GMs mistakes would fill encyclopedias. The biggest is allowing the bean counters to take over. I would normally say this is turning the business over to Wall Street to boost stock prices. The insufferable part is the GM attitude that they were above change and the customer would accept what ever they churned out. The attitude is still present. They should have been allowed to fail. They earned it.
more at fault were the greedy unions and their demands, then barak HUSSEIN obama came along and treated union retiree healthcare obligations as 'secured creditors' He violated U.S. Bankrutcy Laws all to payback the UAW. Then, he exercised the stock options well below breakeven for the American Taxpayer. I have a 2007 chevy truck, last government motors vehicle I will ever own. Talk about crony capitalism. The demoCRAPS wrote book on that.
It continues today, but all the big 3 are guilty of the same: elimination if ICE cars in favor of EV's. HUGE mistake given demand for gas engine remains. I bought my last GM "appliance" in 1983 and never looked back. And I never regretted the move either.
Yes they should been forced to fail instead of bailed out, someone would have bought out the profitable parts and made them work. I think the current CEO is even worse than Roger Smith. My prediction is they will be bailed out again. My father worked at GM from the 60s until they they bought EDS, he was transferred to EDS back then. In the end he lucked out and got 2 pensions. We always owned GM cars for years, but quality got so bad in the early 2000s he quit buying their cars. I haven't owned a GM since the early 2000s, I would buy a used one that was pre 93, but thats about it, no new ones.
I worked in an auto repair shop in 1993 that saw an HT4100 powered Cadillac come in needing a new engine. After calling all the good rebuilders in the country, we ended up sourcing a brand new HT4100 long block directly from Cadillac because it cost LESS than rebuilt!
As someone whose only half as old as the HT4100, I can say, Cadillac's decisions are one of the rare ones that caused issues even 30 years later, since now buying an old reliable Cadillac is nowhere near as easy as it should be
As someone who is older than you, you have no idea what you're commenting on and the wikipedia article doesn't count as the same thing as experience. First of all you don't know the differences between the 4.1 and the 4.9, second you seem unaware that the fleetwood brougham didn't have that engine, and third you obviously haven't looked very hard if you can't find a mint running and driving one with sub-100k miles, either that or you're living somewhere i'm genuinely surprised has an internet connection at all and still uses horse and buggy to get around.
I remember that in the 1982 Caddy people that selected the 4.1 Buick V6 with the 4 barrel were a lot more satisfied than those buying the 4100 V8. That 4100 was a dog in the big body rear drive Caddy. I appreciated the 4100 as a rookie at the dealership in the late 80's because replacing intake gaskets at about every 30K miles became a money making gravy job.
My Fathers 1984 Fleetwood Brougham, was flawless. He put 186000, miles on it from 84-92! Noe issues with that engine. It was under powered. I agree. I once had it up to a little over 100 mpg! Perhaps it was trouble free, as 90% of the mileage was highway?
When your best engine is a delete option carbureted V6 from a lesser division, the basic design of which was over 20 years old at the time… and you spend tens of millions replacing it with a less economical, less reliable fuel injected V8 of the same displacement, but with no extra power and LESS torque… it’s not great. 1982 was also the year of the Cimarron with its wheezy 1.8L four. People look back with nostalgia, but it cannot be underestimated how disastrous this era was for Cadillac and for the reputation of American luxury cars more generally.
You'd think after the Vega engine disaster, GM would have learned their lessons about aluminum and iron. It seems Cadillac never had a decent engine after this. The rear drivers got eventually got Chevy or Olds V8s. I think a larger version of the Buick V6 was a no cost option for a year or two in the early 80s. Then you got the Northstar V8...which also had head gasket sealing issues. After that, they seemed to use variants of GM engines.
Awesome? There were several iron block / aluminum head engines from decades ago that blew head gaskets prematurely... Ford's 3.8 liter Essex V6 comes to mind. Today, it appears that head gaskets have improved greatly. I don't think anyone has yet eliminated the difference in thermal expansion rates of aluminum and iron. Aluminum heads on aluminum blocks are even better in my experience. Plasma sprayed iron on aluminum bores looks very promising, at least until EVs make it irrelevant!!!
