Well, here we are again. And oh look, we’ve got a couple of cheap cars to consider! Today, we’re running with the Early Bird Specials and Werther’s Originals crowd. But first, we need to settle up Friday’s matchup:
Looks like S.W.’s reputation puts his Jag in front! I’m inclined to agree: when it comes to cheap cars, how it has been treated in the past however many years matters a lot more than how it was built.
Now then, today’s cars both appear to have the same history. I can’t be sure, of course, but both of these cars feel like something taken away from an elderly owner after they could no longer safely drive. It happens, and it’s never a fun time, but it’s for the best. And as a side effect, it frees up a good used car for someone else. So let’s take a look at see how these two measure up.
1997 Cadillac DeVille – $2,499
Engine/drivetrain: 4.6 liter DOHC V8, 4 speed automatic, FWD
Location: El Cajon, CA
Odometer reading: 62,000 miles
Runs/drives? Sure does
Almost no car says “retired elderly driver” as strongly as a Cadillac DeVille. Of course, it also kind of said “mob boss” 20 years ago, but I think they’ve all moved on to Escalades now. A silvery-beige DeVille with low miles, in Southern California? Retiree.
By the time this DeVille was built, there was no need to specify “Sedan DeVille;” the Coupe had been discontinued the generation before, in 1993. This generation DeVille was bigger, sleeker, and faster than its predecessor, with Cadillac’s Northstar V8, packing either 270 or 300 horsepower under the hood, depending on trim level. Not that you need that much power to get to the golf course, but Cadillacs not too many years prior were downright pokey, so the Northstar was a welcome infusion of power.
What wasn’t as welcome were the Northstar’s teething problems, most notably head gasket failures and oil consumption. These problems are well-understood these days, and there are fixes, but we have no way of knowing if this car had encountered those issues or if any repairs have been done, and if so if they were done correctly.
It’s a very low-mileage car, and apart from a wrinkle on the right rear door, it looks like it’s in good shape. One wonders if the wrinkle in the door was the reason for the keys being taken away; it has the look of a garage-door-edge hit rather than a traffic altercation.
This car could be a decent deal, if there are service records and everything checks out. It could also be a nightmarish money pit that will end up in the junkyard in six months after making you late for work for the last time. With a Northstar Cadillac, it’s all about the maintenance.
2000 Chrysler LHS – $2,400
Engine/drivetrain: 3.5 liter V6, 4 speed automatic, FWD
Location: Blaine, MN
Odometer reading: 144,000 miles
Runs/drives? You betcha
Chrysler’s LH chassis cars bridged the gap between the earlier long-running K-based sedans, and the now even-longer-running LX rear-wheel-drive cars. The LH came in a lot of flavors; this LHS was a mid-level model, tuned for comfort over handling, but not as squishy as something like a Buick LeSabre.
The LHS is powered by a 3.5 liter single-overhead-cam V6 with four valves per cylinder, putting out a healthy 253 horsepower. Like the DeVille, this car is no slouch, as sofas-on-wheels go. It’s a bit sportier inside, with bucket seats and a console-mounted shifter in place of a more traditional bench seat and gearshift on the column. And as a graphic design and typography nerd, I have to say I really like Chrysler’s design and font choice for the gauges in the LHS:
This LHS is a Minnesota car, and as such, has a bit of rust here and there. A peek underneath to see how advanced it is wouldn’t be a bad idea. It has more than twice as many miles on it as the Cadillac, but still not a lot, and the seller says it runs and drives well and has had a lot of recent maintenance work done. It’s a little banged up, but it still looks reasonably good.
There is that Minnesota rust to consider, though.
This car strikes me as a safer bet than the Cadillac, but it’s also likely not as comfortable, nor does it have the Cadillac name, if that matters to you. But it’s a much more modern looking and feeling car, and a little smaller and easier to live with.
Former-old-folks cars aren’t for everyone; you have to be okay with an automatic, and don’t plan on doing much canyon-carving. But for a nice comfy daily ride, they’re not a bad option. Which one of these two gets your vote?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
At $2500, get the Caddy and see how long it will go before the Northstar bites you.
