Air leveling compressor in a Reatta???

[Bushwack]

Am I reading correctly (in the FSM) that a 1989 (and I assume 1988, 1990 & 1991) has an air compressor to adjust leveling when the rear gets too heavy? If so, I have had a passenger and a heavy trunk a couple times and don't recall the car being level or hearing a compressor working (I assume it could be heard...if it exists).

[wws944]

Rivieras do, Reattas don't.

[2seater]

No compressor in the Reatta. My '90 FSM is for Reatta/Riviera and air leveling is available in the Riviera. As a matter of fact, I have Riv air struts on the rear.

[Bushwack]

Rivieras do, Reattas don't.

That makes sense. Thanks.

[KDirk]

Ervin,

It probably bear pointing out that the 88/89 IPC has a "car is leveling" indicator. This is only utilized on the Riviera as already stated. However, the IPC firmware shows it briefly during the light show (or when the test button is pressed) irrespective of whether the car is equipped with auto-leveling suspension. Note too the presence of a "diesel fuel only" indicator beneath the "unleaded fuel only". This was never used at all, though it appears GM had designs on offering a diesel engine in either the Rivi and/or Reatta seriously enough to have the cluster designed with this provision. The Reatta/Riviera 88/89 digital IPC was not used in any other models, so I'd have to figure there was some plan to offer a diesel motor prior to the time GM's diesel offerings got a bad rap.

KDirk

[Guest tylerh860]

I see that in my cluster too. I cracked up when I saw the spot in the cluster that says Diesel fuel only. Could you imagine a diesel Reatta?

My 94 Roadmaster Estate has rear load leveling and it is fantastic.

[KDirk]

Heh, a good diesel in a Reatta wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. VW has won a lot of fans with turbo diesels in more recent times, so it is doable with satisfactory results. Heck, Mercedes Benz was doing it fairly well back into the 70's. Of course, diesel was much more prevalent in Europe and thus they had incentive to develop it.

Problem is, GM (in the Reatta era) did not have good diesel power plants available. Olds and Cadillac offered them for a few years as an option, but never caught on due to their less than stellar performance and reliability, and the fact that diesel just didn't make sense for passenger cars at the time. It was viewed by car buyers then as a large truck fuel, and the limited availability at gas stations that weren't truck stops didn't help matters. GM also wasted a lot of time, money and effort on development of Wankel engine technology that went exactly nowhere. Save for that ill-fated debacle (countless R&D dollars down a rat hole), they might've done something better with Diesel, which was somewhere between a convenient fad and an afterthought for the General.

Then again, we are talking about GM of the late 70's and 80's. If they got a good idea, they (the bean counters) usually screwed it up; the Reatta being one of the few notable exceptions to that maxim, and even it didn't get the treatment the designers really intended. It just got watered down/botched up less than the mainstream offerings of the time. Ah, what could've been.

KDirk

[wws944]

GM, and a number of other companies - notably MB, were researching the Wankel engine in the late 60s and early 70s. With the exception of Mazda, they dropped it when the '74 energy crises hit. Too many seal problems, and ultimately it didn't have great MPG.

The Diesel engine fiasco came a few years later. GM had a number of Diesel engines they could have used. IMO they made two huge mistakes: First, they put them in luxury cars like the Caddies, whereas customers that are truly interested in MPG would be buyers for smaller cars. Mismatch between what their corporate goal was - make their worst MPG cars more fuel efficient vs the market who would actually put up with and want a (non-turbo) Diesel. Second, they could easily have sourced Diesel engines from Europe through Opel/etc. Huge NIH factor between Detroit and Europe at the time.