Okay, explainer time. The 4100/4.5/4.9 are all essentially the same engine design. Aluminum block with iron heads. The cylinders were steel inserts that could be removed and replaced. That makes them different from the Vega engine which had aluminum cylinders with some sort of coating (which wore through quickly). The Northstar is not as bad an engine as everyone thinks. They are prone to head gasket failure when the cooling system is neglected and they are allowed to overheat. They make really good power for their time and the lower ends are nearly indestructible. The main issue was advertising that it could be driven up to 50 miles with no coolant, giving people the false impression that driving it while overheating was okay. It is the first engine I am aware of that will kill four cylinders at a time while overheating to try and pump air through the engine to keep it cool. Lastly, the current corporate V6 aka 3.6L dohc made its debut in the CTS in 2004. If maintained and oil changes are done reasonably, they are quite reliable engines. Timing chain failures generally occur on engines with extended oil change intervals, although there was a period of time when the timing chains went through several design revisions to decrease noise and increase longevity. None of this is to say GM didn’t commit some profound sins, they absolutely have. Just trying to give an objective view as a former Cadillac dealer technician who worked on transmissions and engine mechanical for over a decade. Edit to add, while the 4.9 was pretty good, the 4109 WAS a terrible engine. At the dealer we used to say that a 4100 wouldn’t even make a good boat anchor because sh*t floats. Lol
You are correct, all of these decisions have affected the Cacillac's reputation. Now, when people think reliable luxury car, they think Lexus. Even Mercedes reputation is tarnished now.
My Pastor only bought Cadillacs beginning in the late 1960s . But he bought his first BRAND NEW Cadillac which was a 1982 Sedan de Ville with the 4100. It was so troublesome that he switched to a Lincoln Town car a couple of years later. He NEVER bought a Cadillac or any GM again. Before that, the last Ford product he owned was a used Model A that was given to him in the 1950’s. That’s how bad the 4100 treated him. Dad had several other customers that switched to Lincolns after the 4100 experience.
my dad was also one of those people. he went from buying a new sedan deville every year to buying a new town car every year. all his town cars were fantastically reliable, smooth and luxurious. he felt that after his decades of loyalty, Cadillac shit on him.
@@gm12551 He was a GREAT pastor. He began his ministry by WALKING 10 or 20 miles regularly. A judge GAVE him the Model A . And he owned several older cars before he was able to afford the Cadillac. His MAIN source of income was a State job. He was a middle aged man when he got the nice cars. He was near 70 when he bought the NEW 1982 Cadillac. He lived to be 99 and drove until the last few months of his life. But anyway, he regularly brought people to church who didn’t have transportation in his Buick, Cadillacs and Town cars. He actually loaned his Cadillac to my Father when Dad and mother had to take an emergency trip out of town to keep dad from having to rent a car and drove Dad’s car that weekend. He’d get up in the middle of the night to go pray for a person. One year When the young folk needed to take a trip, he drove us in my dad’s old 67 Dodge van (no AC) . I could go on. He lived in a very modest home in a very working class neighborhood. As far as I could see, the nice cars were his ONLY splurge. Everything else was ordinary. In his later years his neighborhood gradually became a bit rough and high in crime . But even the lawbreakers would NOT allow others to mess with him. When he slowed down and was home a lot, Young and old would come sit on his porch just to listen to his wisdom. He died in 2012 . I still miss him greatly. I could go on. But you get the picture
Adam, I greatly appreciate your giving us the torque numbers for the engines instead of just the horsepower numbers. It really helps to understand how much power these cars really had. Sorry if my multiple comments on this issue seemed a bit harsh. It was never my intention. As always, great video and I thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on these wonderful vehicles
The veteran car tester Tom McCahill always said from the beginning of automotive history the emphasis on horsepower was wrong, that it was torque that did the work. Those very early cars in the 00's and teens had huge displacement 4's and 6's with 400-600 cubic inches but only about 65 horsepower--the 1910 Oldsmobile Limited had 750 cubic inches. They were built more like trucks because of the almost non-existent roads of the time, but those huge engines had lots of low speed torque, allowing travel at only about 1,500 RPM in many cases because the crude transmissions were hard to shift and the emphasis was on staying in high gear as much as possible.
