From reading up on a few sections of the forums and other places, I've kind of come to the conclusion that there's really nothing you can do to prevent certain failures like head gaskets and so forth. No matter how well the car was taken care of previously? As I'm in the market for a '98 ETC.

Is there anything I should know about the '98 generation of motors, or common problems? I'm really new to the world of Cadillacs (even though my dad's owned them his whole life) and cars in general as I'm only 18 looking to purchase my first car, so any heads up or information you could give me about the car, anything to check regularly or maintain on a regular basis would help.. anything i need to know, thanks.

PS. I know some of you will say to search around or read other posts but as I'm new to this I wouldn't know what to search for, and just reading random posts hasn't given me an answer to my questions, thanks for the understanding.

Proper cooling system maintenance is very important in head gasket health. No guarantee, but it sure helps. A '98 should have had one change already.

Check the sticky in the Tech Tips section and print it. Take it with you when you look at a car and pull the DTC's. Decipher them here. http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/dtcobd2.html

Thanks bro, apreciate the advice...


oh.. and its this thread right?
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forums/northstar-performance-technical-discussion/53635-got-codes-look-here.html

thanks again

That should do it. Let us know if you have problems.

You might want to check the technical service bulletins (http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/tsbs/tsbsearch.cfm) from the NHTSA. IIRC, there was only one recall for the '98 Eldo, but there were quite a few TSBs. If you find a car worth looking at, check to see if it shows any symptoms for the common problems.

Being a '98 motor, you're lucky in that the cooling system uses silicate-free DEX-COOL as opposed to the regular green stuff. This doesn't mean your head gaskets are invulnerable, but it offers piece of mind --- most people don't change their coolant, ever, and DEX-COOL is supposed to protect for 150,000 miles or five years. (Incidentally, when I changed the original coolant in my '98 ETC after I bought it, nearly ten years later, it still looked brand new.)

The Northstar is aluminum. While it will corrode, it will not rust, thus the coolant will look new after 50 years.