How many miles does your 1994 LHS/New Yorker have?

What minor problems have you had?

treat it right and get 300,000

i used to work on a guys buick century with 318,000 on it and he herded cows with it.

I am curious to know what engine you have in your New Yorker. I have heard of people getting 200,000 or more with the 3.3 L. Earlier 3.3's have the rocker arm tower failure with high mileage.

-Kirk Matheson

I've got over 207,000 on my wife's 1993 Vision (same drivetrain, suspension, and everything except the sheet metal). I'm going for at least 250k before possibly retiring the car. Still gets 27 on the highway, doesn't use any oil.

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The only available engine in the 94 LHS/New Yorker was the iron-block SOHC 3.5L. Tough little son-of-a-gun.

Retired salesman friend has his former company car, 3.5L '97 Intrepid, currently at 350K+ miles and still going strong. Mainly highway miles. Pulls Coleman pop-up camper at 65MPH+, severely overloads it (750 lbs. of soil or bags of water softener salt in the trunk, 10 sheets of 1/2" plywood or drywall strapped to the roof, etc.). Drives hard. Lots of jack rabbit starts, panic stops (likes to tailgate). No problems, even with the trans. Does have 2 aux trans coolers in series-parallel with the original unit, mounted away from the radiator behind the openings where the "fog" lights originally mounted. One aux cooler is bypassed until trans fluid reaches a certain temp, which I don't recall off hand. Was used in Kentucky hills several years.

Only engine work he has had done was intake manifold gasket kit and injector recall. Synthetic oil and filter changed every 4K miles. Plugs, wires and coil pack every 50K. Synthetic gear oil in differential every 20K. ATF+4 and filter every 20K. Brakes every 20K, if they need it or not. 3rd set of rotors up front, 2nd set in back. Original front rotors replaced at 50K after webbing between surfaces of one rotor cracked completely through. Rotor fell into 2 pieces when we took it off the hub. Struts replaced all around once. All suspension bushings replaced at 150K. Last I talked to him, was still averaging

25MPG overall and passes Illinois emissions tests with results well below maximums allowable.

He's fully expect> Does anyone have more than 200,000 miles on their 1994 LHS/New Yorker?

Yes.

Matt

I thought the Intrepid was FWD. Most FWD transaxles share the tranny fluid with the differential. Does this really have a differential that is isolated from the transmission?

Matt

Yes,

The 42LE transaxle case is one casting, but the diff and tranny fluid volumes are seperate.

I've got 164K miles on my '94 LHS and it runs like a new car. The only major work that I've had to do is rebuild the tranny at 160K. I had never serviced the fluid which in hindsight was a bad choice. I fully expect to get at least another 100K miles out of this car.

Yes, it does.Since its a longitudinal engine with front drive, the ring-and-pinion gearset is a hypoid gear just like a rear-drive car instead of a helical gear like transverse engine front-drive cars. You cannot lubricate hypoid gears with ATF, so it has a separate sump inside the transaxle housing. There's a chain drive from the mission section output shaft to the differential section input shaft.

The manual suggests not to use synthetic gear oil in the differential (for some reason) but I can't imagine any good reason not to. My only guess is that there is some possible reaction with ATF if it were to leak a little past the seal that isolates the two sections. Strangely, this subject just popped up on another thread.... (synthetic fluids in a Pacifica.)

Cool. I've wondered why they don't do this more often. Seems like it would increase the life of both units.

Matt

I never popped the hood on one and didn't realize it had a longitudinal engine. Thanks.

Does the differential have a limited slip type of clutch in it? I know that my pickup rear axle requires a special lube/additive to maintain the appropriate friction properties for the limited slip diff.

Matt

Nope, just an open differential. Limited slip on an FWD would be one hell of a handful to drive any direction except straight, except for a Torsen type differential like the old Nissan SE-Rs used to have. Front-drives torque-steer bad enough with an OPEN diff, I can only imagine how bad it would be with a conventional limited-slip!