Dad bought a new Seville in 84 with the HT-4100. It was good for a very placid rate of acceleration. He was shocked when his car business buddies informed him that the engine was doomed to fail in a few years. Surprisingly, the car lasted until 2002 when it was sold to the third owner, who trashed it. It did better than his 1980 Brougham diesel, which needed stop motion photography to record any movement.
I will totally agree. If I were the prospective 77 DeVille owner trading in sometime in the early to mid 80s, I would've been super disappointed. Nobody was making fast domestic luxury cars at that point, but wow, taking a 307 powered Buick Park Avenue or a 302 Lincoln Town car wouldve been faster than the 4100, more reliable in the short term, and more durable in the long run. I hate the 4100 today because it's tainted all those otherwise wonderful early 80s Cadillacs. A ragtop eldorado, had they just dropped in the olds 307 like they had in the Riviera and tornado, would've been killer. It's no wonder GM lost so many buyers at this time.
Starting in 1985-6 the FWD Buick Park Avenue and Olds 98 Regency were much better cars all around than the FWD Caddys. The Oldsmobuicks had slightly more progressive styling where Cadillac clung to too many Brougham-era design cues that looked cartoonish on the smaller car to the Caddy faithful and dated on day one to potential conquests and movers-up, and then there were the developments of the HT4100 vs the dead-nuts reliable Buick 3800 V6.
Those 4100's really impact the value of these cars. I just sold an extremely nice 1985 Seville with the 4100 on Bring a Trailer. And it's probably no surprise to you that it fell extremely short on the money! I actually lost a couple thousand on it, which is just part of the business. And the thing was, this car was serviced SO well and it even came with a 5 year supply of the crushed walnut tablets!! Lol! Love your CZcams channel as it is very informative! Keep up the good work!
My wife’s first Cadillac was an’84 Fleetwood with the HT4100. White with red interior, it was slow but sharp looking. Regular use of the walnut tabs kept things at bay and she drove it to 120k miles.I put a water pump on it at about 80k. It was replaced with a ‘91 Fleetwood Brougham D’Elegance with the corporate 350 (chevy) engine. It was plenty fast and reliable. Regret letting that one go.
I own a 94’ Sedan Deville and it has the 4.9 V8. What a smooth quiet and surprisingly powerful engine. It’s quite easy to work on and gets great Mpg on the highway (Over 25). I’m glad it’s the 4.9 and not the early northstar and I couldn’t be more happy with that engine. Great vid, a fallow up on the 4.9 and cars it was placed in would be awesome too!
GM signed it’s Death-Warrant in the 1980’s ! The last of the great Cadillacs were the early to mid 1970’s ! The two best engines Cadillac built were the 472 Big block in 1967 and the 500 cubic inch 8.2 Liter in the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado !
It looks GM made some many mistakes in the early 80's with Cadillac. Cimmaron, V8 6 4 engines, Diesals , 80 Seville, look alike Devilles downsizing (which looked like other FWD cars , not Cadillac). etc, etc .. CEO Smith and upper Management heads did some terrible things to GM in the 80's
I think the MAIN PROBLEM was not the companies as it was the GOVERNMENT inserting itself into the equation! Ronald Reagan said it best" Government is NOT the solution! Government IS the PROBLEM!! A little study of history from 1970 to the present will show that.
This brings back childhood memories of my parents fighting over replacing our ‘77 deVille with an ‘83 for my mother…the old man’s apprehension was correct even though he had moved out and was still paying the bills, but this purchase was definitely a mistake. I remember my light footed mother having the pedal floored and we could barely get up to speed entering the freeway. What finally did this car in after 2.5 years and 30,000 miles was a road trip through twisty grades and the car could barely make it over peaks at 20 mph. Still remember having the car towed 3 hours back home once we reached our destination. Well, this young impressionable car fan perception of Cadillac was ruined for a lifetime. And meanwhile my parents became lifetime Benz owners the past 40 years. I like to say our ‘83 HT4100 led to my folks divorce, but that’s not entirely Caddy’s fault. 😊
Thank you Adam. I like the fact you are objective and tell the truth no matter what about cars and engines etc. You say things so well even when it is bad news. I recall this engine. I used to think a 130 hp Cadillac V8? The 4.5 and 4.9 liter V8's could not come fast enough in 1988 and l991 model years. It makes you wonder if the 4.5 and 4.9 had not come sooner what would have happened. The Northstar came and it was the same thing over again. The 4.9 should have been used longer until they could have got Northstar right. You covered the engines quite well as well. I liked the fact you mentioned what damage was done to Cadillac. They lost buyers from a lot of missteps in the 1980's. The video is so well stated.
