Northstar Woes, Update > Repairs Completed

[76eldo]

I have a 1999 Eldorado ETC that I bought from a friend a few months ago.  I got a great deal on the car @ $3000.00.  It had 99,000 miles on it and is now at almost 104K. The car is White Diamond, Sunroof, Bose, and the body and interior is close to mint.  Good brakes and tires, just two things, a slight crack in the coolant surge tank at the top nipple, and the compressor was a bit noisy, but the AC worked.

I drove the car the first few months with no issues.  Unfortunately, I took a 2 hour trip and didn't top off the coolant before I left, and it lost some out of the crack in the tank and ultimately overheated.  I was able to shut off the car immediately, and nurse it home with the AC off and some epoxy holding the crack closed.  That was a few months ago.

About a month ago the air stopped being really cold, so I decided to get the compressor replaced since it was noisy and also the alternator failed, so those two items were replaced.  Everything was working great.  Fresh plugs and wires made the car idle and run beautifully.  Cannot hear or feel the engine at a light.  It idles like a Prius.

Two weeks later, the radiator developed a crack in the plastic tank and I replaced that too.

If you drive the car like an old lady, the temp will stay in the middle all day.  If you jump on the throttle one time, it sets up a scenario where the gauge keeps climbing and it will over heat within 5 minutes.

Diagnosis, head gasket failure.

As luck would have it, there is a guy that advertises on Craig's List for Northstar repairs, and he will also buy your blown N* Caddy.  I talked to him about figuring out what is wrong with the car.  HE told ME exactly where my radiator cracked, and exactly where the coolant surge tank failed, and explained that on hard acceleration, I am blowing compression through the headgasket at a weak area and that eventually it will blow out completely in that area and overheat all the time.  It's done, needs the gaskets replaced.

Here's the lucky part...

He's a GM trained Master Tech and works at a Cadillac Dealership, but has his own shop and does Northstars on nights and weekends at his shop.  He has all of the tools, jigs, and equipment to drill the block and install the timeserts with the updated coarse threads, and has done over 700 of these engines.  People ship cars to him from all over.  We talked on the phone for about 40 minutes Sunday night and he was not pushy, not trying to talk me in to anything, and said to call him back and let him know if I want him to do the work.  I could tell that he really knew his stuff after talking to him for about 10 minutes.

He gets $1600-1700 to do the headgasket repair, and drops the complete cradle down and repairs it out of the car.  He also cleans everything, services the throttle body and makes sure that there are no other little items that need attention while the cradle is out of the car.  For $2200.00, he will tear down the rest of it and do a complete re-seal of the bottom end.  My car does not leak, but does have some seepage around the pan, so I am going to be preemptive here and get the whole package done.

I really like the car, the car is in great shape, and runs like a dream.  This new work is guaranteed for 12,000 miles or one year, just like what the dealer does for about $4500.00.  He uses all Cadillac/GM parts for his repairs.

I have 100 mile free towing from AAA and his shop is about 50 miles from me, so it's going there on Sunday and I'm going to take a ride down and check out the guys shop.  Hopefully I'll have a good vibe when I see the shop and the car will be repaired properly.

He says that these are great engines, powerful, smooth, economical and long lasting, but the timeserts initially used do not hold in the block and he has never had one repair come back after replacing the gaskets and inserts.

I cannot in good conscience dump in some sealer and sell this car and move on, and even if I buy a 30K mile Eldo, the same thing can happen.  Once fixed, I should get a lot more miles on it, so we will see what happens.

I love my Cadillacs, but once again, Cadillac has put out a crap motor. leaking and dripping, and blowing up, shades of HT4100 all over again.

I'm gonna do the fix and see how it goes...  Think I'm doing the right thing here?  See Photos...

Brian

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

You're not going to get anything decent for $2K, let alone a clean Caddy with a good heart. As the car sits now, it has very little value. You already had a number of things done, appears to have a good clean body, paint etc. and you like the car. Might as well spend the $2K and drive it another 5 years or whatever. If it's worth $0 after all that time, who cares? A decent $20K new car will depreciate $2K in the first 15 seconds.

If the car were rusty - including undercarriage- that would be different.

My 2 cents.

[936CD69]

I am in 100% agreement with Eric. Where I work, we recently did a complete N* overhaul on a 2002 DHS and it was around 4500. As the owner said, what would I get as a trade, and what would I end up driving for 4500. He loved his car too, an it wasn't as nice as yours, Brian.

[Mike Josephic CLC #3877]

I agree with the others -- get it repaired if you like the car.  Putting a few
Grand into it makes perfect sense.

Also, Northstars are known to have oil seepage problems starting at about
100K miles.  For the few hundred more that he wants, let him do the new
seals while he has the engine out of the car.

By the way -- where is this guy located?

Mike

[76eldo]

Paint is all original and the interior is beautiful, it would be a crime to junk it or part it.
I'll go for the complete fix and of I get a few years out of it I'll be very happy.
I only drive it if I go out after my workday (have company car) or weekends.
Probably 5k miles a year so it will not get a lot if use.

I just need to be able to trust it on a long trip.

Brian

[76eldo]

Limerick, Pa.
After I get the car back I'll be able to recommend him based on actual experience.

Brian

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

Regarding oil seepage/leakage on Northstars, this is what I've been told: The block is made from two (or three) different castings which are glued (for lack of a better word) together. Seepage appears to be coming from oil pan gasket but in fact is coming down from where the castings are seamed together. There is no fix for it.

This is what I've been told by a GM trained Cadillac tech.

*Why wouldn't you trust it on a long trip after it was done?

