Stroock639

time for a bump here lol... doug reviewed the aurora!

mmarshall

I don't see any Ha-Ha in it. GM made a number of FWD V8s.....both with the Cadillac Northstar engine and the 5.3L LS4 V8 used in several Chevy, Buick, and Pontiac models. Ford also did a transverse FWD Yamaha-built V8 in some versions of the Taurus SHO.

And, don't forget...the original ground-breaking FWD Olds Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado, in 1966, used huge longitudinal-mounted V8s with a special chain-driven transaxle to the front wheels.

Having said that, though, personally, I did not like the Aurora at all (IMO, it was just too radically differently-styled from the long-successful 88s and 98s)...and, as I saw it, the Aurora strongly-contributed to the downfall of Olds.

SW17LS

Not in the slightest. The Aurora was the last ditch effort to save Olds, and it brought buyers into the brand to consider the Aurora who would never have considered an Olds before, like my dad who considered one in 1995. What destroyed olds was the 88s and 98s, killed their brand image to where nobody under 70 would even consider one. There was a reason why the Aurora didnt have any Oldsmobile badging.

mmarshall

Well, by your own admission, Olds did not fold until almost a full ten years after the Aurora was introduced. It was a viable, though somewhat weakened, company with the 88 and 98 in production.....but a company with one foot (and eventually both feet) in the grave with the Aurora. So, I can't agree that it was the Geezermobiles that killed Olds. The Aurora was redesigned into a significantly smaller 2Gen model (and, IMO, better-looking) with a V6 instead of the Northstar V8...that didn't help, either.

SW17LS

Oldsmobile was not a company, it was a marketing division of GM. The point is the Aurora was not the cause of Olds' failure, it was an attempt to save it but it was already too far gone. Continuing to make nothing but geezermobiles would have hastened its demise.

For a time in the 90s, the Aurora made it feel like Olds might be salvageable. The reason it had one foot in the grave by the time they designed the Aurora means it wasn't the Aurora that put it there.

jer

My dad at the time also was interested in the Aurora, as he had an 88 and was looking for something a bit different. personally, when things started going south, I thought they should have combined Oldsmobile and Saturn, giving Saturn owners something to step up to, which would have been an Aurora, be it a V6 or V8.

TangoRed

You could still get the V8 if you wanted in the 2G Aurora. I agree with SW17LS on the geezermobiles killing the brand. Financial issues prevented the Aurora from moving further upmarket for its second generation. Worse, production of the 2G Aurora started in November 1999 and by December 2000 GM announced Oldsmobile was going to be shuttered. The 2G Aurora didn't even stand a chance against the headwinds previous poor product created.

mmarshall

Olds, like Saturn, for a time, had a No-Dicker/MSRP-only policy at their dealerships (a policy that a lot of customers clearly liked).......but even that wasn't enough to keep them afloat.

Like I said earlier, Olds lost a LOT of customers when they ditched the 88/98....most of those customers ended up going to Buick, and some to the Mercury Grand Marquis or Chrysler 300.

mmarshall

Thanks....I had forgotten that stat.


Many of those geezers, though, ended up at Buick (which, at the time, was the main beneficiary of Olds' collapse)...some of them at Mercury or Chrysler. Olds essentially handed most those customers to Buick when the 88/98 were dropped....although there were a few exceptions, like jer's Dad, in the last post above, who did consider an Aurora.


Agreed...that was a significant, but not the only factor.


Yes, you hit the nail the head....the 1Gen Aurora was the main problem. I agree with you that the 2Gen was actually a better product.

Striker223

My god I hate these. Some of the worst cars to work on by far!

mmarshall

I understand a number of them had to have windshield and/or rear windows replaced because the warped glass would distort the view.

Stroock639

oh yeaaa look at that you joined the site just a few months after this thread last had any activity haha

any particular horror stories or general light you can otherwise shed on what makes them so bad to work on? looks like it was good i never pulled the trigger on one!

SW17LS

Just keep on making up your own reality lol. Talk to some auto journalists and historians.

Thats not what he said. The previous product he talked about were Oldsmobiles before the Aurora. The Aurora was not a poor product, it was a very well regarded product that sold pretty well and got Oldsmobile a lot of attention.

NO auto reviewer or journalist preferred the second gen Aurora. You like it because it’s more mainstream and you like mainstream stuff and don’t like change.

Lots of people who bought Lincoln’s and foreign luxury cars in the 90s looked at Auroras. When I was a kid at our country club there were probably a dozen Auroras, and you would never have seen another Oldsmobile there. My dad considered an Aurora beside the Continental, Seville STS and Lexus LS400 in 1995 and that would never have happened with any other Oldsmobile. A couple of the salespeople executives at his company also had Auroras who would never have considered an Oldsmobile.

Margate330

I completely forgot about this car.

That's how much I love it. Lol
Just messing, but true. .

mmarshall

Not making anything up. I lived through those days, followed them quite closely, and remember them well.


I never said I really liked it that much. What I said was that I thought it was better than the first-generation.

Some automotive publications/reviewers also preferred the 2Gen. Of the ones I've seen, a few said it was a much better product, but more of them seemed to say marginally better.