2000 Cadillac DeVille #47

[Basement Paul]

With the Blazer gone, you had to figure it wouldn't be long before I found something new. I spent a good amount of time last week during the evenings scanning the world wide web for my next replacement. After searching long and hard for a mileage miser type car (think Cavalier, Sentra, etc), and also maybe a Fox Body type (Mustang, Firebird, Camaro), I decided that I would get the most for my money in a Cadillac believe it or not. Similar year and mileage Cadillac SeVille's and DeVille's are going for very similar money, if not cheaper, than the cheapy cars. So why not ride in a Cadillac, right? Not to mention, a luxery type car will normally have had better maintenance than a cheapo ride, and not been abused as much either.

Soooo, with that in mind, Fred32v and I set out Saturday after breakfast with a pocket full of cash, and the goal of buying a car. I called three guys at 9:15 on Saturday morning and nobody answered the phone. I left messages for all three. One guy got back to me in 20 mins, one about two hours later, and still nothing from the third guy. Call number four was to Ganley in Aurora that had a 2000 DeVille with about 88k on it and the asking price was around $46xx. Carfax showed it to be a one owner car, and the pictures online showed it to be a pretty nice looking ride. Since nobody else had called back yet, we headed towards Ganley Chevrolet in Aurora.

We met Brian there (the used car manager), and he informed us an 80 yr old gentleman traded this in on a new Malibu that his wife would be driving since he was pretty much done driving. The carfax showed several pages of dealer maintenance and no accidents, which was promising, and the interior of the car showed very little wear. In fact, EVERYTHING on this car worked correctly. We drove it for several miles with no incidents or troubles. The only real issue I saw was a slight amount of rust on the bottoms of both front doors (but still very solid). Knowing we wanted to look at a few other cars, we took Brian's card, and moved on to the next car.

Long story short, we looked at five or six other cars all over the area including a 2004 Cavalier for $4999, multiple Caddy's, and a very intriguing '97 Ram Air Firebird for what was basically $3500. It was rock solid, but just needed too many little things initially, and eventually would have put me over the money for these other Cadillacs. ALso, by looking at multiple other DeVille's, we were able to see that the door rust is not uncommon, and that the first one we looked at had had much better care taken than the others, including interior wear.

So as the afternoon wore on, I called Brian and asked him to get me a better price on the first car we looked at. He called me back with $4800 OTD. I told him I'd call him back in a few minutes and let him know...

NOW, I sold my Blazer for $4800. I put said $4800 in a basket on my counter. During the week my dog somehow licked $200 out of the basket and shredded it all over the floor, eating about 30% of it. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I'm left with $140. So now I'm down to $4600. So I call Brian back, tell him the dog ate my homework, and $4600 was all I could spend. Another phone call and 20 minutes later Brian agrees and it's back to Aurora we go to pick up the car.

Then 32V follows me back to Painesville with my truck, and I take him home from there. When it was all done, I got home at 8:30, and probably drove over 200 miles yesterday. We had a good time hanging out, got a really nice car for a decent deal, and I don't have to spend any more time looking. Unfortunately, the check engine light came on (code 1860) on the way home indicating a transmission torque converter control solenoid gone bad. This apparently is a very common problem and fixable for about $35 and a bunch of labor. It make the car feel like it's got a miss anytime the torque converter goes to engage.

Oh well, they're not all perfect. I don't think the dealer knew about it, as it wasn't missing on our test drive. Just one of those things that happens. I'll start working on it probably today, in hopes to have it done by next weekend sometime. Sadly I'll have to fix it to get through echeck.

I'll post pictures later.

-BP

[Maverick]

My wife had a 2000 Deville. It is a great car. Regularly got 27-28 highway MPG and once, when we were in a LONG construction zone doing 55 MPH, got 31.5. Only problem I remember was a failed crank position sensor. There was a TSB out saying to replace all CPSs for serial numbers before some number. I replaced both of them. If you have to do one, the manual will tell you some procedure is required to calibrate it but I never did that and never had a problem with it.

Oh yeah, also had a side post crack on the battery under the seat. Acid ate a hole in the floor. Patched it with a plastic insurance card and roofing tar.

The vented batteries are kinda pricey.

[Fred32v]

When I first saw the Firebird Ram Air, I thought this was it. But it needed considerable to become a daily driver.
Exhaust work, tires, paint, interior, ...... This is a rare Bird and a perfect project car,
BP thought about it and decided he had enough to do already.
The Deville is on the other side of the spectrum, but on the way home from Gantley, the big Caddy was floored,
I'm sure for the first time ever. And if not, when we got to my development, off went the traction control
and there are now two black mark on the road, and I'm absolutely sure that was the first time that car was ever asked to do that.
You can take the son out of the hotrod, but........

