Not a bad starting price. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1976-Oldsmobile-Ninety-Eight-/162725386045?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368
I don't understand why sellers put this kind of thing in their listing: It's not up to him. Once the car is sold, the seller has his money, and the buyer has the title, it's the buyer's car. It's up to the buyer to ship the car, if it needs to be shipped anywhere, as it's now his car, and he can ship it anywhere he damn well pleases, including the moon if he has the money and the mind to.
The first auction ended. He's relisted it. But this time it's not an auction. It's got a BIN price of $3900, and there is also a "make offer" option. I think that BIN price is quite reasonable, but you have to find someone who wants the car, and these don't have the hugest following. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1976-Oldsmobile-Ninety-Eight-/162729304721?vxp=mtr
That looks like a good, honest original car. Sime bumper fillers, paint, trim and detailing and you'd have a great weekend cruiser. Those cars were SO comfy and smooth.
One thing I like about this car is the four-door hardtop body style. Those really look nice, I think, when all the windows are down. I think this year, '76, was the last for any GM four-door hardtop. Now I have a question for you guys. Note this above the steering column. I've circled it in yellow. It's a crack in trim that goes over the column, and I think it's deliberate as you need to be able to separate that trim into two pieces to be able to remove it without lowering the steering column should you ever have to get behind the speedometer or whatever. But it seems like such a clumsy way for GM to build into these cars the ability to remove this trim piece as it looks like a defect, not something deliberate. How about a nice, squared off break that's right at the top of the column? My '78 Toronado has the same thing, but it's in a different place. My '78 Tr
IMHO, speaking from the position of a harried tech trying to fix a customer's car as quickly as possible, and not knowing how something was assembled at the factory, they were likely broken while attempting a repair or adjustment on the column, as the techs attempted to remove the trim by spreading them. The good news, is that the piece can be repaired, if you drop the column down to properly remove the piece vertically, then either heat-welded (but I wouldn't recommend, even with a low-wattage soldering iron on such thin plastic) or gluing it (Testor's liquid model glue, which comes in a jar and flows like water) to make the repair; the way it breaks, once the pieces are properly aligned, the crack can virtually disappear.
I did a little more investigating, and you are right. The crack is likely the result of that trim piece having been removed at one time and probably not very carefully. I wasn't able to find a '76 Olds Chassis Service manual online, but I did find the '75, which ought to be very similar as far as this goes. Here's the relevant page out of that manual regarding removing this trim piece. It does come out in one piece, and it doesn't require lowering the steering column.
Seems straightforward, but all it takes is some gorilla-fisted mechanic to wipe it out just following the directions.
