1996 Buick Century Review

So many still on the rooad

Written by: Been Around on 05/25/2009

Vehicle

1996 Buick Century 4 Dr STD Sedan

Review

I bought this car in Florida, drove it around the country, through snow, rain, sleet, desert... It has always been reliable. Recntly I parked in a parking lot in our SMALL town and there were five Buick Centuries, from !980's through 2000 models. Little things like power window failures go, I replaced struts, but with regular maintenance, these cars seem to run forever, get good gas mileage, and my giant dog can spread out in the backseat!

Favorite Features

Suggested Improvements

Report inappropriate post

How old are you?

Written by: boshsb on 10/13/2007

Vehicle

1996 Buick Century 4 Dr STD Sedan

Review

Car is a good first car with outdated styling(they kept the body from the early 80s to mid 90s) and bad handling. Bad understeer tendency that is exaggerated by wet weather. I got the car at 90k and killed it around 115k. Stock struts are miserable and I killed a total of two front pair. Went through 8 tires on it (1sets rear, 3 front) until it finally died, the differential went out, but not before the rear window motors starred going (hence not my fault, the diff was). If you are good though, it can out handle a Civic due to its ability to power out of turns. It can do burnouts, drifts and anything else you make it do, but it will fight you all the way.

Favorite Features

GM 60 degree v6 (not a 3100 as someone above posted) is amazing. Ran without an oil change and air filter for close to 15k miles(regular cheap oil) and there was no performance difference and there was no difference in mileage, I got 18 running hard and 21-23 running "nice"

Suggested Improvements

Suspension needs redesign, dash is outdated and doesn't tell you enough, radio is old. Needs new modern conveniences.

Report inappropriate post

This Century is nice

Written by: Jayson on 05/28/2007

Vehicle

1996 Buick Century 4 Dr STD Sedan

Review

This car is great. Extremely nice suspension, handles good, drives nice. Close to 200,000 miles and the engine and tranny are real good. Great cruise control. And the body is excellent also.

Favorite Features

That they kept it old school. My wife said the reason why it runs as good as it does is because Buick put the money in the quality of the overall excellent performance.

Suggested Improvements

Locks too quick. and better seat controls.

Report inappropriate post

Great car ... until now!

Written by: Kim on 02/02/2006

Vehicle

1996 Buick Century 4 Dr STD Sedan

Review

My car only has 50k miles on it - it has never left me stranded. We recently had an incident where it was in park, with engine running, in someone's driveway. After I got out of the car, it automatically locked and about 7 seconds later rolled forward on the uphill driveway. It hit a car in the driveway and a house. Upon impact of hitting the house it unlocked. My 2 children were in their carseats in the back seat when this happened. Mechanic finds absolutely nothing wrong with it. We have had no problems with it before this.

Favorite Features

I like the bench seats in front. Back seat has plenty of room for kids except when drivers seat is all the way back.

Suggested Improvements

Has been a great car!!

1 out 2 people found this review helpful

Report inappropriate post

Best used car I have ever bought.

Written by: Beatle412 on 01/09/2006

Vehicle

1996 Buick Century 4 Dr STD Sedan

Review

Works fine, had very low mileage when I purchased it and it has never left me stranded. I have had to replace a few routine things on the car, as with any car. I do notice a tendedncy for the 3.1 to have excessive noise. I was told that this is due to some of the rod lenth being off by thousandths of a second.

Favorite Features

Cruise control, Bench seats in front, Nice pick-up and smooth ride

Suggested Improvements

Better design of the glove box, a way to overide the automatic locking mechanism.

Report inappropriate post