I bought my ex-mother-in-law's 1998 Aurora.
Ex-mother-in-law??? See, the thing is, my family and my ex-wife's family have been close for years and years. I grew up friends with their son, my sisters grew up friends with their daughter. The daughter went through a marriage or two and then I married her. After about 10 years he found another guy to marry and left me, but the family, and her kids, are still friendly and supportive. When my ex-father-in-law passed away a few months ago, this car became excess inventory and the M-I-L offered it to me at a crazy price.
Mechanically the car is near-perfect. Tons of gadgetry, like 10-way power seats, memorized seat positions for two drivers, Bose stereo, electronically controlled transmission with two driver-selectable modes, basically sedate and smooth, or quick and punchy. 250-HP 4.0-liter 32-valve V8, a member of the GM Northstar family. The engine is externally identical to the Cadillac 4.6-liter Northstar, and dimensionally interchangeable. All the power stuff works, windows, locks, keyless entry, seat position memory, heated seats, etc. The leather is perfect, as is the carpet. No sagging headliner. She never used the sunroof, and I hate sunroofs so I'll not be using it, either, but that means it doesn't leak! 👍
Exterior, the car is sad..... It lived its whole life under southern Live Oaks, and the paint is cracked and large areas are simply not there. No rust, though, as the hood and trunk lid are aluminum, and elsewhere the primer is still intact where the paint is gone. Two minor exceptions on the roof in front of the rear window, a bit of surface rust that needs to be cleaned and primed.
Interior is in MUCH better condition!!!!
Things I am discovering about the car.... it leaks oil. This is apparently very common with the Northstar family. Valve cover gaskets, oil pan gasket, and the block splits at the crankshaft.... all potential leak sites. I made one trip under the car, and the whole engine is filthy and greasy! 👎 I will probably replace the valve cover gaskets soon, as they are accessible. The oil pan cannot be removed with the transmission or exhaust in place, as the transmission blocks access to several bolts, and the exhaust has a crossover pipe under the pan. If that's a leak source, I will be adding oil between changes. Forever.
All that switchgear in the doors..... windows and locks, the seat position switches, seat heat, and the driver's seat memory selection, plus the passenger's own temperature control. All of those wires pass to the door through a boot over the hinge. Remove the boot and you see this (from the passenger side): What could possibly go wrong?????
Here's the driver's side, showing the most common electrical issue with these cars..... broken wires to the door switches. These have been fixed now....
While troubleshooting the failure of the right-side mirror to go up and down I removed the door panel to get at the connectors for testing. There are 3 16-pin connectors, a 6-pin connector, and two 4-pin connectors in the passenger door! The mirror by itself needs TEN wires!!! (A pair for the up/dn motor, a pair for the lt/rt motor, then a pair for the position sensor for up/dn and for lt/rt, as the mirror positions are included in the seat memory, and then there's a pair of wires for the mirror heaters....) Turns out that broken yellow wire at the LEFT door was the mirror issue!
As for the source of all these electrons being pumped around this thing, here's what's under the back seat! Pretty much what's back there on any well-equipped GM car these days. Note to self for hurricane season: Don't drive it into salt water!!!
She sold me this car for a measly 1,000 dollars! That's about half the blue-book retail even counting the poor paint condition, I think. I am needing tires for my old car, and that was going to cost me over half that! Tires, car. Tires, car. Lemme think....... The sticker was in the car, and new it was just above $35,000. I've had to do a couple of fixes, and some more are coming up. It needs a drive axle on the right side, it clatters up there in right turns. The cruise control doesn't work, and all the wiring and switch tests in the service manual pass (oh, yeah.... I got a set of factory shop manuals on eBay for 25 bucks!) so it looks like it's the module itself. I've found salvage yard prices anywhere from 25 to 55 dollars for that. My best improvement is that I moved my Bluetooth capable radio from my old car to this one so I have the phone interface and tunes from the phone. That required a third-party adapter to feed the radio into the Bose amp, as the Bose system uses
balanced low-level inputs from the head unit to the amp.
