All things motor vehicles

"Remember when you could open the hood and a family of 4 could have a picnic under there? "

LOL.

Brings back memories of my 1969 Ford Falcon.

The best and cheapest way to fix a Cadillac oil leak is to replace it with an older Lexus LS.

I just did a bit of research since my service writer days are 20 years ago. Northstars are notorious for leaking oil from multiple places as they get older.

From a Cadillac forum-

In order of what's posted throughout this site by frequency -

1. Oil pressure sending switch

1. Oil filter gasket itself

1. Oil filter adapter O-rings/composite seal plate (depending on year) and (if fitted with V03) - oil cooler lines

1. Tossup between cam cover seals and oil level sensor in the lower front of the pan

1. Halfcase and oil pan formed silicone seals (not "gaskets")

6 Rear main bearing seal at the flexplate

1. Front crank snout seal.

1. PCV dirty air line or the earlier type rattle valve grommet.

There's a cross-under exhaust pipe that's probably getting soaked with oil. There's no room to fashion a diaper.

2muchfunclub2 - "They said losing one quart every 1000 miles was the line where they would authorize the repairs."

The problem for me isn't the loss of oil. This is minimal over the span of an oil change. The problem is that the oil drips down onto the exhaust and the cabin air intake sucks that burning oil smell into the cabin unless you keep the setting on to recirculate the cabin air. Oil itself is relatively cheap and, as mentioned, this engine holds 3 more qts of oil than the average engine, though newer cars have increased the capacity up from the usual 4.5 qts with a filter.

In thiking about it, it may be worth crawling under there to see if I could install some sort of shield over the exhaust to keep the oil off of it. That would effectively mitigate my primary problem with the car. I do know things are pretty tight under there though.

You can make just about anything last as long as you want, but at what cost? If you're paying more to maintain a junker than a newer equivilent vehicle, it becomes more a labor of love than practicality.

While I absolutely love driving fast and/or good handling cars, I can always rent one if I want to experience it. The trick is to find something fun that's durable/reliable as the daily driver. Beyond that, a cars primary purpose (for me) is to get me from point A to B.

I will say that some of the older cars are easier to work on. Remember when you could open the hood and a family of 4 could have a picnic under there? The cost with these is that usually you have to work on them more often. I'm actually OK with that if it's something I could do and not have it be stupidly expensive. There is piece of mind when you have control over this vs the unexpected multi-thousand $$$ surprises people get these days.

The thing is, the tech has existed for quite a while to build a fun, reliable and easy to work on/repair vehicle that is designed to last a million miles and not cost an arm and a leg. The problem then is that people don't replace them because they simply don't need to.

Reliability is a balance with planned obsolescence being the endgame. The killer here is the labor rate, which is why it's in a manufacturer's best interests to NOT make things easy to work on/repair.

"Other than a design flaw, it is quite the process to replace an oil pan gasket in a DTS."

There are a couple of crankcase seals on the Northstar engine that are the problem rather than the oil pan gasket. They all leak. It requires almost complete disassembly of the engine to change them.

Cadillac used to make us run oil consumption tests before we fixed them. They said losing one quart every 1000 miles was the line where they would authorize the repairs. Old school Cadillac customers were livid.

“ "The newer the vehicle is they will be junk."

I dunno 'bout that. I don't recall hearing people getting 300K miles out of a '70's or '80's vehicle.”

We hear statements about how much better old things were, but often that’s just nostalgia talking. Most of us have selective memories. We remember the awesome, and forget the mundane.

When I was growing up a car that got to 100,000 miles was a minor miracle.

I think planned obsolescence is a real thing, but often the parts that break are easily replaced. On my 2003 BMW, with 225,000 miles, the things that usually break are plastic bits that have become brittle with age.

"The newer the vehicle is they will be junk."

I dunno 'bout that. I don't recall hearing people getting 300K miles out of a '70's or '80's vehicle.

One of the concepts that Toyota seemed to give more than lip service to is the idea of continuous improvement. Shit breaks, but if you find and fix the root cause, it becomes more reliable. This is just common sense, but it is not as commonly carried out in any industry, and especially the car industry. I'd go as far as saying planned obsolescence is the concept most run with.

The newer the vehicle is they will be junk.

2muchfunclub2 - "...we had one mechanic who literally only did those and nothing else."

This doesn't surprise me. Other than a design flaw, it is quite the process to replace an oil pan gasket in a DTS. The other problem is that repairing it doesn't fix the design flaw, so it's destined to happen again.

It's pretty bad when you fill it up with oil and check the gas.

I was a service writer at a Cadillac dealership during the Northstar engine oil leak years. We had them stacked so deep for warranty crankcase seal repairs that we had one mechanic who literally only did those and nothing else.

He eventually went completely mad and quit.

Actually I had a metal pan in my driveway foe awhile. Worked great but if I didn't drag it inside when the truck wasn't parked there and it rained or snowed- that got messy. Well, there was an incident with the snow blower. RIP metal pan, and good thing for shear bolts on snow blower augers.

Cardboard in the garage- I had floor-dri on top of the cardboard. That prevented soak through stains.

In the worst leaker's case- every 3,000 miles I'd add oil (again) and change the cardboard. I figured it leaked enough oil that it was a self maintaining engine.

