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Select one if you have had a problem with the headgasket the Northstar V8:

Northstar Headgasket/Cracked Block/Bolt Failure? Please let us know

294K views 546 replies 243 participants last post by  ihc70 
#1 ·
Here is the Definitive Northstar Headgasket Thread. Please choose your year of Cadillac and state if you have had a headgasket problem with your Seville or Eldorado and what mileage it occured at. If you have never had a problem please do not participate in the poll!
 
#516 · (Edited)
Re: Cracked engine block on 2000 Cadillacs

The "gauge" is highly damped at the 12 o'clock (188 - 210 degree) position. It is perfectly normal, under high ambient temp/heavy traffic/fans not on for the needle to go as much as 1/4" to the right. The "mechanic" who told you that slight movement is a sign of head gasket/bolt hole thread failure is full of crap.

Your Eldorado "gauge" was a slightly narrower version of this Seville gauge, but the tick marks are identical in temperature. Anything up to and including 224 degrees is normal: with no A/C function set to command fans to SLOW they don't come on until 224 degrees - well past the 12 o'clock position. The engine then cools to 213, fans shut OFF, the cycle repeats. Fans don't run over 25 - 30 mph - not needed. (The engines use the exact same temp sender - variable resistor)

An overheated Northstar IS NOT "definitely a symptom of a blown head gasket".
Do some more homework and report back on "purge line", "water pump belt tensioner pulley", "water pump", and ............. coolant leaks.

You found this poll sticky - now study the companion stickies to find out how the cooling system/fans/gauge really works.
 

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#517 · (Edited)
Maybe I should amend my post to say 'a blown head gasket can cause overheating' but the reverse is not necessarily true. In other words, an overheated engine could be caused by other problems, such as a failing water pump.

No need to get rough with your language. You don't know me, and maybe I did just enough homework, or more-so in order to make an intelligent comment to this forum. I practically wear out the Google webpage about Cadillac topics before I post to the highly critical audience over here. Why make folks afraid to ask questions or make comments?

Because Northstar always seems to provoke a strong reaction for anyone saying anything that's not 100% high praise, I hesitated a long time to post about this subject. Sorry to say I wasn't wrong about that!
 
#518 ·
Re: Definitive Northstar Headgasket Thread

No beef with you or your language - the mechanic made a very misleading statement. Stuff like that is what fosters the "Yeah, the Northstar is a POS!" and so the myth continues.

No "high praise" for the Northstar here, either. Just diagnose and fix the problems - correctly.
 
#521 ·
Re: Definitive Northstar Headgasket Thread

2000 Deville 118,000 head gasket failure and I fixed it.

However reading some of the posts here how can anybody suggest that Dex cool has anything to do with head gasket failure. I also have a 2013 Corvette that I bought new. I have been on that forum for the last 6 years and I don't recall anybody mentioning head gasket failure (300,000 members) The C6 generation of Corvette ran from 2005 to 2013 and produced 235,000 Corvettes. The current generation 2014 to present must have produced at least 125,000 and they all run on Dex cool
 
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#523 ·
99 Deville. Head gasket burnt thru #1 cylinder towards front of engine to center of coolant passage. Have pix. Looks like faint dents or scratches from when it was built started this. Gasket stuck to most of bank. Left side seemed ok and gasket not stuck. Only 100k miles. All head bolts tite and cracked loose, but had some aluminum gunk, from hardly at all to a lot more. Got pix of it all.
 
#524 ·
Is it weird to anyone else that CadillacMaster had a blown head gasket Northstar every year from 1996 to 2007????
 
#527 ·
Here is the Definitive Northstar Headgasket Thread. Please choose your year of Cadillac and state if you have had a headgasket problem with your Seville or Eldorado and what mileage it occured at. If you have never had a problem please do not participate in the poll!
Head gasket blew at 139,922 miles and I have continuously added a couple different brands of glass seal head gasket repair liquid to the water and managed to drive it to 179000 some odd miles and now a miss in the engine that cant seem to be fixed, Im sure results of the blown gasket, so now it is a driveway ornament that isnt worth fixing and i cant sell it. I dont think another cadillac will join it in the driveway. Such a shame for such a pretty and comfortable car to be such a total loss and uncalled for headache. How long has General Motors been building top of the line cars now? Far too long for this nonsense I think.

Head gasket blew at 139,922 miles and I have continuously added a couple different brands of glass seal head gasket repair liquid to the water and managed to drive it to 179000 some odd miles and now a miss in the engine that cant seem to be fixed, Im sure results of the blown gasket, so now it is a driveway ornament that isnt worth fixing and i cant sell it. I dont think another cadillac will join it in the driveway. Such a shame for such a pretty and comfortable car to be such a total loss and uncalled for headache. How long has General Motors been building top of the line cars now? Far too long for this nonsense I think.
I forgot to say it is a 2000 Eldorado Cadillac Northstar engine , adult driven and cared for its entire life and an absolute joy to own and operate, until its defects showed up. Why do Toyotas and Nissans and almost every other foreign vehicle that is built almost always outlast and outperform the best American made vehicles. Its almost like they aren't supposed to last by design and literally fall apart and become worthless at such a young age? That is a rather sad fact that cannot be denied.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
 
#529 ·
Head gasket blew at 139,922 miles and I have continuously added a couple different brands of glass seal head gasket repair liquid to the water and managed to drive it to 179000 some odd miles and now a miss in the engine that cant seem to be fixed, Im sure results of the blown gasket, so now it is a driveway ornament that isnt worth fixing and i cant sell it. I dont think another cadillac will join it in the driveway. Such a shame for such a pretty and comfortable car to be such a total loss and uncalled for headache. How long has General Motors been building top of the line cars now? Far too long for this nonsense I think.


