tuesday. Can't wait to get working on it!

yyeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......buuddddyyyyy

Yep I just have to get through some registration and inspection formalities first. I should have it Thursday at the latest. Then It's time to figure out what's keeping my power seats from getting power.

On a side note, I noticed my traction control system doesn't work. The warning 'off' light is on. Anyway, It seemed to be ok before the brakes were worked on and I know the traction system has a lot to do with the front brakes...could something be disconnected?

Mwahahaha - got the car back today, and it's road legal now! Yay!

Anywho, I got a jump on my long list of things I wanted to do to it, and it's coming along nicely. Some of you may have seen my post on how the car felt sluggish, well i think I fixed that by cleaning some things and opening up the intake a little. Still lots to do! Pictures to come tomorrow hopefully!

Beautiful interior! The dealer won't be able to take care of your power seats, you'll have to rip the modules from another Riv and do-it-yourself pretty much.

Hope you get the exterior cleaned up!

Awesome! Good find! On the ashtray lid on your interior, that's where I have my Sirius unit mounted, where you have that sticky stuff residue. Congrats!

IBx1 - Yeah I read up on the BCU symptom and was ready to buy one when I discovered the breaker was my problem. Now I just have a find a new breaker because my local parts stores don't have them. I guess I'll be going to the dealer anyway . The exterior basically needs polished where it doesn't need paint, and I'll be slowly but surely working on that whenever I can. I plan to paint the roof and trunk this weekend though!

Deekster - Yeah I guess someone did something similar on my ashtray lid like you're doing right now. Unfortunately, that's not residue. It's missing paint. Luckily, I have some dye/paint that should match well enough for me to not miss the giant black spots on it.

I cleaned up the interior last night - vaccuumed and put my NOS mats down. I just need to shampoo (or something) the trunk carpet because it's dirty from who-knows-what. That'll be today's major project. Pictures later!

Here's a couple pictures - more tomorrow when I get some work done on it!

Here's the paint I have to work with...


Took off my 1/4 panel RIVIERA emblems - looks good! I just wanted to make the car more mysterious .



Polished my cornering lights so they're not yellow and faded.


And here's something you usually don't see even if it's planned...my phone matches my car inside and out...

That paint looks a lot like mine. They all seem to have done the same thing. I just repainted my trunk lid in an auto body class I'm taking, it looks a billion times better. Still need to do the roof though, same crap up there.

Yeah I've seen plenty where the paint has done exactly what mine is doing. When I was in the market for one of these cars, the other 4 I looked at were actually way worse than this. I'll get on it sooner or later. Every body panel that doesn't need paint certainly needs a polish BAD. The pictures don't show the nitty gritty details that drive me nuts. The car IS intended to be a daily driver so I can't get TOO picky with it, but I've always kept my cars looking brand new .

I agree with you deekster, any new paint is better than no paint.

Well...I got the car back last month, had to take it to the dealer for some things, and I got it back yesterday. Want to know where it is right now? My garage? Haha that'd be the day. Nope - back at my cousin's garage!

My fuel pump quit yesterday. I was about 5 miles from home and it sputtered and quit. Pump doesnt prime and the gauge I put on shows no pressure. My cousin is going to make sure that's all that's wrong but I have a feeling I'm making another costly repair. When will it end? Seriously?

our rivs are two peas in a pod.

xxsupergman25xx wrote:

our rivs are two peas in a pod.

Why don't you go pick up guys somewhere else?

dont worry. its better than making payments. there is a life expectancy with most components based on mileage and age. if u follow that, and replace, when a part has theoretically reached its operating life, regardless if its working, then swapping out parts early, while costly,vs waiting until they die and leave u stranded in hoboken, will more than likely keep the car on the road longer. this is a rule that i followed when i had my acura. and she never broke down. i dont do this now with the buick,my belt has tightened a little since then...and at 110.000 miles for yours? not bad. keep it up!

Yeah it IS better than making payments, and I really do enjoy the car when it works. I had a fabulous 150 mile drive around the area yesterday doing errands and running around other places with my girlfriend. And yes, the mileage is relatively low, but I think since the car sat for two years prior it sort of messed things up for me. But, I'm looking at it two ways. One, it's going to have a crap ton of new parts - it already does. And Two, I should have bought that '96 when I had the chance - had a bunch of work done to it and ended up costing less than this '95. But oh well.

Well, here's something you don't see ALL the time, but maybe once or twice. Remember how I said it seemed like my fuel pump was going bad? As it turns out, my gas gauge sending unit is on the fritz and when it said I had 1/4 tank left, I was actually OUT OF GAS! So thank goodness for me and my bank account, all I had to do was fill up my tank. My cousin called me and said that my sending unit tested bad on some piece of equipment so they put gas in it and it's fine! Awesome! I do find it strange that I really couln't hear the pump from inside of the car but the relay was clicking when and how it should have. Oh well - no sign of failure. I enjoyed a nice few miles around town with it and plan to start paint and interior work tomorrow! Pictures to follow as always.

lucky bastard. i actually had the same problem u did(ask matt and josh) i was freakin out. cuz my gauge was dropping like crazy...i filled it up..and it was pretty much normal, for our cars anyways. good luck with painting..i might have to hire u one day to paint mine. i have a few spots that need it.