I was returning my Grandpas SSR today and noticed a Fleetwood for sale by his house. It was an '84 Fleetwood Brougham. It has the 4.1 I guess? It has wire hubcaps, the cloth interior, a sunroof (looks OEM...), etc. The interior is immaculate. It's tripple blue. Deep blue exterior, dark blue vinyl top, and medium blue interior. It has the regual "stripey" seats. The only flaw I saw from scanning it was the normal beat up tail light fins. The part that extends out from the quarter until the chrome housing on the taillights. The one is actually cracked and they're both paint faded. Besides that, the car is great. It looked like 107,000 on it. The car is probably 1 owner since it's a neighborhood for really old people. They probably ought it brand new and drove it a little every day. The price was $1,000. Is that reasonable? It seemed like it. Does the 4.1 in the car have the same problem from my '89 4.5 with the high idle and stuff? Anything I should look for specifically? Thanks.

Bumpity bizzump.

Naturally you should check all the usual things to look for when buying a used car; brakes, leaking / burning oil, tires and shocks, the list goes on and on. Basically, this Brougham will be a fine vehicle with gas prices the way they are, just don't expect to do 0-60 in less than about 20 seconds. The cracked parts you're talking about are the bumper fillers. You can get them off eBay, your local yards, or Cadillacking.com. You might want to hop around on the 4.1 forum and ask about the engine if you're concerned or worried, but if it only has 107 thousand and has been somewhat well maintained, you should be good to go!

Brian

Those bumper fillers, the broken tail light plastic things, you can get aftermarket now and have them painted and installed. If the blue is badly faded then you might want to take into concideration that you may have to repaint the entire car, which will look sharp, but will cost you some $$$. This guy's opinion is see if you can't find a better one somewhere. I'm not a big fan of the HT4100 engine and you won't get very good performance out of a 4.1 Brougham. I would look in the late 80's early 90's range for Broughams because of the 307 and 350 engines and they're usually in better condition. If you however think this 84 is worth it go for it, just don't do it because it's got the astroroof, make sure the rest of the car is in good enough shape.

I would not want any 4.1 car personally. The 4.1 is more troublesome than the 307 Olds and Chevy powered Fleetwoods, and its weaker too. The Olds powered models are really underpowered but real reliable. The Chevy powered ones (especially the 5.7 models) are the really the best IMO. :thumbsup:

There's an '84 Fleetwood Sedan on ebay with the diesel engine. It has very little mileage and looks factory new. i think it is triple blue, too. Anyway it is nice - I think is has been bid up to almost $4,000 already.

What would that diesel drive like compared to the 4.1? Power and MPG, etc I wonder.

Well as with any other open deck caddy motor, keep cooling system servied. Use the freakin pellets man they work. Maybe go so far as to install a temperature gauge to monitor any change in temp. Had a 4.1 in my 84 eldo, if it hadnt beent hat the water pump threw a belt, and the blonde hottie drivin it was too blonde to pull over and turn it off, it blew head gaskets, as most any car would...except for an isuzu... but with a flowmaster and cat removal, nothing even special with the tune up it was fairly quick, no 15 second car but it was more than adequate and sounded nice. I still miss it, despite how hard my 91 deville tries to fill that void.

-The Cadillac Rancher

I would avoid the HT4100. As stated the bumper fillers can be replaced, for a couple hundred. The astroroof is pretty damn rare, so if the rest of the car is in good shape I'd pick it up anyway, run the HT4100 until it dies, then drop a 500/472 in there. I'd reccomend putting a few hundred bucks in a savings account for when that 4100 bites it so you can swap a 500/472 or if you want a slightly more economical engine maybe a 4.5 could fit the bill.