[avatar307]

I just started using high milage oil, transmission fluid, and coolant in my 95 LeSabre with the same number of miles. Who knows if it's better, but hell, it couldn't hurt. It's just got some extra additives in it that clean and lubricate that I likely would of added anyway. It's only about $2/gal more expensive.

Though I'm considering starting to use full synthetic oil this next time... just cause... no real reason. I'll have to research all that though.

There are people in this forum that own 1986 LeSabres with 250,000 miles on them. Still running with minimal repairs. Most of those cars are just starting to need more intensive troubleshooting and repairs now, after 15-20 years and 250+k miles.

Currently, I've begun some extended maintenance work on my 1995 LeSabre, due to it's age and the number of miles. A lot of it is preventative maintenance, and mostly just because I enjoy it.

-Replaced spark plugs.
They had over 125k on them, no filiment left, and a .075 gap (.060 is correct). Engine never misfired, stalled, or hesitated. Didn't know until I had them out.

-Replaced the air filter
They don't often need replaced, only cleaned every 15k miles or so. I had driven the car without a fender, so the filter was pretty well torn up. Plus, it had a lot of miles on it.

-Replaced the fuel filter
Hadn't been done in at least 50+k miles, so I changed it. Recommended interval is roughly as often as the air filter is changed.

-Replaced the transmission pan gasket and filter. Recommended maintence interval is... ever 30k miles for the fluid and filter for cars built prior to 1995. I doubt anyone does it that often. I had a erratic transmission fluid leak, which was corrected with the new gasket.
***Be sure to only tighten the pan bolt to the recommended torque specifications, or the gasket WILL continue leaking.

-Replaced the coolant thermostat, flushed the radiator, changed the engine coolant.
Coolant is supposed to be flushed and replaced every 2 years or 30k miles I believe. I had at least 150k miles on the coolant, so I changed it and replaced the thermostat at the same time.

-Replaced the water pump and gasket.
Major reason for replacement is because I believed it was the source of my coolant leak, supplimented by the fact that it had enough miles on it to justify replacing it.

-Replaced the plastic coolant bypass fitting in the intake manifold.
Source of my coolant leak. Requires removing the alternator to access it. Apparently they break all the time causing a very erratic and hard to find coolant leak. AutoZone also doesn't have the part or the associated hose listed, but they carry them. The bypass hose is the smaller hose the runs from the top of water pump into the intake manifold, the fitting on the manifold is plastic. Being plastic, when it breaks, it's a bitch to remove the other half. You might want to replace it before it breaks.

And that's all the maintenance I've done to my Buick. Most of it routine, most of it preventative, and all of it in the last 15,000 miles.

Only other problems I can remember are a bad fuel pump, a bad igntion coil, and temperature sensor tha caused the cruise control to die when the A/c was turned on. The former two occured before 50k miles, the latter occured around 100k miles.

Right now, I'm considering replacing my O2 sensors to see if I can get a little better gas mileage. Replacing the spark plugs with ones gapped correctly gained me 3-5 MPG. So...