OldsStarfire

Thought I would share the story of purchasing an Aurora for my Son. It's a 2001 V6 with 97,000 miles. Got it for $2,000 because it needed some work. I was able to drive it home from Allentown Pa to West Chester Pa with no problems. I spend most of the summer looking around for either an Alero, Intrigue, or Aurora. Considered a Jeep Cherokee too but they are pretty beat up in my price range. I'm really glad we found an Aurora. I like the 4 airbags and other safety features for a new driver.

Here is a list of what was wrong:
Radiator leaking
Front motor mount broken
Rear drivers window not working
Rear passenger door locks not working
Trunk leaking (just a little)
Fuel gauge not working
Drivers heated seat not working
Missing one center cap and one of the rear window trim panels.

The 3.5 Shortstar V6 in this thing has so much power. Maybe too much power for an 18 yr old....

OldsStarfire

Tackled the Radiator and motor mount first. The Radiator had a crack in one of the plastic side tanks. Got a new one (Spectra) on ebay for $132.48 shipped. Got the motor mount on ebay too for $30.25 shipped.

Getting the radiator out & back in was tricky. Once the radiator was out, getting the motor mount was easy if you remove the exhaust manifold heat shield and the bracket to engine mounting bolts.

OldsStarfire

The rear drivers window was tricky. The regulator was shot. (Really crappy design GM!) But as I was diagnosing it I discovered we had no power to the window module. A Google search turned up that it is very common for the hot wire or ground wire to break inside the boot between the door and the chassis. Sure enough the ground wire was broken.

The new regulator with motor was $41.61 shipped. The door lock actuator was bad also and a new one on ebay was $20.10 shipped Gotta love how cheap the parts are for US cars!

OldsStarfire

A Google search on the fuel gauge not working turned up a common problem of the little contact fingers on the plastic sending unit breaking off. Had to go to GM Parts direct.com for that. $32.63 shipped

Luckily these cars have access panels in the truck so you don't have to drop the gas tank to replace this.

oldcutlass

Nice find, is this a father and son project?

OldsStarfire

Thanks - yes it is. He's been helping me on my cars a little bit but he is helping a lot more with this!

OldsStarfire

The trunk leak was tricky as well. These things are known to leak past the gasket, but I believe the leak in this one is through the body seam in the trunk. You can see they have some kind of patch on it from the factory. The drivers side was fine, but the passenger side was cracked in several places. I scraped out the bad patch and put JB Weld in there. We will see if it works!

OldsStarfire

A trip to Shorties junkyard in King of Prussia did not turn up the center cap or passenger rear window trim pc I needed, but I did find a drivers rear window trim pc better than the one on the car. $2.00

I got the center cap for $32.85 shipped and an only OK passenger rear window trim pc for $20 shipped.

Were up to $312 in parts so far.

OldsStarfire

We took the drivers seat out looking for something simple like a broken wire but no such luck. One of the heating elements had a short, so we just put it back together and back in the car.

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since we got the car. I think were making pretty good progress.

oldcutlass

Nice work

QMaster

I can't speak for the second gen Aurora, but we bought our son a 1997 4 years ago for him to get back & forth to college with. We wanted something safe but stylish. He loves the car! It now has 140,000 miles and the paint is wearing off (seems common on these cars). They are great road cars in all weather, have plenty of power, get reasonably good fuel economy, and are loaded with creature comforts.
Now that he has graduated & has a job, he'll be replacing the old girl with something newer.

drop top olds

Had an 02 Aurora 3.5. It was a nice car. Main complaint was the car nickle and dimed us alot. Rear window motor failures are common. Ours went through two. The take up wires would foul. Alternator was about $180 with an employee discount from the auto parts store. Seat heater failure is also common. Dorman makes a direct plug and play replacement.

The second gens are nice but not as reliable as I hoped. Good luck with your new car.

OldsStarfire

Yep - I can see it nickle & diming us. Hopefully it's a good car for him.