'98 Eldorado

Looks great in photos

Everything is said to be working fine

Claim it's been well maintained

132,900 miles

It's at a Cadillac Dealership $4,000.

I'm 3 hours away and value your opinion before I take a day off work, get the money at the bank and drive over.

I was set to go until I did a search on consumer reports. Not good. Then found this site and have read horror stories about the head gasket problem.

What's your take?

Thanks for your help. Randy

Hard to say. You'll have to take it for a good ride and stand on it some. See if it overheats. Pull the DTC's.

Thanks Ranger.

I'm waiting to hear back from the Sales Manager with his reply to my request to speak with the previous owner. I'm going to ask if it's ever had any overheating issues, transmission issues, electrical issues.

The manager's first reply was it would be a violation of privacy laws for him to release the previous owners contact info. That sounds like baloney to me, but said he would first contact the previous owner and see if he would agree to speak with me. If I'm not permitted to talk with the previous owner, who is a repeat customer at this dealership, I'm going to pass. Make sense?

If the previous owner is a repeat customer at the dealership. One would assume he used the dealership to repair it/maintain it. The dealer should be able to give you a service history with the VIN.

Good point mtflight! Thanks! :cool2:

Its very similar to the 99 STS I have with 134K. Its a crap shoot man, like ranger said you need to drive it and pull codes. And you have to take the HG problem with a grain of salt, yeah it happens but not nearly as often as everyone seems to think it does. I mean take this forum for example. This is by far the site with the most members and the most dedication from members for not only cadillacs in general but Sevilles especially. How often do you see a thread on here that says HG failure? Maybe once a month? Granted thats a small sampling of Seville owners, but if you figure that there are at least 1000 seville owners on here, at least 100 of which are every day visitors. So if there are HG failures on here a month, thats 24 a year. 24 out of 1000 per year? thats a 2% chance youre HG will fail.

Oh and you can be certain that you will have SOME electrical problems.

Well, I'm not so concerned about the HG issue now. Thanks.

I just spoke with the previous owner. He raved about the car. Said he got it in 2000 and has never had a problem with it except when he had to have the struts changed. Never overheated, no issues with tranny and never an electrical problem. Says he's changed the oil every 3K miles and put new tires on it a couple months ago. Said his wife told him he HAD to get a 4 door.

My son's pushing for me to wait for a lower mileage car.

I'm not fond of electrical problems. Seems every time I had one with a '92 BMW they cost about $800 and the car was good for 3 a year.

Oh my. What to do what to do. Thanks for your input.

I am sorry, 138,000 miles is a lot of mileage for a car. If you want sometning with fewer cost go for something with a lot less miles. Spend an extra couple of grand and save in the long run; these are are not inexpensive cars to maintain so get the lowest mileage, best maintained car you can find .......... and keep it well maintained and it will serve you well. Good luck in your car searc!

I have one in the same (Eldo) and haven't had any electrical issues. I think those are more common on the Sevilles. Is it a base Eldo or the Touring Coupe?

I wouldn't worry about electrical problems too much, you WILL have them, but they will most likely be trivial things like, once in a while your speakers will only play music on the driver side of the car until you move the balance and then adjust it back to center.

If you're a perfectionist then you probably wont be happy with any eldo/seville except a 2004. I have NEVER heard of a eldo/seville owner pulling codes for the first time and it not throwing any.

Your have to remember youre buying a car that was 50+ grand new. Its gonna have a whole shit pot of gizmos and electrical wizardry, and on a 10 year old car, some of those gizmos and electrical dodads are gonna be broken already, or break. Mileage doesnt really have a bearing on the electrical except to say in my experience higher mileage cars have already made it past the point of their defects.

Well, the 2000 I just bought has 45K miles and was just under $12K -- so it's priced similarly to mine -- 1/3 of the price for 3 times the miles.

If this is going to be a toy car that you put 4-5K miles/year on, I'd say maybe. But if you're going to dump 15-20K miles on it in a year, you're only going to have a couple of years and then it will probably be toast.

At least, it's already had the struts replaced. I'd be shocked though if the A/C lasts much longer if it's the original. My Concours' failed at 48K miles as I was driving it back from buying it, and this ETC I just bought has already had its compressor replaced.

I personally wouldn't want to start out w/a car that has that many miles. I might keep one that I've run up to that many miles, but I'd be tempted to fix a lot of problems on the thing if I just bought it, throwing good money after bad.

Well guys, I appreciate your opinions wisdom and advice. Thank you.

After more searching, I have a good idea of how much more I'd have to pay to get the car with much lower mileage. That makes more sense to me now. I got rid of my older BMW because something was always needing fixed. No need to walk into potentially a similar situation because I've fallen in love with the looks of this black beauty.

The good is I found this website and intelligent, helpful people.

I'm going to take the next couple months searching for a low mileage Eldo. I DO love the looks of that car.

I pass on this one.

I have my own take on these cars. I have had two Sevilles, a 95 that was beat to hell with 159K on it and a 98 that was well maintained with 119K on it. The 95 needed a transmission(knew it when I bought it), swaybar links/bushings, and a thermostat on it, that was IT. I put 20K miles on it without any major issues. My 98 needed a HG(again knew it when I bought it), an 02 sensor and some AC work and that is it, I have put 10K miles on it and I would trust it to cross the country.

If even slightly maintained the N* platform is near unbreakable, I wouldn't be afraid of these cars at all. As far as luxury goes, they are some of the more reliable and cheaper ones to own.

Yeah I'd concur with JC316. I kinda liked the idea you met the previous owner. I go mine with 69K on the clock in 05. It now has 111K.

I replaced the radiator, alternator, rad fan, surge tank & cap, strut mounts & mounts (was not necessary), AC fan blower, 2 oil lines, 1 trans line (well,been meaning to replace it).

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h267/mtflight/ctssportwheels.jpg
(w Photochop CTS sport wheels)

Plus it's batman's car too...
4p-3McYJvos

So all in all, I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. It's been in several road trips, and has performed flawlessly. It never ceases to excite me on the road, especially when passing....

ttttttttttttt

I think you are wise to pass on this one. The extra cost of a low mileage car is is small compared to the potential benefit in terms of cost of maintenance. Good luck on your search for the Eldorado of your desires.

They're out there -- especially in the 75K-100K range.