Admiral
09-23-06, 07:48 PM
Hello,
I recently had a personal technician replace the head gasket of my 99 Seville SLS. The culprit, we believe, was the failure to replace the coolant every 2 years and use the Coolant Supplement pellets required by GM for this type of engine which caused electrolysis to eat away at the head gasket.
Having said that, my technician put the engine back together and now, when it starts, there is a distinct clicking in the engine that he calls a "Valve tap". He told me that in his research in the Cadillac "forums", that he found this noise was common when a Northstar was "opened up" and would
soon go away after time. I've got about 1000 miles on the car since his job was completed a month ago and the noise is still there at startup.
Now after the engine gets hot, you can not hear this valve tap noise.
What I'm concerned about is:
1) Is this a normal condition?
2) Will it "go away" eventually so I will not hear it when the engine is cold?
3) If this is NOT a normal condition, what do I tell my technician as to what he might have failed to properly do. This was his first Northstar, but he's very good at his job working for himself. The car runs great except for this little valve tap noise when the engine starts. And by the way, a cold start in my area is 80 degrees.
And for you other guys out there reading this I'll tell you that I bought the
car very clean with 46000 miles with everything working except for THIS FREAKING HEAD GASKET DISGUISE. My mechanic/tech guy charged me $2500 for this job which was his first Northstar. While I had the engine open, I had him replace the starter motor and alternator, both 7 years old because they are inside of the engine.
My mechanic, we will call him Tony, said that this car was designed to be serviced by a "dealer". He said that my engine was the most difficult to work on that he's ever had to service in the 30 years he's been working for himself. He said the design was such that the car should be raised whereby the motor was meant to be taken out from the bottom to be worked on and that usually only "dealers" would have tools like that to perform that kind of work.
He also showed me the cuts on his hands where he would go to do something and get a small cut because the engine block was not smoothed out by machinery when it was designed and built by GM. He said that the engine cryed out, "NO, YOU CAN'T WORK ON ME!". So does that mean a dealer would fix my headgasket problem? Let's talk about it while I'm in a mood to rant.
Tony told me that my headgasket was my problem long before I paid the local dealership $175 to tell me I had a bad headgasket and a half block oil leak. Each of these estimates, the dealer said was $2800. Add that up you get $5400. And on the estimate, the service advisor at the dealership said that if it "pulls a time-sert", you will need a new engine.
Since my mechanic has been rebuilding engines for 30 years, he's well connected. Once he agreed to help me, he did some research and found
that people who bought these Cadillacs were not doing the proper "dealership" maintenance, specifically not changing the coolant and using the GM Coolant Supplement pellets that is required in all the repair manuals,with a warning on the lable clearly visible on a sticker on the plastic radiator cover of the car.
He said that by not changing the coolant every 2 years and by not using
the supplemental pellets from GM to seal gaskets that could have a prososity problem, that the process of electrolysis occured over time eating away at the engine from the inside.
I have never found anything in the car's owner's manual to tell me this. There is nothing on the package of Dex Cool coolant to say it could last anthing less than 150,000 miles.
It's like a "dealership conspiracy". Call up a Jiffy lube or a convenience oil change center and say you have a Cadillac Seville and need a coolant flush. Tell them that you will provide, from the dealership, the necessary coolant supplement pellets, but they or you will need to crush at least 3 of them (pack 6) and place them in the top radiator hose, (NOT THE RESIVIOUR) and they will look at you like you are crazy. None I've seen knows what the heck I'm talking about. You see, GM knew this was happening and they also knew that people were not taking these cars to the dealership to get the coolant changed and this electrolysis breakdown of the gaskets was happening. All the while, GM was selling these extended warantees with, I'm told, "conditions." Improper maintenance voids warantees, which they could prove the customer was not changing the coolant with the use of the required pellets and the warantee would be void so........
GM, I was told, knowing these problems existed with improper cooling system maintenance, dropped the price of their engines from roughly $8900 to around $5000.