The Chrysler looks like shit and has few other redeeming features.
Another Caddy guy here – definitely the DeVille. Aside from the door, this one doesn’t look all that bad. As to the Northstar, I’m well aware of the issues, but in my own limited experience, it was a great engine. We bought a ’98 Eldorado in 2004 with just shy of 100K miles on it. Drove it to 190K without issue, and sold it to a local couple. They proceeded to put another 100K on it and sold it cheap to a kid sometime around 2014. Sounded like it was getting pretty worn out in general at that point, but making it to almost 300K without needing head gaskets showed there were a few good ones out there. I’m ready to roll those dice again!
Gimme the V8 luxobarge every time
Del Boca Vista baby! As to the choice of which shitbox is preferred? Neither, no way in hell…..
A choice like this is the same as choosing which pair of disposable diapers to wear on any given day.
No thanks! But if anyone wants to meet for coffee, I hear Country Kitchen is open at 3 today for the Coffee Happy Hour. 2 cups for the price of one. Such a deal.
Never Stellantis.
I’ve been a Caddy guy for the past year, and have come to appreciate them more than I ever thought I would. Caddy all day long!
The Cadillac. We had a very nice reliable Eldorado with the Northstar V8. Well over 100K with nary a problem. Changed the oil every 5K and did regular scheduled maintenance. I think this had a lot to do with my lack of problems. Sold it for a 2007 STS which was an even better car. Traded that for a 2019 CT6 w/3 litre V6 twin turbo. Scary fast car.
Reviewing the above you might think I am a Cadillac man. Here in the US that is correct. During my 18 years in Germany it was MB, Audi, BMW and best of all a 1970 Citroen CX2000. Oh and VW.
I love cars!
LHS. No question.
If an LHS makes it 144k? It will make it another 144k. I saw a LOT of these cars in warranty and they only ever came in two versions. Ones that were lemons, and ones that could not be killed. Keep up on the fluids and it will basically run forever. (And don’t fucking mix HOAT with glycol.)
The Northstar isn’t a ticking time bomb; it’s a grenade with the pin pulled. Quite frankly, Northstar owners by and large only sell their cars when the big engine repair bill comes due. And when the inevitable failures happen, they throw a can or three of stop-leak into it and dump it fast.
That destroyed rear door doesn’t say ‘grandpa versus garage.’ Elderly Caddy owner would have had that repaired. Those cars are usually their pride and joy; they don’t skimp on maintenance and they certainly don’t leave them looking like that. So far more likely that grandpa logged about 12,000 miles and junior didn’t change the oil once in the past 40,000.
with the exception of the P9001 computer issue that plagued them they were really a great car. the trunk could hold at least 5 bodies, the seats were comfy, the 3.5 is and was a pretty reliable mill, far more so than the Northstar. I would bet the shocks are shot on the caddy and the seals in the split block leak like a sieve, even with low miles. Had this beed the L05 Caddilac Fleetwood of just a year prior, the GM SBC (not the horrid LT1) engine and drove the rear wheels I might consider the caddy instead though. those are pretty low miles.
Caddy easy. Yes the Northstar is a time bomb, but so is the Chrylser transmission. At least it isn’t rusted. Are there non-Northstar swaps available for the Caddys?
Isn’t it just a head bolt replacement / head stud upgrade to solve the Northstar’s ills?
I think that is all they need, but it won’t add any power. It seems like an LS out of one of the front wheel drive cop cars would be doable, but I’m not sure. It probably isn’t worth the effort. If I was going to swap a Caddy it would be in a big Fleetwood Brougham from the 80s.
I agree on the LS swap not being worth the effort, especially with the door stoved in. If you can do the head bolts/studs yourself, you might have a cushy ride that will last you a while.
