I borrowed a friends 1970 Chevy with a 283 and loved it. Lots of pep and 20 mpg. I bought a 1972 one owner Chevy with a 350 8-12 mpg, and by far the worst car I have had in all my years.
“JDP is not worth much.”
Stop being so kind . . .
JD Power ain’t worth _____
Fill in the blank
It’s about as worthless as a Motor Trend car review. They never ever have anything negative to say, because the car manufacturer(s) is paying them to praise the product(s)
Who was the previous owner of the Caddy? If it was an elderly retired person, it has probably been babied and well maintained. I have found cars that were one owners from an elderly person who is no longer able to drive to often be a bargain and very reliable.
If this is the case, and the young son is a new driver, the odds are that he will be involved in an accident in the first or second year of driving. This could be a good car for him to have in that case, but it would be better if the Caddy was a 2000 or newer, they did a whole lot better in the offset crash test than the older ones.
I wouldn’t be so quick to discount GM of those eras. I drove 74, 81, 86, 89 etc. GMs hundreds of thousands of miles with really little issues except the dang diesel and transmissions. Now any Chrysler after 76 or so forget, and I can’t comment on Fords. I think Japanese cars of that early era are all rusted to pieces and back to earth again by now though. But if you get something specific in mind, post here and you’ll get some good info.
95 to 05
Lots of leg room…4 door sedan.
Toyota Avalon
Old Cadillac’s are virtually non-repairable…1980 to 2000, 20 years of junk…Northstar nightmares, emissions nightmares…Chevy’s are almost as bad… The early ABS systems, impossible to fix today…Buy something 1960-1970 and rebuild / restore it or stick to a modern vehicle…You like bling ? Lincoln Town Car…An indestructible vehicle that is at least repairable…
My son-in-law’s '98 Grand Prix with the 3800 is still running strong. One crankshaft sensor, one starter, AC compressor, check engine light’s been on for the last 5 years(!), but the worst failure was rusted brake lines - $900 just a month ago.
I hear what you’re saying
But, on the flip side, do you acknowledge that during the time frame I mentioned, GM was concentrating very heavily on SUVs and trucks, and much less so on cars . . . ?
Meaning they were concentrating heavily on developing and promoting SUVs and trucks, versus cars?
I’m not talking about the Corvette, because that’s always been their halo product, and as such, always receives development bucks, even if all the other cars do not
@db4690, you are absolutely right. I think Ford and Chrysler did the same thing because they could make a lot of money on trucks and not so much on cars, especially in the competitive mid-size and smaller markets. That’s how we ended up with cars like the early 2000s Malibu. The early 2000s Ford Focus is ho-hum, and Dodge almost stopped building cars entirely.
Several years ago, one of my young colleagues bought a brand new Malibu. It think it may have been called “Malibu Classic” at that time. Anyways, he didn’t have a lot of money, and he wanted a fairly basic new car, just to get around. I think he got the base model with no options
A friend also had a Malibu, but it was a little older, maybe a 1998, and was a washed-up, beaten down heap. it had high miles and wasn’t maintained well. He had a cracked windshield . . . beyond cracked, actually. It was so bad, you could hardly see through it. He didn’t have money to replace it, then he got a fix-it-ticket, to add insult to injury . . .
One of my time-keepers had a very early Ford Focus wagon, bought it brand new. I think she bought it, before word got out that they weren’t very reliable. At least not the early ones
I’m only commenting on how the cars look. The early 2000s Malibu, which eventually became the Classic, were uninspired cars. It seems to me that Chevrolet spent as little as possible to produce a car that would be popular only on the rental lot. I had a number of them as rental cars with no problems. But they were homely and had poor handling. They were inexpensive, though, and that is a a plus. Now GM produces a Malibu that is fully competitive in the mid-size market.
With older cars especially, the more bling the less reliability, The more an engine and transmission are produced, the less problems they have, Cars with lower production numbers may never get to that point. Manufacturers don’t take risks with their mass market cars. GM didn’t make the trouble prone V8-6-4 or Northstar engines in Chevys, they made them in Caddys. All the additional features a Caddy has that a Chevy doesn’t are only more things to break.
2002 Cadillac DTS, 77000 miles
comment?
Ther is certainly more to go wrong, like a climate control system where you set the temperature and forget it. But if your friend understands the possible additional problems and is willing to buy it anyway, why not? There is a trade-off between creature comforts/features in a luxury car vs. simpler/lower cost systems in a car that is not a luxury ride. Your friend needs to decide if the extras are worth the potential higher costs of ownership.
Edit: actually, the DeVille was sold in 2002. The follow-on DTS was not available until 2006. It will have a Northstar V8, but that engine was pretty far along in its lifetime by then, and should be a more reliable version than for earlier Cadillacs.
Confusing. In 2002 they call it a DeVille DTS.
DTS is the trim level, and in 2006 became the model name for the DeVille. The DeVille Touring Sedan had drivability enhancements above the base maiden, while the DeVille High-luxury Sedan (DHS) had, as the name implies, luxury enhancements above the base model. The Cadillac magnetorheologic suspension got its start on the DTS, I believe. Now it’s the toast of the world. Ferrari buys it for their cars.
I disagree with the OP about Cadillac reliability. The '59 that Michael drove in the movie “The Deer Hunter” was really reliable, except for the trunk. One of my friends had an old Caddy in high school and it was really a good party car. Rocketman
I second (or third) the motion of the Buick LeSabre with the 3.8L V-6. I’ve always felt that GM had no idea how good the 3.8 V-6 was once they figured out how to make to make it “even firing”. Of course they used it in Pontiacs, Chevys and Oldsmobiles too. 300K examples abound. Once GM figured out that they could sell more cars before the 150K mile mark if they discontinued that great engine, it was all over.
Stay away from the Northstar. It was also used in the Olds Aurora. 200K examples are rare.
@“MG McAnick” during what years was the 3.8 a good engine, esp in Buick LeSabres?