Remember what I said before. The headgasket estimate was $2800. The oil leak was $2800. Combined jobs equals $5400. Price of new engine (if it pulled a time-sert) was about close. Remember my guy said the way to work on this was to drop it from the bottom of the car?
My guy said that by design, and in places, the aluminum block's oil leak was nothing to worry about, yet the dealer wanted $2800. My car is fixed and I see no oil on my garage floor. Tony did nothing to fix any oil leak.
All my Time-Serts were fine.
What I truely believe is that If I let the dealer fix the head gasket and just forget about fixing the "oil leak" (that I have never seen), then they would tell me that it pulled a time-cert (like the service advisor put on the estimate) and convinced me that I needed a new engine. What a scam!
When I told the Service Advisor at Cadillac that I would be taking my car back he told me that I made the right decision, yet he did not tell me the story that I'm warning you guys about right here. Those guys didn't want to fix my headgasket. They wanted to sell me a new engine. I truely believe it was their intention if I let them fix this car.
Some of you guys out there make so much money, that you take your car to the dealership when you want normal maintenance performed and the "dealer" milks you every time. Since you guys have so much money, you get the proper service, but you are really paying much more than you should.
I'm a poor guy that don't drive much, but likes a Cadillac, a smooth ride and absolutely HATES TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. I've got a very smart mechanic that warns me that this car is a cauldron of things to go wrong and keeping it up is very costly. Both of us are blue collar workers. But he's right, he tells me the truth and he certainly don't try to fix something that is not broke or tell me something is bad when it is not.
If you guys with a pot of money knew someone that could fix your car like I do, then you could probably invest the difference in a good growth-stock mutual fund instead ot paying the dealership to milk you dry.
I'm getting tired and heading off to bed. If anyone knows any good comparable stories, please email them to me at richardgreen@comcast.net
PS. My mechanic says cars are built today to last about 7 years. If anyone has a statement about that, please sent it my way.
[email]richardgreen@comcas.net[email]
I recently had a personal technician replace the head gasket of my 99 Seville SLS. The culprit, we believe, was the failure to replace the coolant every 2 years and use the Coolant Supplement pellets required by GM for this type of engine which caused electrolysis to eat away at the head gasket.
Having said that, my technician put the engine back together and now, when it starts, there is a distinct clicking in the engine that he calls a "Valve tap". He told me that in his research in the Cadillac "forums", that he found this noise was common when a Northstar was "opened up" and would
soon go away after time. I've got about 1000 miles on the car since his job was completed a month ago and the noise is still there at startup.
Now after the engine gets hot, you can not hear this valve tap noise.
What I'm concerned about is:
1) Is this a normal condition?
2) Will it "go away" eventually so I will not hear it when the engine is cold?
3) If this is NOT a normal condition, what do I tell my technician as to what he might have failed to properly do. This was his first Northstar, but he's very good at his job working for himself. The car runs great except for this little valve tap noise when the engine starts. And by the way, a cold start in my area is 80 degrees.
And for you other guys out there reading this I'll tell you that I bought the
car very clean with 46000 miles with everything working except for THIS FREAKING HEAD GASKET DISGUISE. My mechanic/tech guy charged me $2500 for this job which was his first Northstar. While I had the engine open, I had him replace the starter motor and alternator, both 7 years old because they are inside of the engine.
My mechanic, we will call him Tony, said that this car was designed to be serviced by a "dealer". He said that my engine was the most difficult to work on that he's ever had to service in the 30 years he's been working for himself. He said the design was such that the car should be raised whereby the motor was meant to be taken out from the bottom to be worked on and that usually only "dealers" would have tools like that to perform that kind of work.
He also showed me the cuts on his hands where he would go to do something and get a small cut because the engine block was not smoothed out by machinery when it was designed and built by GM. He said that the engine cryed out, "NO, YOU CAN'T WORK ON ME!". So does that mean a dealer would fix my headgasket problem? Let's talk about it while I'm in a mood to rant.