I forgot to say it is a 2000 Eldorado Cadillac Northstar engine , adult driven and cared for its entire life and an absolute joy to own and operate, until its defects showed up. Why do Toyotas and Nissans and almost every other foreign vehicle that is built almost always outlast and outperform the best American made vehicles. Its almost like they aren't supposed to last by design and literally fall apart and become worthless at such a young age? That is a rather sad fact that cannot be denied.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
Lol. I am an ASE Master Mechanic, L1. I've worked on almost all engines for over 35 years. You are upset about a 20 year old car. Northstars were blowing up head gaskets and ruining the blocks until 2005 or so. Just because it is adult driven makes no change. It is maintenance. Did you change your coolant every 3-5 years? I bet not.

I see a lot of Nissan 3.5 V6 engines burning/leaking oil lately, having camshaft timing chain issues and blowing up engines. Toyota Camrys from 1998-2004 or so were no different. Most of them were driven by conservative adults also, never seeing over 2500 RPM.

It's a shame to see all those Nissan Maximas to be a total loss, being the proof in the pudding.
 
#531 · (Edited)
My brother’s 2003 DeVille DTS now has a blown head gasket/pulled head bolt. Car overheats within minutes of driving, loses coolant, misfires at startup, and blows white smoke out of the exhaust really badly. The cost of repair could be feasible, but trying to find a shop that’ll repair the Northstar properly and going through the hassle of transporting it there would be a headache. Unfortunately, the car will probably be sold for cheap while he buys another vehicle. It’s sad since the car only has I believe 97,000 miles on it and it’s clean overall. My 2000 DeVille thankfully has never shown any symptoms of head gasket/head bolt failure and has over 123,000 miles on it.
 
#533 · (Edited)
If that shop was closer, then maybe he would consider it, but going all the way to Chicago from southwestern Ohio is 5 and 1/2 hours away. He doesn’t have a truck and trailer to haul it with either (although I guess he could Uhaul it). I don’t know. It’s just quite a bit of hassle for him to go through at this time. Maybe someone else would want it and could get it fixed. It’s very nice except for the HG issue. He’s planning to buy a Chevy Trailblazer from a relative who’s giving him a great deal on it.
 
#534 ·
2005 Deville, blown at 132000. Dropped the subframe in my garage in four hours. Got the engine disassembled to find coolant build up on the head gasket. No aluminum on the bolts. Studding the block with Northstar Performance studs. Block and heads are not warped. It has a misfire on cold starts for 2 years, never overheated. Until a few weeks ago the misfire got worse on a cold start then started to blow white smoke out the exhaust. Took the sparks out to find coolant in my #1 cylinder. Assuming it blew due to poor cooling system maintenance by the previous owners which caused the build up on the gasket and caused a hot spot.
 
#535 ·
1999 STS at 113k miles. Bought the car in pretty much unknown condition. All i got to know is that it wouldn't start. When i replaced the fuel pump and got it running it was pretty much obvious that i had more than just a fuel pump problem. All head bolts were tight but the coolant was probably never changed on this engine. Curious to know if the buildup under the gasket is from somebody trying head gasket repair on a can or something similiar?
590637
590636
 
#536 ·
Welcome Aboard !!!

The brown goop looks like the result of some magic sealant potion. 1998 - 1999 were the worst years for failed head bolt threads - thread size and porosities in the block. The block casting process and metallurgy was changed for the 2000 and later engines.

Even if it felt like the bolts were tight a couple of the fire rings look like some coolant had leaked past them, into the cylinders.

NOT a Northstar head gasket -

Auto part
 
#537 · (Edited)
STS 2002
beginning Head Gasket fail at 193750mls (310000km), but did run daily max V ( > 125 mls/h, 200Km/h) for at least 40.000 km (25000 mls) beforehand.
The engine is driven on LPG (not more than 3000 rpm, in town and rual areas) and unleaded premium.
On the autobahn premium gas only.

I'm not sure if that's to blame on the Northstar engine design as I managed to blow up a BMW 750i V12 Head Gasket too, bc of high speed driving.
And BMWs are supposed to be autobahnfest, one can not assume an american car is. (Build with the USA mandatory speed limits in mind)
But I wanted to prove they nevertheless hold up to it.
 
#538 ·
Have had two HG failures on Caddys

First one was a 1994 STS mileage was 136000 miles at failure, coolant not taken care of, everything else was mint on the car, changed them myself using the time sert kit sold it after another 20000miles also had a bad rear main seal leak

Second one was a 1999 Deville 92,000 miles shop car came in as an abandoned repair sat for a while, older gentleman driven, coolant was never flushed, purge line full of stuff, we overode fans to run on high always, did a throttle body bypass, kept AC off, someone in the shop added what looked like an air bleeder screw on the upper rad hose or another purge line I am not sure, kid you not it went another 50,000miles doing burnouts WOT daily not even using premium gas by the end of it all we may have locked a cylinder we are unsure but had a misfire then it was scraped, I give the car props for what it went through we were adding about half a 3.78qt bottle of dex cool every 2 weeks however one of the mechanics at the shop hated snake oil and refused to use it said either add distilled water or waste dexcool lol I recall before we lost the one cylinder and it could have been a wire or o2 sensor.
 
#542 ·
I love this thread. Because I own a shop that specialized in these. We kind of transitioned to Corvettes and now we just do high end cars in general. But we still have a strong Northstar following. There are companies out there that built their business around the Northstar and as sales have declined are pushing their products as a preventative repair on all Northstars. And the data just doesn't support that. There was a redesign in 2000 but the castings were weak. That was resolved at some point in early 2002. So you have a 2003 or later your chances of headgasket failure in my experience is no more than any other car on the road on average. Don't let people scare you into spending thousands needlessly.
 
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