Are there a small number of DustBuster enthusiasts around? 

"gmctavish needs more space" (gmctavish) 11/21/2015 at 19:17 • Filed to: None

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I Just saw the cleanest Lumina APV I’ve ever seen. It even had a mint nose bra, and didn’t sound like it was falling apart. So there is at least one person out there, religiously maintaining one of these.

Terrible glare-ful iPhone pictures courtesy of my Android using girlfriend.

I know they’re certainly not the best minivans ever made, but I love seeing weird, and at this point rare specimens of totally ordinary vehicles that have been kept up this crazily well.

shift monkey > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 19:42

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You’ve got to think, there’s always someone out there that enjoys a car, no matter how “bad” it maybe be considered.

JeepJeremy > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 20:01

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Cool find. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those out on the road. And I’m sure the last one I did see was in their common current condition: rolling junk

gmctavish needs more space > JeepJeremy 11/21/2015 at 20:10

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My mechanic has a customer with one of them as a second vehicle that rarely gets used. Apparently every 6 or 9 months it gets towed to his shop because the battery and tires have gone flat, he charges or replaces the battery, fills the tires, and changes the oil. Every time she doesn’t listen to his recommendation that she junk it. One time she showed up because the brakes were making noise, which he couldn’t understand since he’d checked them a month or so prior. They were basically down to the metal, and it had another 20k on the odometer. Apparently she’d driven it to Mexico O.o Some people are brave/stupid

BaconSandwich is tasty. > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 20:11

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What in particular made them so terrible? I knew someone that has one, but it really seemed no worse than other vehicles of the period. Of course this is coming from someone, who at the time, had parents who drove cards made in the early 1980s.

gmctavish needs more space > shift monkey 11/21/2015 at 20:15

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Yeah, for example, a friends friend needed a car, saw a Chevy Aveo, loved it and bought it. That's utterly incomprehensible to me, but she loves it.

ranwhenparked > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 20:16

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Could be an older person that bought one in the ‘90s when their kids were in high school, then stuck it in the garage after they went to college and uses it as a second car.

gmctavish needs more space > BaconSandwich is tasty. 11/21/2015 at 20:17

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I think they were just especially bad compared to Caravans, and even the Aerostar. I still see tons of Caravans, and a fair amount of Aerostars, but the Luminas tended to eat head gaskets I think? I could be wrong. They must've shared mechanics with the Lumina sedan, and I don't see much of them anymore either. Maybe people just bought Astros instead if they wanted a Chevy van

gmctavish needs more space > ranwhenparked 11/21/2015 at 20:18

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Yeah, that's very possible. It could even be the subject of my reply to JeepJeremy

The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123 > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 20:29

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The APV/Silhouette/Trans Sport were cool to me when I was a kid.

gmctavish needs more space > The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123 11/21/2015 at 20:30

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I still think they're kinda cool. The same way a Previa or an Espace is

The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123 > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 20:34

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I still think it’s cool too, but not the Previa or Espace. But I flock to the obscure stuff, even if it is obscure because nobody care to preserve the rest.

gmctavish needs more space > The Opponaut formerly known as MattP123 11/21/2015 at 20:47

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Ah, I like the Previa because you can get one that's RWD, supercharged, and manual :p Yeah, I'm drawn to that stuff too

Zyrtec just kicked in, yo > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 21:53

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The 3.1 and 3.4 engines in the Luminas had bad intake manifold gaskets that would leak coolant into the oil and wreak all sorts of havoc. That’s probably what you’re thinking of. You could also get them with the 3800, which didn’t have the same issue (although the Gen II 3800 had issues with cracking intake manifolds).

I actually see Lumina sedans fairly frequently around here (NE Mass), and they typically look pretty beat.

Zyrtec just kicked in, yo > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 21:57

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Actually, the supercharger never came with the manual, but you could get a manual from the NA version and swap it in. It isn’t a terribly fast car, though; the supercharger was there to bring performance up to the level of the competitions’ V6es that Toyota couldn’t run due to the constraints of the mid-engine setup.

That said, it is a super-cool car and one I want to own at somepoint.

gmctavish needs more space > Zyrtec just kicked in, yo 11/21/2015 at 23:34

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Oh, my bad. I wonder how hard it would be to put the supercharged engine in a 5 speed van....yeah, I've always liked a lot about them. I love the dash design too

gmctavish needs more space > Zyrtec just kicked in, yo 11/21/2015 at 23:36

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Ohh right that's what I was thinking of. Well I could see that being perfectly decent with the 3800, or at least better. Definitely not bad power for a van of that age. I imagine that's when it got facelifted into more of an ugly thing rather than an spaceship

Zyrtec just kicked in, yo > gmctavish needs more space 11/21/2015 at 23:45

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I think it’s definitely doable, or you could do a 5-speed swap into a SC van. It’s a really cool car, but unfortunately also pretty rare.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > gmctavish needs more space 11/22/2015 at 09:24

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I seriously have to wonder about your mechanic.

If the battery isn’t old, it going dead typically means the alternator has problems... OR some other issue like an interior light switch being broken which keeps the light on.

And if the tires are going flat regularly, that could be a bad valve, an issue with the wheel or something else. Just filling them up doesn’t fix the root issue.

And he “couldn’t understand” why the brakes would be making noise after only one month and one road trip? Shit... even I know that could be an issue with a sticking brake caliper.

Maybe that van is always having problems because she’s taking it to a mechanic who isn’t dealing with the root issues causing the problems.

gmctavish needs more space > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 11/22/2015 at 12:39

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I guess I wasn’t clear with what I originally said. She lets the van sit for months at a time, usually at least 6 months, sometimes longer. She doesn’t disconnect the battery, that’s more than enough time for a battery to go flat and for tires to start losing some air. He couldn’t understand why the brakes would be making noise, until he looked at the odometer. She didn’t tell him she’d gone on a huge roadtrip until he asked about the mileage. It had worn through the current set of pads, he just never expected she’d actually drive it enough to do that.