1996 Oldsmobile Aurora Recalls, Problems & Maintenance

On 1996 and later cars, change when the Oil Life System asks and at least once a year. Earlier cars used a fixed 3,000 mile interval. At this age a 5,000 mile ceiling is the safer read, because worn seals and a tired PCV system dirty the oil faster than the computer assumes.

Rotate every 7,500 miles. Check the DOT date code on the sidewall while you are under there. On a low-mileage car of this age, tires usually age out years before the tread wears out.

Inspect pads and rotors at every service, and ask specifically about the rubber hoses and steel lines. Line corrosion is a common failure on twenty-year-old cars that lived through road salt.

Replace every 2 years regardless of mileage. Brake fluid absorbs water from the air, and decades-old fluid is the quiet cause of soft pedals and stuck calipers on cars this old.

Drain and fill every 45,000 miles using Dexron VI. If the fluid has never been changed on a high-mileage car, ask for two or three drain-and-fills spaced out rather than a high-pressure flush.

Platinum or iridium plugs run to 100,000 miles. On the 3800 and 3.4 V6, replace the plug wires and coil boots at the same time. After this many years the insulation is brittle and a failing wire reads like a bad coil.

Replace the belt and the tensioner together once either shows cracking, glazing, or noise. A weak tensioner chews through a new belt in short order.

Replace every 30,000 miles. On most of the lineup this is a five minute job with a screwdriver.

Treat this as a 5 year job, not a mileage job. Cars from about 1996 on use orange Dex-Cool, earlier ones use green. Never mix them. While the system is drained, have the shop look for seepage at the intake manifold and water pump, which is where these engines usually start weeping.

Test the battery and alternator once a year. Aging body control modules on this era of GM can pull a small current after shutdown, and a strong battery hides that problem until the day it does not.