In my circle the HT stood for HUGE TURD! You haven't seen the other problems that have been encountered with this engine! All the machine shops I knew would NOT touch this thing and ALL the dealerships WOULD NOT work on them either,.. They would replace them. " Same goes for the Northstar". These things were a nightmare to work on and after seeing for myself I can agree!
Adam, this video and another recent video of yours pretty much encapsulates my family's experience with Cadillac in the 1980s and I've told a similar story to people about how Cadillac lost its way. First, when I was in 8th grade, my mother bought a new brown 1979 Cadillac Seville. It was a great vehicle and I still wish we had it somewhere. Considering my step-father drove a 1975 Buick Apollo, it's weird to think that both cars began with the same bones, so to speak. But she smartly avoided getting the Diesel engine, probably just because she didn't know much about them. In 1984, she traded that car for a Sedan DeVille and in 1986, she replaced my first car as a teenager (a new 1980 Chevy Citation!) with a gently used 1980 Cadillac Coupe DeVille that an elderly neighbor had driven and had only 20,000 miles on it. My brother and I shared that car through college and he eventually kept it all the way through law school. The 1984 Sedan DeVille and 1980 Coupe DeVille were pretty much identical except for the the color, number of doors and the powertrain. The 6.0L big block V8 wouldn't be confused with a CTS-V's V8, but at least that car could get out of its own way. The 1984 Sedan DeVille was a veritable slug by comparison. At least some of the worst reliability kinks had been worked out of that car and she kept it for many years until she traded it for a 1993 Sedan DeVille featuring the 4.9L V8, a car I would eventually purchase from her four years later and drive until an unfortunate tangle with a city bus (the Caddy lost). But the 4.9L was a very nice engine, decent power, especially compared to the 5.7L Olds gas engine, the 6.0L Caddy V8, and the 4.1L Caddy V8, all which had been in the family during this era. I agree that you cannot talk about Cadillac's decline in the luxury car market without talking about the powertrain debacle beginning with the Olds Diesel in 1978, continuing through the 1981 V8-6-4 and by the time the 1982 HT4100 showed up, GM engineers had inflicted so much damage to the brand. Something you didn't mention with the 1982 model Caddys was that there was a Buick 4.1L V6 as a no cost option that year. Why??? It's pretty much seems that GM was hedging their bets knowing that this engine was rushed too soon that there was another option, just in case. If anyone has that engine from that era, it's a truly rare bird.
Agreed, the 4.9L was a beast of a motor in the 91’ Seville. It would easily smoke the front tires with heavy throttle and could effortlessly cruise all day at 90+ mph. I remember very well how impressed I was with the whole car overall.
I did this alot with a 91 Seville hearse. I stand by your claim. If you roll on the throttle in a roundabout, you can smoke the front left through a couple gears with ease, which I found hilarious!
I bought a very nice 1984 Coupe'd Ville with 153,000 miles on it in mid '90s from Brown Brothers Cadillac in Louisville for $2,700 put 90,000 miles on it and sold it for $2,500. I never had any trouble out of the HT4100.
I bought an '88 SDV, with the 4.5. It's the only year of the smaller body and the 4.5. It had 58k, and I put 100k more trouble free miles on it, until it was stolen. Broke my heart. I'm 62, and it was my favorite car so far. Love your content and style, Adam.
