1989 Trofeo: Full electronics suite: VIC, power everything

[Twilight Fenrir]

I have a 1989 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo up for sale. The car is burgandy, with burgandy leather interior. The car is fully loaded with every option available, except for the Bose sound system, and moon roof.

This means it has the V.I.C. Visual Information Center touch-screen which controls... pretty much everything. The car phone was originally installed int he vehicle, but was missing when I bought the car. Power windows, locks, mirrors. The leather seats have 7 switches/joysticks that control bladders inside the seat to make it more comfortable than a lazy-boy. All systems are functional, except the A/C which is out of refrigerant, and still on the R-12 system. Was working just a year ago.

The engine runs smooth as silk, can't tell the mileage, as the two odometers on the car dis-agree with eachother... Dash says 70K-ish, VIC says 120K-ish. Overdrive transmission shifts, and drives smooth. No fluid leaks of any type. Engine currently has Royal Purple full synthetic in it.

The body shell is rust-free, as is most of the undercarriage, the area at the rear bumper is almost completely rusted away however.

There aren't any major problems with the car, but there are countless small problems. The most imediate problem is it requires new brakes, the most expensive problem is it needs new paint.

I've been trying to sell this car for the last year or so, and had no-one keep an appointment to come look at it. Had people asking me every month if it was for sale before I decided to sell it, now they've all dried up...

Regardless, if it doesn't sell before the end of August, I'm going to have to start parting it out, or scrapping it. And, I just don't have the heart to start tearing it apart. I'll post some pictures in the next couple days, and go into more detail on the technical issues.

The car is located in Northern Minnesota, I'll take and consider all offers. As I said, I'm staring down tearing it appart, and would really prefer not to do so. It'd be a great car to putz with, or a treasure-trove for parts.

Also: Happen to be looking for a '66 Toronado project, so if someone happens to be crazy enough to want to, I'd love a trade.

[Twilight Fenrir]

Picture Time!







As you can see in that one, someone was backing out of a parking lot next to me and clipped the facia for the rear bumper and pried it away... Looked into replacing it, but as I said in the above post, the super-structure behind it is mostly rust. So I didn't want to tear it all appart and re-build it at the time.



Both headlight doors opperate flawlessly.


VIC fully functional, replaced it myself about 2 years back, kept the original as well. Someone had opened the original at one point and broken the wire-ribbon for the defrost button, replacing the VIC made it, and everything else work again.



Orriginal cassette deck did not work, hard-wired a Sony Discman into it instead. Works really well actually. COuld easily be modified to function for an iPod instead. I did not modify any of the cars wiring to do so, simply hollowed out a cassette-deck shell and made my own innards. Still have the orriginal deck as well.



Passenger door panel only has one tiny crack in one of the big pillowy-ridges. Driver-side is kinda rough off. I've got it held together so it won't get any worse. But, this thing might as well be platinum for as irreplacable as it is.



Back seat looks like it's never been sat in... Front seats have some crackling in the leather, there is a tiny hole in the drivers-side on the bolster, you can see in that picture... that's the only hole anywhere in the interrior... Also, headliner is falling down, have it twist-pinned up.

I'll get into the technical end of it after I eat.

[Twilight Fenrir]

All right, issues time... This is going to be a fairly long list, but it is going to be every minor thing that is wrong with the car. Anything I do not specifically mention is in perfect condition.

The electronic portion of the PRDN switch seems to be broken, the car still shifts fine and responds to the selector, however the bubbles around the gears on the display flash, and the VIC prompts you when you start up the car.

Low Oil pops up on the VIC every time you start the car when it hasn't been running in more than 4-5 hrs, even though oil is full. It goes away once it warms up, and if you start it when it's been running recently, it does not come up.

The ECM spits out a Quad-Driver error as an intermittent problem. the SES light comes on every minute or two because of this... not 100% sure what this is, doesn't seem to affect anything, and couldn't really understand the service manuals description.

The car orriginally had locking lug-nuts, however in a -40F weather I had a flat and went to change the tire and stripped the key. I got the front two lug-nuts off after a long hard battle, but the rear two wheels still have their locking-lugnuts.

The rear brake dust-shield rubs a bit making a squeeking noise going down the road... Haven't been able to fix, as I haven't taken the time to get the rear wheels off. Rear also in need of new brake pads, they squeel when you stop. But you still stop well.

Foglights are in-opperable. Got a new set of hardware to replace them, but the housing inside the bumper is somewhat crushed, and I haven't put in the time to correct them.

Paint on the hood, top of the fenders, roof, and decklid is severely worn. I tried to correct this several years ago, but didn't know what I was doing at the time, so the paint looks terrible, and is pealing off in places... First time painting a car, and just kinda sanded and spray-painted, no self-etching primer... oops.

Rear bumper is damaged, as per pictures above, was clipped by another car in a parking lot, hit and run, still have the reflector that came out of the socket.

Decklid lock doesn't match the door keys. Yellow button in glove-compartment is the only way to open the trunk.

Headliner is de-laminated and falling down. Put a bunch of twist-pins into it and it behaves well now. Actually looks surprisingly nice as well, almost as if it were padded with buttons sewn in.

Cracks in vinyl on inner-door panels. Single crack in rear passenger quarter-window area vinyl. Small hole in drivers-side seat indicated in pictures above. Along with another few small interrior cosmetic issues.

Let's see... um... Headlight doors were riveted back on at some point, looks kind of ugly, but fully operable. (see above pictures)

About half the center-caps on the aluminum wheels are cracked or damaged.



That should be about it really. If I think of anything else I'll post it, but that's definitely the worst of it. Any questions feel free to ask.