2000 Regal GS

[GMJohnny]

So, as many of you know, I own a 2000 Buick Regal GS. This is my daily driver. I'm just getting ready to go on vacation with it, and it was really looking crappy from a long winter. It was faded and just lacking care. So today was clean up day. I went through the car cleaning it top to bottom. Waxing, polish, armor-all ... the whole 9 yards. What a difference! It's amazing how much a little effort ( about 5 hours ) can turn the car into something that's better than presentable. It looks pretty good for 125,000 miles. ( The pictures would have been better if taken outside... It was raining while I did the work ) I figured I'd get some photos of it, since it will never look any better than it does right now!!

[Fred32v]

And it does 13 second quarters. How can you beat that!

[GMJohnny]

Well the Regal made it back and forth to New Jersey. It performed admirably, as expected. Just before the trip I had the air conditioning recharged professionally. It was very odd that, after a one-can recharge, the air didn't stay cold, but I paid a shop to "fix" the problem, so I could have cold air on my trip. It made it home, but after about 3 weeks, the air went warm. ( of course while it was 95 degrees outside ) So I took it back to the shop and told them it was warm. After some checking they deduced that the issue was a bad condenser. I asked him for a quote on the install, figuring that if the cost was cheap enough, I'd have them do the work. After hearing the $455.00 estimate, I decided to do the install myself. I purchased a condenser from NAPA for $118.00. 3 hours of labor later, it was in. The shop charged me $50.00 ( cash only ) to do the second recharge. Now I have COLD air again!! In case you were wondering, the old condenser just wore out. It had a hole in the driver's side lower corner, too big for the sealant goo to plug. Below is a photo proof of my daily driver on the eastern seaboard!!

[markss327]

Are all Regal "GS" supercharged?

[GMJohnny]

I think from 1999 - 2005 if it says GS that means supercharged. The cool thing about
it was that there was very little advertisement on the car about it being a GS. There
is an emblem on the dash board, the passenger side tail light says GS, and on the
decklid on the driver's side it says "supercharged." Other than looking under the hood
those are the only ways to know its got a blower.

[Basement Paul]

Not all GS's said "supercharged" (depends on the year, but I'm not sure which is which). Also, there was the GSE which is just a LOADED GS. There are probably few LSE's, which is just the completely loaded, and normally aspirated version. There were even few Joseph Aboud editions which had some weird diamond on the back. I think the interiors were different somehow. The GS only counts on '97 & newer Regals. The old body style GS was just a suspension and trim package.
Previous to the Regal, I believe the only supercharged 3800's were in the Park Ave Ultra, the Bonneville SSEi, and it was available in the Oldmobile 88 LSS, but there weren't many.

I'm working from memory, so correct me if I'm wrong.

-BP

[GMJohnny]

As I'm driving to work on Monday, I begin to hear a faint noise coming from the front end of the Regal
which at first sounded to me like some type of egr pipe noise, or perhaps the power steering pump starting
to go south. Half way to work, the sound stopped. I'm thinking, "good, I avoided that problem." Wrong.
Monday night, the sound got worse. I checked the power steering fluid. It was low. I'm thinking " good,
that was an easy fix," as the fluid was just barely ( 1 centimeter ) on the stick. I test drove it when I
picked up my kid. No help, the noise was louder. So I drove the car to work on Tuesday. It became obvious
to me on the way to work that the noise was not rpm related, as I could go 60 mph, put the car in neutral
and the sound stayed the same. Driving like I was trying to heat up the tires before the green flag in a
Nascar race made the pitch change a bunch. The wheel bearing was becoming toast on the right front.
I'm thinking " Crap, now I have to fix this thing!" The project was a bit pricey, $116.00 for the wheel bearing
and $20.00 for the 36 mm deep-well socket to remove the half shaft nut, but it only took me 1 1/2 hrs to
do the work, including the ride to the parts store ( 5 mins. before they closed ) for the socket. Take a look
at the bearing photo and see if you can tell which one is new, and which one is bad!!

GM

[Basement Paul]

Funny, I had a LF caliper on the F250 lock up on my way home tonight. Luckily, the parts store had one, and $53 later, I was rolling.
I remember having to get the 35mm socket for my T-bird's front wheel bearing. Got it from the same Advance Auto in Middlefinger.

-BP

[GMJohnny]

Any non-performance work on a vehicle, such as brake calipers or wheel bearings
always seems like "work" as opposed to fun. I sometimes dread working on projects
like those! The real issue for me with that type of work is the car works only "normal"
after the work is done. There is no performance improvement, it only works like it did
before it screwed up. The only benefit I get from working on those projects is that it
saves me the money and scheduling hassle of having someone else do the work for me.

GM

[Maverick]

I don't like spending money and not making it better than original. Original looks are OK but I prefer better than new when I'm spending cash on mechanicals.

[oldvettedad]

I can't stand working on anything newer than 1980. Especially front wheel drive monstrocities. Of course I have two. I really hate to work on the car I need to depend on every day, probably too much pressure. But I love to tinker on everything else

[GMJohnny]

So almost exactly 300 miles later, the left front bearing bit the dust. About a day after
all of the "service vehicle soon" lights went out because I fixed the right front bearing,
they came back on again. I thought it was a computer glich, because the Regal rolls that
way. Not to be. Left front DOA. That project took only 45 mins, including cleaning up the
tools. Practice makes perfect!!! I'm back on the road again. No need for pictures,
the other bearing take out was a twin to the first.

GM

[GMJohnny]

So I've been driving the Regal daily since I installed the wheel bearings in
April. Just recently ( 2 days ago ), I'm getting this annoying vibration at 50 mph
and up. Yesterday morning, as I pull into the church parking lot, I'm getting this
cyclical rubbing, grinding noise from the left front. I've been trying my best to
ignore these issues, and praying that it will fix itself, but the noise became not
just annoying, but very scary sounding. I thought I had a cv shaft going way bad,
or some type of brake shoe issue. Either way, I was not looking forward to spending
a beautiful Sunday working on the front end of the car. Grumbling to myself about
what a piece of junk this car was, I put the jack under the left front and popped the
wheel center off, ready to remove the lugnuts. To my surprise, I was able to remove
all but 2 of the lugnuts by hand!! Yikes! I said to myself, "here's your cv problem, Johnny"
and tightened the lugnuts with a long ratchet and the impact socket. I checked all of
the lugnuts on the car, and the right front was loose also!! I tightened the lugnuts with
my impact gun when I put the wheels back on the car, which I normally don't do, because
it's just faster to use a star wrench or the ratchet set up. I think it's time for a new
impact gun ( BP has one that's sweet he's gonna hook me up with ). Anyway, I was
able to reclaim my Sunday, and all of a sudden the piece of junk was a great car again!!!

GM

[Maverick]

I like to tighten lug nuts by hand. Never had one stripped or come loose. But, I have had lugs ruined by someone's impact wrench.

[ttamrettus]

I use my breaker bar for lugnuts. My buddy shakes his head and tells me to use his impact gun, every time I do the brakes or rotate the tires. If I do it by hand then I know it's right.