Tony told me that my headgasket was my problem long before I paid the local dealership $175 to tell me I had a bad headgasket and a half block oil leak. Each of these estimates, the dealer said was $2800. Add that up you get $5400. And on the estimate, the service advisor at the dealership said that if it "pulls a time-sert", you will need a new engine.
Since my mechanic has been rebuilding engines for 30 years, he's well connected. Once he agreed to help me, he did some research and found
that people who bought these Cadillacs were not doing the proper "dealership" maintenance, specifically not changing the coolant and using the GM Coolant Supplement pellets that is required in all the repair manuals,with a warning on the lable clearly visible on a sticker on the plastic radiator cover of the car.
He said that by not changing the coolant every 2 years and by not using
the supplemental pellets from GM to seal gaskets that could have a prososity problem, that the process of electrolysis occured over time eating away at the engine from the inside.
I have never found anything in the car's owner's manual to tell me this. There is nothing on the package of Dex Cool coolant to say it could last anthing less than 150,000 miles.
It's like a "dealership conspiracy". Call up a Jiffy lube or a convenience oil change center and say you have a Cadillac Seville and need a coolant flush. Tell them that you will provide, from the dealership, the necessary coolant supplement pellets, but they or you will need to crush at least 3 of them (pack 6) and place them in the top radiator hose, (NOT THE RESIVIOUR) and they will look at you like you are crazy. None I've seen knows what the heck I'm talking about. You see, GM knew this was happening and they also knew that people were not taking these cars to the dealership to get the coolant changed and this electrolysis breakdown of the gaskets was happening. All the while, GM was selling these extended warantees with, I'm told, "conditions." Improper maintenance voids warantees, which they could prove the customer was not changing the coolant with the use of the required pellets and the warantee would be void so........
GM, I was told, knowing these problems existed with improper cooling system maintenance, dropped the price of their engines from roughly $8900 to around $5000.
Remember what I said before. The headgasket estimate was $2800. The oil leak was $2800. Combined jobs equals $5400. Price of new engine (if it pulled a time-sert) was about close. Remember my guy said the way to work on this was to drop it from the bottom of the car?
My guy said that by design, and in places, the aluminum block's oil leak was nothing to worry about, yet the dealer wanted $2800. My car is fixed and I see no oil on my garage floor. Tony did nothing to fix any oil leak.
All my Time-Serts were fine.
What I truely believe is that If I let the dealer fix the head gasket and just forget about fixing the "oil leak" (that I have never seen), then they would tell me that it pulled a time-cert (like the service advisor put on the estimate) and convinced me that I needed a new engine. What a scam!
When I told the Service Advisor at Cadillac that I would be taking my car back he told me that I made the right decision, yet he did not tell me the story that I'm warning you guys about right here. Those guys didn't want to fix my headgasket. They wanted to sell me a new engine. I truely believe it was their intention if I let them fix this car.
Some of you guys out there make so much money, that you take your car to the dealership when you want normal maintenance performed and the "dealer" milks you every time. Since you guys have so much money, you get the proper service, but you are really paying much more than you should.
I'm a poor guy that don't drive much, but likes a Cadillac, a smooth ride and absolutely HATES TO BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. I've got a very smart mechanic that warns me that this car is a cauldron of things to go wrong and keeping it up is very costly. Both of us are blue collar workers. But he's right, he tells me the truth and he certainly don't try to fix something that is not broke or tell me something is bad when it is not.
If you guys with a pot of money knew someone that could fix your car like I do, then you could probably invest the difference in a good growth-stock mutual fund instead ot paying the dealership to milk you dry.
I'm getting tired and heading off to bed. If anyone knows any good comparable stories, please email them to me at richardgreen@comcast.net
PS. My mechanic says cars are built today to last about 7 years. If anyone has a statement about that, please sent it my way.
[email]richardgreen@comcas.net[email]