GM biggest mistake was pushing out cars and engines without enough development! Then when they just get it right, they end production. I give Cadillac credit for coming up with the idea of engines on demand, in the early 80's. But they pushed the engine into production, before perfecting the product. That's what happened to the 8-6-4 engine. The concept was great, but the technology was not their to work.
Had a 92 with the 4.9, a good engine. I had injured my left knee requiring a soft cast from ankle to hip. The power seats in the Caddie allowed me to get in and drive. Most other cars I could not get in
As an ex GM dealer certified mechanic I’d rather have seen a diesel Cadillac vs a 4.1 the 368 modulated displacement wasn’t as big a pile of junk as the 4.1
GM's mistakes in the 80s was taking a diesel from a derived gas-powered block. This was a shortcut that bit them in the butt. I also agree the HT4100 was terrible (so was the initial 1993 Northstar, as it is still haunts them to this day regarding leaking head gaskets).
I knew two people who had GM diesels, my father-in-law and a co-worker. My father-in-law did not maintain his cars very well, oil changes and such. At about 45000 miles the diesel engine blew up. My co-worker maintained his cars on schedule as indicated by GM. At about 45000 miles, his diesel also blew up. These were horrid engines. The car my co-worker had was an Oldsmobile and he had a gasoline engine installed. I do not remember if GM helped with the cost or not.
It's hard to anticipate all the problems an all-new engine or transmission might have when it is first released to the public. I think automakers should use low-volume specialty models (things like the Allante or the Cosworth Vega) to, eh, beta-test these assemblies before trying to sell them at volume. With a only a few hundred sold, they could afford long warranties to keep customers happy, and even implement quiet buybacks if the cars were incorrigible lemons. Of course, that can only work if you have the know-how and will to fix all the design defects; it wouldn't have been enough sort out Chrysler's Ultradrive 4 speeds, which were still failing after 10 years of production.
@@pcno2832 Somehow they seemed to get things right in the cases of the Olds V-8 in '49, Chevy and Pontiac V-8's in '55, Buick V-8 in '53, etc. Those engines were the products of real engineers, not pencil pushers.
Hi Adam, your videos are a car lovers dream! I have owned a 1986 Deville, 1989 Deville, 1992 Deville all of which had the motors you mentioned. My 1986 Deville overheated one day out of the blue and cracked the block. My 1989 had the 4.5 liter which was a much better motor in my opinion. My 1992 Deville had the 4.9 liter that had a knocking sound due to play in the #1 crankshaft bearing. An easy fix but never the less an issue. I think the best out of the three with all things considered would be the 4.5 liter. Thanks again
All of those early 80s Cadillacs worked just fine with 1968-69 350 Olds engines in them. No modifications to the transmission or motor. mounts were needed
I've owned 2 5.7L diesel cars , a 77 Seville, 83 and 84 Cimarron, 89 sedan DeVille and many more Cadillacs. The diesel was smooth and quiet and very fuel efficient. The problem was the injection pump, and the head bolts stretching which was resolved with the DX block in late 1980. The damage was done to its reputation. Poor diesel quality fuel in the late 70s and early 80s and GM techs who didn't understand diesels . More damage to Cadillacs reputation was the V864 engine from 1981 and the 1982 Cimarron
I know that in GM Cadillac engineering circles the HT stood for "High Technology" but, for the Techs who had to work on those HT 4100s at the time, the HT stood for "Hook and Tow" as that's how many of them arrived at the shop for repair! 😆
I owned an 81 4-6-8 Seville. It was an awesome luxury vehicle for me and my new wife. Loved that car. I did not de-activate the 4-6-8 feature. As a motor head I often heard the engine knock but realized it was the 4-6-8 system doing it's job. I got great gas mileage commuting from Philly to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore 3 days a week in 1988.
Had a 1981 Eldorado with the V8-6-4, bought used in the early 1990s. For all the whining over the system mine did work. The problem as you say was in V6 mode the unbalanced 90 degree V engine shook perceptibly. Not like a hardware store paint shaker, but it was noticeable.
Our family had a '86 Sedan DeVille -gunmetal gray with a maroon leather interior...beautiful! Loved driving this gutless wonder...except when the 4100 engine blew up at 100,000 miles. It was my first time seeing engine oil come out looking like a milkshake!