Lived in San Diego County for 8 years or so, and if the Caddy has been there most of its life, $2500 is fine for what it is. It is very unlikely to have any rust. It looks like the door is fairly cheap, and if you REALLY are OCD, you could get a re-spray of the same color. Then you have a great highway cruiser for long trips. It needs full synthetic every 5k miles, though. If the engine survived this long without self-destruction, and was owned by an older driver, I would bet it was more likely to have been maintained well vs the Concorde. Or, if you have a young wrencher around, or someone who needs to learn how to do an engine swap, you could get really ambitious and get a post 2000 version of this same engine (which fixed a LOT of the issues) and drop it in, and really have a reliable vehicle for probably less than $5-6k all in.
I suspect the Chrysler has rust you can’t see, and I wouldn’t risk it, even if it was given to me.
I was born in La Mesa and lived the first two decades of my life in El Cajon. That Caddy probably belongs to a buddy’s parent. I myself will never live to be old enough to want to be seen in either of these cars, but that Caddy has never even seen… what do you wet people call that water-from-the-sky wizardry…? “Rain”? Yeah, that. Never saw it, and certainly never met a single snowflake, nor any salt on the roads. (Probably never bothered to hit a beach parking lot, or indeed anywhere west of Mission Valley.) And I will happily swap an engine three times before I will voluntarily deal with upper midwestern rust on a used car, no matter how bulletproof the drivetrain.
“(Probably never bothered to hit a beach parking lot, or indeed anywhere west of Mission Valley.)”
I laughed. So true. Of course, the irony of that is that the May Gray and June Gloom found west of 163 and I-15 (sorry I mean ‘the 15’) give some respite to the sun’s never ending quest to fade exteriors and interiors of cars like this.
That being said, as a PA native who spent a handful of brutal winters living a stones throw from Lake Erie, I would STILL take the Cadillac…bad door, Northstar and all, over almost anything not new or CPO from the Great lakes region.
I went with the Caddy as there is gaping rust threatening to sheer the door off with a good fart.
I also have Caddy with the 2nd Gen Northstar where the headgasket and oil pan issues were fixed. Still a Caddy so expect higher prices to maintain, though it is such a good looking and running car now I will throw a few hundred at it here and there.
Just watch out of the fuel pump short. Learned that the hard way. New fuel pump and install, pretty easy. Sourcing the burned fuse panel under the rear seat, not so much. Doesn’t help there are 4 versions depending on the options. In the end, I could not replace the car or anything near as good for the price of repair.
Tough call but I’ll say LHS.
The driver’s door also shows some (lesser) rust, and along the lines of what StillNotATony said, the lack of visible rust in seemingly other obvious places makes me wonder if this is mostly a door-related thing rather than an entire underbody problem. Roll them dice.
I loved the cabforward look back in the day, across the line…fit the jellybean design ethos of the era quite well I thought.
It does seem to be confined to the doors themselves. Makes me wonder if there’s some design quirk that makes these trap water in the bottoms of the doors.
The caddy may be a time bomb, but it’s gonna be a smooth ride up until the end.
Oof. Saw enough of the Chryslers when I was a service writer that I have pretty much the exact same feelings towards it as most have for the Northstar.
I guess give me the caddy?
Survivor bias. I saw just as many.
Like I said; the LHS came in lemon or invulnerable with nothing in between. Either it ate TCMs every 3 months, or the big complaint was poor radio reception. You didn’t remember the ones that were just LOF and spotty radio because the antenna was loose, but you sure as shit remembered the ones that warranty admin was demanding to know why you were doing another BCM.
I always wondered whether these things ate computers due to a parts quality issue, assembly, or a design (on the vehicle) flaw? If I had to guess, it’s probably a combination of the first two.
Parts quality and design defect. 100% dead certain.
These were very early generation computer-controlled regulators. The PCM would adjust the regulator output based on several factors including battery voltage, battery temperature, ambient air temperature, load, etcetera. So they could range from 11.2V to 14.8V in normal operating conditions.
