My 1998 Olds LSS with 57K miles is in the shop with an expensive repair. It seems there is a plastic fitting in the intake manifold that develops a pinhole leak. The leak allows all the coolant to be sucked out of the cooling system and burned in the cylinders. Fouling the plugs and, of course, causing the engine to overheat.

My question is, " have you heard of this?"

Second, the service manager at the Pontiac dealer who is working on my car said he has seen quite a few of these. If it is a wide spread problem why isn't GM getting it corrected before they fail?

Chazcee

1998 Olds LSS

I agree with Jr. I have the SC'd version which doesn't have this plastic intake, however, I have heard enough about the problem to know. There are some people on this forum working on a solution, but it may take a while.

In the mean time, change your thermostat to a 180 degree unit. This will (in theory) keep the engine cooler, which in turn will help keep the plastic intake from fatiguing as fast.

BTW, I don't know much about the specific trim lines of Oldsmobile, but I thought an LSS was the Supercharged version of the 88. Am I way off on this or was the SC an option available in conjunction with the LSS but not part of it (i.e. there are both SC'd and NA'd LSS'*)?

The LSS was the Luxury Sport Sedan trim and the most expensive trim level for the H-body FWD Delta 88. I think they first showed up in 1992.

Mine has all the luxury features like power seats, remote entry, 6 speaker CD/Cassette, controls for fan, temp, radio volume and program on the steering wheel, leather etc.. In addition to the sport features like the tach, supossedly better suspensiion, buckets, console, foor shift.

There are a whole lot more NA than SC LSSs out there. In the 98 model year only 8% of the build had the supercharger option. For that year the NA version had 205 HP and the SC boosted it another 35 to 240.

Chazcee

1998 Olds LSS--Bone Stock

My car came with a HUGE plastic cover over the engine , I noticed a slight temp decrease when removed , I feel tht only keeps the heat in ! I guess they put it there for looks!

That plastic fitting could be your heater inlet fitting on the front of the lower intake! These have been known to leak/crack with age & temperature. I do know that the upper plastic intake has had it'* problems with warpage too. Isn't there a replacement kit from GM? I thought there was a rew years ago.

WHAT fitting? On the Series 1 NA? I have the pesky SC on top, but I want to know what to look for on Josh'*.

Below the Alternator is a coolant fitting that hooks up to a small heater hose going to the front cover. It is probably the most neglected hose on the car too.

crap. I knew about THAT one, I thought we were talking about something else. Josh'* isn't leaking there. He'* loosing about 1/2" of coolant from the res per hour, with no drips underneath. We're doing the whole top end in 2 weeks.