The Seville was a great car, even with the Diesel. I worked on many in California. The problem was nobody had ever worked on diesels unless they were truck mechanics. Our shop specialized in diesel gm cars, we had specific fuel filtration systems installed,very specific oils, and a 30 gallon auxiliary fuel tank in the trunk, our clients could cross the border into Mexico and fill up for a third of the cost in the U.S. making the owners quite happy versus the rest.
My grandmother insisted on buying Cadillacs and had an 85 Fleetwood two door with the 4.1 liter V8. It was a nice driving car but every few months my grandfather would add some anti-electrolysis fluid to the radiator to keep the engine parts from swapping electrons. He owned and maintained his own aircraft and knew about aluminum more than most and flat refused to use walnut shells.
I replaced a LOT of ht4100 motors. Usually with a new one from a crate. Came with stop leak pellets that were required for warranty, lol. Shown is the actual pellets that were supplied! Thanks for the video.
It's safe to say the HT4100 is at least PARTLY a direct cause of GM's bankruptcy in 2008. Really all the decisions GM made for Cadillac between 1978-89. The thing that GM lost sight of is that Cadillac was once a brand that people were willing to pay top dollar for. So frankly, when CAFE came out, if GM was going to be hit with fines for not meeting corporate fuel economy averages, you include those fines in the sticker price of the Cadillac and you continue to make those cars truly the standard of the world. A serious Cadillac buyer would have still paid another $10-15k for those cars if they were built right with large 6+ liter V8s that had 300+ hp net, ran on premium fuel, were smooth and torquey and reliable, and simply a continuation of the engines they made for Cadillacs coming out of the 60s WITHOUT adjustments for fuel economy and emissions.
A close friend’s Dad drove Cadillac’s exclusively from the ‘60’s to the ‘80’s. His last Cadillac had the 4100 engine. He then drove Lincoln’s for the rest of his life.
In 2000, I bought a beautiful well kept 83 Eldorado, lifelong Southern California car, from a lady who was the original owner. Had a tick over 80.000 miles on it. Now has little over 120.000 miles. No engine issues, original engine. I do 6 month oil changes and coolant change with the tabs every other year. Only drive it about 1000 miles a year now. But still enjoy it, and it's a great looking car in and out, and definitely rides and drives like a cadillac should. I was 24 in 83, and thought they were extremely handsome cars. They did sell like hotcakes, they were everywhere, and cadillac kept the same body and interior from 1979 to 1985! Then a redesign in 1986 FLOPPED and Eldorado sales tanked.
"Grosse Point Myopia" is older than that. They lost their quality and exclusivity already in the sixties. Cadillac traditionally sold between 100-150k cars per year during the fifties and sixties, slowly upping the production. 1967 was the first year of 200k cars per year, 1973 300k cars, 1979 380k cars per year and so on.
GM made a ton of mistakes in the 80s that pretty much killed any remaining goodwill for well thought out innovation and quality. The early X-cars were horrible & unrefined; with the possible exception of Buick, build quality and fit & finish was shoddy; and as far as Cadillac goes, in addition to the 4100 engine disaster, we can’t forget the Cimarron, Cadillac’s dressed up Chevy Cavalier!
@@ppeters480 see Moore’s Roger & Me. Smith did his best Neutron Jack impersonation, canning thousands of employees and closing factories only to blow a crap ton of money in Saturn which was closed 15 years later?
Good reflection on this tumultuous engine history with Cadillac. Having owned caddies with almost all of the referred to engines in this piece, save for the 8-6-4 version of the 368 -the 4100 was easily the worst. Funny how just a few years of development time eventually the 4100 engine produced the 4.5 and 4.9 -arguably considered among the best Caddys engines to date. Really the EPA/CAFE was more to blame for placing such extraordinary time pressure one GM and the big three to get mileage up. If those 82-87 cars had been powered by those later versions of that engine, we'd have more fond memories of them today then we otherwise do.
