Northstar engine
DH & I have been thinking of buying a Caddy DTS. A good friend of ours just got slammed with a $5800.00 repair bill to replace "the seal" in his Caddy. He was told it wasn't a matter of if the s...
Forum Discussion
If it's '05 and up you're okay. There are 2 major points of failure on the pre-2005s. One has been mentioned several times here: the head gaskets. You're pretty much rolling the dice. We had a '95, '99 and an '01. The '99 popped its head gaskets. The other 2 were fine.
The other major point of failure is the torque converter control (TCC) solenoid. It's a $20 part that requires $2,000 in labor to replace. Funny thing is that they fail with frightening regularity. On a RWD car, it's a 30-minute job to pop out and replace. On the Northstar Caddies the trans has to come out the bottom of the car, requiring removal of the subframe and a ton of other ****. I did mine myself - I'll never do it again.
Oh yeah - all that oil on the engine? The rear main seals leak too. Drips oil directly on the hot exhaust crossover and blows it directly into the cabin. Going to want to replace that while the transmission is out.
All told, that was among my top 3 favorite cars and I've owned a lot of them. I just wouldn't buy another one.
The other major point of failure is the torque converter control (TCC) solenoid. It's a $20 part that requires $2,000 in labor to replace. Funny thing is that they fail with frightening regularity. On a RWD car, it's a 30-minute job to pop out and replace. On the Northstar Caddies the trans has to come out the bottom of the car, requiring removal of the subframe and a ton of other ****. I did mine myself - I'll never do it again.
Oh yeah - all that oil on the engine? The rear main seals leak too. Drips oil directly on the hot exhaust crossover and blows it directly into the cabin. Going to want to replace that while the transmission is out.
All told, that was among my top 3 favorite cars and I've owned a lot of them. I just wouldn't buy another one.
