basiccamaro

Time to get a "new" car for the wife. She currently has a Pontiac Bonneville with the 3.8L series II V6. It's been a good car EXCEPT for the crappy plastic intake manifold, which has failed twice (it was over a long period of time, but the car has less than 180,000 miles on it). Anyway, I don't want to buy a foreign car so we are looking at Buick Lucernes. But I was wondering if the newer 3.8/3800 GM V6's have done anything to solve the plastic intake manifold EGR passage burnout issue? Also, some Lucernes are listed with V8's. I wasn't aware of them having a V8 in these cars, but then I got to wondering if that might be the same as the Cadillac V8 that they used in the front wheel drive applications. If so, is this an improvement both reliabilty and performance-wise over the 3.8 V6?

jermdm

Its hard to say if newer 3800 series engines are any better than the older ones. Manufactures are always improving there designs and gm probably has done something different over the years to the intake designs. I work for ford and I see many upgraded designs on there engines but as with any car make, there will still be unforseen flaws or flaws they know about and issue a fix for the problem. As for the v8 lucernes, IIRC they installed the northstar caddy motors in them when they first came out. Could still be in the newer lucernes or different now. Not forsure on that one.