EV owners never have the joy of putting cardboard under their engines.

Those poor, deprived bastards.

BTW - I do the same as Goodenuff (cardboard under the engine), but also have an old shower curtain under the cardboard just in case.

My Caddy DTS leaks oil, as do most DTS's. The problem is that they run the exhaust right under the oil pan and the heat apparently takes out the oil pan gasket. Normally that's a <2 hr job to replace in the driveway, but with a DTS, the recommended way involves pulling the engine. At 20 hrs book rate. I think I can live with the leak for now ;-)

My DTS takes 7.5 qts with an oil/filter change. I could lose 3 qts of oil and still have as much oil as many cars on the road do full. I change the oil every 5K and it doesn't leak enough that I have to add any between oil changes. The more annoying thing is the burning oil smell when at a stop if you don't put the cabin air on recirculate.

While annoying, I could hop in that car tomorrow and would have no qualms about it getting me to Florida and back if I had to. It is smooth, powerful, comfortable, reasonably economical (25+ MPG highway with an 8 cyl) and reliable. When it does break, as all cars do, it usually doesn't cost a fortune to fix or maintain. They stopped making DTS's in 2012, otherwise I'd consider getting another one.

I have no idea what my next vehicle will be. For my wants/needs, it's hard to find something as fun and practical as the DTS.

We're giving a newer GM 3.6L another chance with a 2017 Acadia Denali. We had this engine in a Caddy SRX and it REQUIRED oil changes every 3k with 6 qts of full synthetic. The newer engine version is back to 5K miles between changes, which I can live with. The Acadia with it's V6 is rated at 10 more HP than my DTS with it's small V8, but the V8 has more torque, as might be expected.

Seats- yeah, I folded them all down in the Caravan. . I can almost fit the same amount of stuff in the back as I can in the 6-1/2' box on the PU.

The dogs love the Caravan- they get to ride with us instead of in the back of the truck (it has a fiberglass topper) when we take them anywhere.

A couple of weeks ago I took them there- without Mrs. G- in the Caravan. Luckily I spotted the skunks in the yard (2 evenings in a row) before they did and locked them away before I dealt with those stinky things. I've dealt with skunked dogs in a station wagon with my dad once; and one dog while driving a PU with a topper. Much better 4 hour ride with skunked dog(s) in the back of a truck than in an enclosed passenger compartment.

This is the only Chrysler product I've personally owned. I had a Dodge PU for the business once. Wouldn't do that again.

IMO, Chevrolet/GMC or Ford PUs are way better. Each of those have pros and cons. I thought the Ford PUs did a better job (handling wise) than the GMs towing a trailer over 7,000 lbs. Every GM engine (5.7L or above) developed an engine oil leak after 120K (or so) miles. Biggest problem with that was the oil stains they left on customers' properties. I could deal with the stains in my own parking lot, driveway or garage. A piece of cardboard under the engine when parked for several hours fixed that.

Grand Caravans...

Mrs. TBR had one of those. loved the stowaway seats. Many long distance trips with the kid...

We had to get rid of it after she took the k, her best friend, and his kids to RocFest.

Bunch of people go up to a dry lake bed in the mountains and shoot off rockets. Everything from the little $10 ones, to ones so big you have to call the FAA to make sure no planes are in the vicinity.

The year in question, there was a freak rainstorm, and th3 dry lake bed wasn't so dry anymore.

They, and about a 1,000 other people were all stuck up to their axles.

After three days, some guys showed up, and since they were one of the closest to the road, decided to pull them out.

Took three jeeps to pull them out. One of the Jeeps blew an engine.

They made the four hour trek back, and the next day, the front suspension gave out.

We got it fixed, drove it down to the Jeep dealership, and bought her a jeep.

Uh-oh.

I inherited my dad's '07 Dodge Grand Caravan with a V6 (3.7L or something like that). I thought it had a transmission issue but whatever it was, it went away.

I drive it to avoid putting miles on my 4x4 Silverado w/5.3L V8. They both get about similar mpg- the Dodge gets about 2mpg better on the highway and about the same in the city. 190,000 miles on the Caravan.

Issues with it are: rust, a dash light on the fuel gauge works intermittently, AM band on the radio doesn't work (MN Twins games are broadcast on an AM station) and it needs brakes. Bad.

Oh, and the DVD screens in the Dodge are only visible from the rear seats. Can't watch a movie, cartoons, or porn as I drive. WTF, Chrysler...?

I stay away from Chrysler products unless they're old enough to have chrome bumpers.

Was going to put this in BF, but last time I posted anything about cars it damn near took over the topic, so made this topic instead.

Got a call from my daughter that her 2017 Chrysler Pacifica has a blown engine. Apparently the 3.6L V6s are know for head gasket issues. A major issue with either the engine or transmission tends to keep me away from vehicles. My usual go to for car info is carcomplaints . com. It did not appear to show this as a common problem, but the transmission complaints would have me avoiding this make/model anyway.

The Pacifica is a decent looking and performing van when it's working properly, but Chrysler has such a long history with major transmission problems, that alone would keep me from ever buying one. I realize car problems happen to all makes and models, but some just seem way more prone to problems. I also find Chrysler has been less likely than most to stand behind their product over the years.