[936CD69]

the block is cast in 2 pieces... the upper V where the cylinders are, and the lower crankcase. the crank is installed between them. There is an aluminum "oil manifold" plate between the 2 castings that have oringed gaskets at every oil pressurized point, and an integral gasket to seal the 2 pieces. it is replaceable and highly recommended to do so

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

For whatever it's worth, I've witnessed oil seepage/drips/leakage and whatnot on Northstars at all mileage accumulations- low and high.

Regardless of the cause, the fact remains that it will be an additional $500 to reseal an engine on a car that the OP only plans to use sparingly once completed and does not intend to keep the car for long term ownership- perhaps a few years. By the time he plans on disposing of the car, there's every possibility of the leak having recurred by that time. And even if it hasn't, it isn't going to matter a tinker's dam to the future value of a 16 yo/125,000 mile Cadillac whether it's leaking oil or not.

I'd pocket the $500 and live with the oil leak. For what you have planned, it's a waste of money IMO.

[TJ Hopland]

I know a guy that used to do a lot of Northstar repairs.  He was a one man shop in a small town so the dealer would send everyone his way once they were out of warranty.  I helped out with a few.  The timesert thing is pretty quick and easy once you have the engine out and apart.   Its also pretty cool the way the engine is laid out with the 'layers'.  He said he never saw one come back after he fixed one.  I would imagine due to age by the time they started to leak again the cars were old enough that no one cared as long as they still ran good.

[76eldo]

I'll probably put about 5,000 miles a year on it.  I am planning on keeping the car long-term.  I'm going to go for the complete repair since it's that far apart so won't kick myself if it starts leaking when I get it back.

Brian

[Mike Josephic CLC #3877]

I think that's the smart move Brian.

I personally would not want to clean up oil spots on my driveway or
garage floor for five or more years to save a measly $500.  It's
not worth the aggravation -- at least to me.

Good luck with the repairs and let us know how it turns out!

Mike

[Dave Shepherd]

Great thread, I was an Olds/Cad Service Mgr for 10 years, the inside info on the N'Star is it is actually the Olds Quad 4 2.3 DOHC engine doubled into a 4.6, hence the oil leaks with the split crankcase.  They run great but as we all see have serious issues including internal oil consumption.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

I tell all my N* customers to pay close attention to the oil. Most seem to use about a qt/1,000mi or less. A friend of my father's was told "Not under warranty Sir" by the Cadillac dealer when he discovered his brand new 1997 STS was using a qt every 600 miles.   A few will get 1,500 - 2,000 but that's the exception. It's a good thing they have that "Check Engine Oil" message on the cluster is all I can say.

Yea- they're great when they're good but after 100 years of building cars you'd think almighty GM could get stuff right for their flagship division at least. 

[waterzap]

I tell all my N* customers to pay close attention to the oil. Most seem to use about a qt/1,000mi or less. A friend of my father's was told "Not under warranty Sir" by the Cadillac dealer when he discovered his brand new 1997 STS was using a qt every 600 miles.   A few will get 1,500 - 2,000 but that's the exception. It's a good thing they have that "Check Engine Oil" message on the cluster is all I can say.

Yea- they're great when they're good but after 100 years of building cars you'd think almighty GM could get stuff right for their flagship division at least. 

That’s ridiculous. I don’t know how you make a product like that and then let it out the door. They are practically chasing people to the other luxury autos. You just paid many tens of thousands for this car. Oh, and by your car likes to mark its territory like a wild animal by dumping oil on everything.

Want to return it? Nope, sorry.
Want US to fix it? Ha ha...good one.

If you have any issues, take it up with the Lexus dealer around the corner or the Acura dealer across the street.

Oh, and by the way. Because your Caddy likes to use oil as much as gasoline, good luck with that trade in.

Would love to just hear from Rick Wagoner. Was he in any way proud of a product like this? This was the flagship product of the biggest (at that time) car manufacturer ? Do they just not care? Automotive engineering these days is so good, they MUST have known what was going to happen.

They should be ashamed. (getting off soapbox now)

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

Yea- a $45,000 product no less. Perhaps I should clarify what the dealer told the guy w/ the new '97 STS. "A quart/600miles is considered acceptable oil consumption for Northstar..." Therefore not under warranty.

To the rest of your comments - all I can say is - AMEN.

Cadillac might as well be a poster child for what's wrong with the American auto industry.

Sometimes I wish the Division had been axed a long time ago while it still had a shred of dignity. We'll see what happens with this latest crop but I remain skeptical.

[Dave Shepherd]

There are/were several TSB's referring to high oil consumption, we were doing the decarbonizing method to try and free up the oil rings, very poor successs with this, We did do some ring jobs, huge "pita" for all concerned, looked like higher tension oil rings were being used. Corvette had some issues with " babied" engines developing carboning issues causing the rings to stick, open up "em" once and a while was the answer.

[harry s]

I have a 2000 SLS with about 173K and my oil consumption has gone to about 1qt per 600 miles. Other than that the car is great. I was talking to one of our members at St Augustine with the same situation. His solution was to use 20/50 oil. He had been doing that for a while and it cut his consumption in half with no noticable effects. Anybody else tried it? I'm coming up on an oil change (each 3K) and think I will give it a shot.     Harry
PS I also concurr doing the repair on that beautiful Eldo. Where else can you get that nice of a ride for such a reasonable price.

[waterzap]

20W50 is probably fine. 5W50 might be a better choice

Very good article on motor oils

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/faq.php?faq=haas_articles

[Series75]

On the option of replacing the gasket creating the oil leak.  You have to spend the extra to get that done.  It's more than just mopping up oil.  On my son-in-laws 2002 Comemorative Eldorado the oil drips at speed and hits the exhaust pipe.  The smell of burning oil is annoying, especially in a luxury car. Tom CLC6866