This means that there’s additional load placed on internal regulators in modules, and additional voltage fluctuations, as part of normal operation. But I’m absolutely certain these modules were not designed with that in mind and don’t have enough voltage capacitance to handle the swings. Plus there were batches with cold solder joints which didn’t help either. And cost-cutting made some years more vulnerable to corrosion in connectors.
The most problematic cars, I remember quite well, were those which were not properly maintained (42LE’s do not like it if you burn the fluid, and they had inadequate cooling for the stated lifespan due to cost cutting. Shorten the fluid interval from 60k and they’re fine.) And those which saw lots of temperature swings or had iffy batteries.
Also a service writer in a former life..I hated both choices here. But what was even worse was telling Grandpas how much it was gonna cost to repair, service their ill chosen piece of shit ride. Wish you a good one friend…
My dad had a 300M from that period. Beautiful car, good performer, but it gave him endless problems until he finally had to sue the Chrysler dealer to get them to buy the car back. The twist: the dealership in question was the one my dad worked at.
I picked the Caddy. In this case, the devil I know is just too big of a bastard.
(For the record, I have owned three Mopars since my dad’s unfortunate experience, and the only problem I had was the early Pentastar head gasket issue, repaired under warranty.)
I couldn’t do either of these. Maybe if the LHS didn’t have an ironworm infestation. The cab forward designs are smooth and really nice on the highway. But the body rot on this example is likely not just the door. It’s probably structural. And if it was any other Caddy, with RWD, that would be fine too. It’s just that the whole way they designed this particular model is fundamentally horked. You can’t really save it from itself. It will self-destruct like a skinny blonde on meth. Do not be tempted by external appearances.
Skinny blondes on Meth are never any fun…ask me how I learned that. 40 years ago. Great comment!
Voted Caddy entirely on the specter of MN rust, although I wouldn’t enjoy the experience of owning it. In this case, the threat of the engine blowing up might be a silver lining
The caddy is a time bomb with that engine but rust is no fun every day of the week.
When you pick the caddy know that the door is never gonna get fixed. It is what it is.
Maybe a junkyard door in a jarringly-different color, and some rent-to-own big rimz.
In a choice between rust or potential mechanical work, I’ll choose wrenching every time.
Eh, I guess the Caddy because no rust? Both of these cars look like ticking time bombs to me.
Give me the Cadillac before I develop cataracts
First gen northstar or MN rust….not much of a choice but I voted Caddy for the miles. Get a replacement door and cruise in old man comfort.
Those doors are very easy to find since most of these were in accidents where the owner rear ended someone. I was looking for Northstar donors at one point and the sheer volume of cars that had rear ended people was disturbing.
Out of two lousy choices, go with the Cadillac. The LHS is undoubtley rusted to oblivion underneath. Might have such fun things like rusted shock mounts, rusted out frame rails(the structural part of the unibody) that would send it straight to the junk yard. Also with 144k, the transmission is at the end of its life.
The Northstar, well its a roll of the dice if it blows up on you tommorrow or 100,000 miles from now. They all will eventually blow a head gasket, some lasted a good long time before that happened, some blew up just outside of the warranty.
I saw the Northstar and knew that, whatever it was, the other vehicle was getting my vote. Incidentally, my brother had a Chrysler Concorde for awhile. It was actually a really nice, pleasant car. Comfortable and extremely spacious back seats, decent power, yeah, you could do worse.
Mopar or No(rthstar) Car.
The LHS engine is longitudinal so it should be much easier to work on than the Northstar. Also, the interior looks like it’s in better shape despite the higher miles.
Also funny that the Caddy is at a dealer called MN Auto Sales, while the LHS is actually in MN 😛
I forgot that the LH cars were longitudinal FWD cars. I just find that so interesting.
based off an old Renault platform, and Renault liked using longitudinal FWD back then
I wouldn’t touch a Northstar built before 2005, and even then I’d have to be drunk.
LH all the way.
Odd that the passenger rear door looks so rotted along the bottom edge, but nothing in the sill.
I voted for the Caddy. The rust you can’t see on the LHS makes me nervous. No under car shots creates a lot of suspicion.