2000 Cadillac DeVille #47
Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2013 12:23 pm
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
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
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.