nickabocker Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 (edited) Hello everyone, I have been reading this forum over the last few weeks and the information contained has been informative and helpful. I decided it was time to introduce my Buick Reatta to the group. It is a 1988 Buick Reatta Silver with Blue interior (edge of seats are suede). The car has just shy of 103,000 miles and appears to be going strong. Now i have been fortunate enough to work for the previous owner for the last 8 years and have been asking in to sale it to me for the last 5. The advantage is I have quite the history of the car. In 1988 the vehicle was sold to a local doctor who drove it for 10 years before trading in the vehicle. In 1998 the doctor traded the Reatta, with 98,000, in for his first Cadillac and my employer and owner of the car lot decided he wanted to add it to his Reatta collection ( he currently has a 89 Red with brown interior, 91 convertible White with red, 90 convertible Silver with a tri tone interior?, and at least one more that is running but i've never seen only talked about) After driving the car for 10 years the owner parked it due to mileage and figured he would keep it as a parts rig just incase. So that takes us all the way to 2008 where the car was serviced and parked with 102,700 miles give or take a couple. Now I have always liked the looks of the Reatta and as mentioned been asking him to sale it for years and finally got him to agree. He had one condition that before he gave me a price I had to get it running and show it as a driveable car. So now we go to the list of things done to the vehicle in the last 3 weeks New battery Diagnosis a bad Fuel Pump and strainer , Replace parts CAR STARTS Get car detailed and suddenly wont start Get car back on lift, diagnosis crank sensor, replace Car starts Finish having car detailed and layers of dirt finally disappear New tires Drivers side window doesn't work, buy new motor, unplug old and replug it in, suddenly begins to work Passenger side window stops half walf and starts grinding, replace motor with part bought for drivers side Fill the Gas tank full of premium fuel Oil, Oil filter, and air filter change Air freshener to spice up the interior (its amazing how stale a car gets after sitting for 10 years) Hottest day of the year so far arrives and guess what? AC reports as low and disables the system Recharge the system and get the cabin to a chilly comfortable temperature First night out find out Passenger headlight is blown, by a new headlight and discover retainer was broken in two spots, quick weld job and the headlight is now secured Now with almost two hundred miles the car seems to be running just fine! I'll try to grab a couple of photos of the interior and get them posted as well Edited July 31, 2019 by Ronnie (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Eaton Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 Silver with blue interior........especially an early car with the suede is pretty rare. There were 418 silver cars made in 1988 out of a total 4708 351 had grey interior 45 had red 21 had blue 1 had tan next, check the Service parts label on your car, if the vin is less than 900 the SPL will be in the inside of the deck lid....if it is not there look beside the spare tire...on the right side of the spare lift the insulation and the SPL is on the side of the spare wheel well Now check the color code on the SPL If there is a 13U in the codes, then at the bottom of the label 9021 paint code should also appear. There is a chance you have a Pewter grey car ....if that is the case the code will be 87U and 9243 paint code If you have a Pewter car..........there were only 100 made, and only 1 had blue interior. let us know what you find (take a picture of the SPL for your records) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAVES89 Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 Welcome aboard and thanks for the great story. I always like hearing how stuff comes about. Pictures are always good. We like pictures... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpecialEducation Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 5 hours ago, nickabocker said: Fill the Gas tank full of premium fuel Unless the car was modified to something other than the factory vanilla 3800, premium is not necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B Jake Moran Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 Is this the car that was for sale in Battle Creek Michigan last fall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 14 hours ago, nickabocker said: I have been reading this forum over the last few weeks and the information contained has been informative and helpful. I decided it was time to introduce my Buick Reatta to the group. Welcome to the forum! Thanks for taking the to do the great write-up about your car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickabocker Posted July 24, 2019 Author Share Posted July 24, 2019 (edited) as i took some photos of the interior this morning I realized the interior actually looks more gray than blue. maybe I was wrong on the blue (the original owner did tint the rear window with some purplish tint so maybe the lighting was bad) tell me your thoughts. Barney thanks for all the information. The service parts label does show the 13u code on the trunk lid. The last six of the vin shows 900672 B Jake - The car is located in Idaho and has been for as long as I know Edited July 31, 2019 by Ronnie (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickabocker Posted July 24, 2019 Author Share Posted July 24, 2019 10 hours ago, SpecialEducation said: Unless the car was modified to something other than the factory vanilla 3800, premium is not necessary. I chose to add some premium to hopefully dilute and remove the ethanol that had been in the system since I had just replaced the fuel pump and wasn't sure how the rest of the system looked so i put non ethanol premium in. I know it was required but did make me fill a little better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Eaton Posted July 24, 2019 Share Posted July 24, 2019 With the vin I can see the car is silver and has grey interior with the standard (no 16 way) seat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickabocker Posted July 24, 2019 Author Share Posted July 24, 2019 Barney curious if you could provide me some details on the 91 convertible similar to what you had stated about the 88 coupe 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padgett Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 That is about broken in for these cars and the 88 is the most interesting, I consider the touchscreen to be a landmark and people are amazed that a 30 year old car has one. Only year that has four buttons in front of the shifter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B Jake Moran Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 On 7/24/2019 at 2:59 PM, Barney Eaton said: With the vin I can see the car is silver and has grey interior with the standard (no 16 way) seat. The interesting part is that even though you have a "1 of" 351 car, that is still fairly rare by most standards. Consider that there are likely "no more" than 50 of these in any condition, and likely less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B Jake Moran Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 On 7/24/2019 at 3:54 PM, nickabocker said: Barney curious if you could provide me some details on the 91 convertible similar to what you had stated about the 88 coupe 🙂 Post pertinent information here. I would say 1991 convertibles are the easiest for Barney to decode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nickabocker Posted August 9, 2019 Author Share Posted August 9, 2019 Well now have my first problem with the car both the drivers side and passenger side seat adjusters apparently decided they want to fall down into the door. Not sure why yet but when i popped the panel on the passenger side a piece of plastic fell out , it also had a screw in said plastic so i'm assuming something broke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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