Our adventure was a little exhausting, but what a truly great day!!

[wxo]

I suspect a trip to Thompson will be coming up soon.

[Basement Paul]

I don't know how soon, but I'm sure I'll take it out there to see if it's faster than the big red truck or Johnny's Blaab. I would guess 15.7s or so. It's pretty strong once it gets rolling.

-BP

[GMJohnny]

There will be no SAAB appearance at Thompson. I've vowed that I will only use
that car for daily driving and NO HOT RODDING!!!! I enjoy not having to wrench on it,
and am hoping to keep it that way... I will concede that this Caddy is faster than the
Saab. Sorry race fans!! .... My friend Dan has a Caddy just like BP's. It also tripped the
trans code. He just erased it and took it to e-check and had it put on the rollers to pass
the test. It did, then the light came back on. It's way faster than the 9-2x. That's a strong
car, especially from a roll. He drives it to Cleveland every day, and gets 19 mpg. He's
looking to sell his this summer, many options are failing on it and he's tired of fixing
them. The cool thing is that there are plenty of those cars at Pull-a-Part, and he can get
parts easily there..... It should be a fun project for BP.

GM

[Basement Paul]

Remember this: all cars are always for Hot Rodding!

Here's some pictures of it. It looks pretty good although I drove through a rainstorm on the way home.










-BP

[ttamrettus]

pimp

[Basement Paul]

Pimpin' aint easy...

I just found out that it has power adjustable seat belts.

So I spent about 4.5 hours last week tearing the crap out of the way to get to the side cover on the transmission. This would allow me to replace the torque converter control solenoid. After removing the infamous "clip" that holds the solenoid in, the solenoid comes right out. This is the easy part.

So Saturday morning, after breakfast, 32V and I set out with the goal of putting this all back together. Replacing the clip is a LOT harder than removing it. Since I was working in a blind hole, around a corner, with a 2" opening, basically laying on my face, it took over an hour just to get the clip that holds the solenoid into place. This was a huge victory. BUT, after the clip was installed, we noticed a mysterious leak under the car. Coolant.

It appears that while we were holding the coolant lines to the back of the block out of the way, we messed up a seal and caused a leak. Luckily Classic Chevy's parts dept was open until 3pm on Saturday, so we ran over there and got a new fitting and coolant tube. Replacing it was no small task as it was buried pretty deep in the engine bay, but we got it.

Then we put ALL the crap back together and finally finished around 4pm. I'll post some pictures tonight.

Since then, I've put over 150 miles on the car and it runs great. It really is a freeway monster. Second gear is awesome about 60mph on. When I got the car the avg mileage was showing as about 15. As of now, I'm almost up to 20mpg. I think it will ultimately get me about 22-23mpg for my normal driving.


-BP

[Fred32v]

Just another great Saturday with my son, especially when that CLIP found the mark.
He said if other people can get that CLIP in, so can I.
His hands may never be the same, but it's better than removing the tranny.
That leak showed up on the passenger side but was coming from the well hidden driver side.
We sure enjoyed that test drive! Serious satisfaction.

[Basement Paul]

So the one picture is all the crap I had to pull of just to get to the side pan on the tranny. There's a shot with the pan "removed" which shows how little space I really had to work with (see mirror in the background). Another picture shows the broken solenoid and the bad fitting / coolant tube assembly. Either way this project is done, but since I'm not allowed to drive a car that's not broken for more than two days, the ABS / Stability Control lights came on tonight on the way home when I hit a bump in Painesville. It turned off when I shut the car off and restarted it at the next light, and was on again by the time I got home...

I warned my wife if this car becomes a problem, I'm going to buy a new car the next time I purchase. I just want to work on my old Caddy already.

-BP

[Maverick]

Think the FWD Caddys are a lot more fun on a road trip than they are on jack stands. To change the crank position sensors on my wife's 2000 DeVille, the oil filter AND the oil filter mount had to come off the engine.

[GMJohnny]

BP,

You need to talk to Dan. His car had that ABS thing happen too.
It sounds like you and Dan drive the same exact car!

GM

[Basement Paul]

It was dry today, and the abs light stayed out. Lets hope for the best.

Up to 20.5mpg. I do have a tire that I think has fix a flat in it. The tire is out of balance at different speeds as I drive. I had this once before in a Grand Am, and that was the case. I'm going to start with the RF and break the bead to see if there's crap in there, then I'll do the LF if I'm not happy. So much for my nitrogen in the tires... I see it in the steering wheel so I know it's in the front.

-BP

[GMJohnny]

I'd be checking for tie rod ends... specifically the inners. That the
Regal had sporadic issues like that and the tie rods were shot.

GM