So, I took the Cadillac...

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Ma's 1990 Eldorado.. 82,000 miles, lived in the garage it's whole life, maintained to a "T". She didn't drive it, but my sis and I drove her around in it when we were in town. It was Pop's, and she maintained it for sentimental reasons, and maintained it well.

So, no one wanted it after Ma passed away, so I took it over. This one has the 4.5 litre V-8, fuel injected, runs smoothly and is pretty quick, the interior and paint (Pearly-White) are perfect. It's clean as a whistle under the valve covers and passes emissions with flying colors. With the new brakes, suspension bushings, tires, alternator, starter, serpentine belt, and a host of other things that have been done to it the last three years, I figure it's worth keeping.

Now, GM fans..is this one of the engines that had plastic intake manifolds/gaskets/parts that DexCool would have been an issue with? The radiator and cap and tank are clean as a whistle, but the system is charged with some form of Green, and the receipts show a Jiffy-Lube cooling system fluid exchange approximately three years ago. In 5 years' time, the car has only been driven a total of 4500 miles, and only 7K since pop died in 2001.

I mean to use this car for my long hauls between Florida, New England, and No. Va. to save miles on my "new" Hyundai, which I've already racked up 23,000 miles on since August 2008.

Anyone know anything about this era (1990) Cadillac I should look out for?
 
first of all sorry about your loss.
Second of all, one of our friends has a Cadillac thats around, if not in the 1990 era. No problems. It has 300,000m on it and still going.

Of course, some engine work had to be done for it to last that long.
 
My dads car from that era leaked antifreeze into the engine, and along the way to replacing the intake gasket, i discovered two loose bolts that held the intake on.

The gasket was in good shape, i just had two loose bolts! i was surprised when i put it all back together, as the torque setting was 20 ft pounds, the block is alum and so is the intake.

I did replace the gasket, because by the time you get things this far apart you do need to look at the gasket to be sure.

Other than that issue the car has been great for my dad.
 
The 4.1 was the problem engine. The later 4.5 and 4.9 engines were much improved. My Dad had a 93 Deville with the 4.9 and that car was fast, economical and safe. The car was in mint condition until it was T-boned!
 
Even the 4.1 could be made to last fairly long IF you watched out for its weaknesses- if it ever started pinging, that HAD to be taken care of immediately or it would pound itself apart. I managed to keep the 84 4.1 that my folks had going until they sold it at about 150k miles, which is ancient for an un-opened 4.1

The 4.5 and 4.9 are fairly bulletproof from everything I've heard. The problems picked back up with the (much more powerful) Northstar.

All aluminum-block Cadillacs seem to benefit from a dose of one of the very benign stop-leaks (GM sold its own in tablet form, and I think the original Bars Leaks is very similar). Just don't use any of the super-duper metal-filled ones. I'd stick with green coolant or go to G-05, since that particular engine completely pre-dates DexCool and I don't even think a later version was ever "Dex'ed".

Oh, and I'd pound the snot out of the Hyundai and keep the Cad mint if it were me... except that I'd enjoy driving the Cad so much more that I probably couldn't resist driving it anyway.
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Yeah, it IS nice. I'm already scheming for new struts, just put an Alpine XM/CD/HD/AM-FM in it. Complete with all the modules. It's going to be primarily my long haul buggy, so have to have the XM. The Hyundai will be my working vehicle around town.

Tx for the replies, you'se guys! Appreciate the feedback. And, I think I will do the G-05 when the time comes.
 
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