i bought my 1983 Sedan deVille in 1992 ... more than 31 years ago, its our wedding car. has the HT4100 v-8 rear wheel drive. currently has 148,000 miles on it. it has always run very well. i always give regular oil changes and add slick 50 at all oil changes. last summer i replaced the radiator, power steering pump, vacummn pump, all belts hoses etc. my beautiful yellow four door plain jane cadillac has always purred like a kitten and still does. have taken it to Las Vegas in scorching hot 113 F heat, cruising at 70 mph with digital air conditioning on. my car still looks and drives like new. Not for sale, but i will soon create a video of this car and post it on CZcams
The amazing thing about this story is that General Motors had previous experience with the problems caused by trying to mate aluminum and iron with the Vega from the early Seventies. If I'm not mistaken, the Vega engine had a cast iron block and aluminum head. Apparently Cadillac thought an aluminum block and cast iron head would yield a different result. The Olds diesel engine had an astounding failure rate. My 1980 Oldsmobile 98 Regency with the 350 diesel got 38 mpg, but went through three diesel engines before it turned 43,000 miles and we gave up on it. This from the company that invented the overhead valve V8 and ushered America into the modern age of automobiles - The Standard of the World. MotorTrend proclaimed Cadillac to be the fastest production car in the world in 1950. The Jaguar XK 120 may have been faster, however.
I've always learned something new from your videos. I have some of those who cooling system pellets for when I worked as a GM parts assistant manager. Interesting to find out they are made out of crushed walnut shells! Some of those Cadillac engines did not have much more for horsepower than our the V6 engine in our S10 and trucks! Your knowledge of various vehicles is amazing. My mother and one of those infamous 5.7 N diesel engines in her pickup. It always achieved 22 MPG no matter what the load. Once she was pulled over for having the most stinky, disgusting truck that the police officer ever stopped that had nothing wrong with it! Of course gaskets failed twice on the heads. Both replaced under warranty, but eventually due to rust we replaced said pickup in 1985 with our current S10`s which we still drive to day.
When I first saw the butchered down deVille line in 1985 I totally gasped. I thought "that's a Cadillac??". To me it was a laughingstock. Same for the Buick Electra and the Olds 98. Absolute jokes (an Olds 98 with a V6? GIve me a break!) Fortunately Cadillac kept the larger body and it became the Fleetwood Brougham and they sold like hotcakes until discontinued in 1991.
When I saw the title, I thought for sure this would be about the Cimmaron. But underpowered engines aside, can we just take a moment to remember the days when the hood and the trunk were the same size as the passenger compartment? What a time to be alive!
I inherited my mother's 89 sedan Deville 7 years ago when she passed away. That 4.5 litre fwd has made a dozen round trips from Chicago to Denver and as of today sits in my garage with 62k miles on it. The only repairs I've had to make have bern a new alternator and ac compressor, belt and idler pulley and battery. Still looks and runs like a new car. A more comfortable ride than my son's 99 Deville with the Northstar and the 89 gets 28 mpg compared to the Northstar's 23 mpg.
And that’s without even getting into the transmission debacle Cadillac was dealing with. Or the 1.8L Cimarron. In 1981-82, Cadillac’s best engine from the factory was a carbureted V6 based on a 20 year-old design from a lesser division. They spent tens of millions of dollars developing an all-new fuel injected V8 of the same displacement, only for it to yield the same horsepower and 15lb-ft less torque than the carbureted 4.1L Buick V6. The HT4100 also got poorer fuel economy and came standard with catastrophic unreliability. Tens of millions spent to end up with a standard engine that was worse is every way than the delete option. And the ‘81 Coupe deVille 4.1 V6 weighed 3,801lbs. The ‘82 with the HT4100 weighed just 18lbs less. Cadillac still offered the carbureted Buick 4.1 V6 as a $165 delete option in 1982. Probably the smartest delete option in automotive history.
Agreed 100%. They should have gone back to the 429 as far as I was concerned. That engine was bullet-proof. The 425's weren't too bad. The downfall is always Government interference. We had rotated-out a couple of hearses at the funeral home that were so lame we couldn't wait to trade them. Everybody else we knew in the funeral business hated theirs for the same reasons. We had been used to powerful engines up until 1975. The 4100's were terrible. As the previous post mentions the V-6 wasn't too bad. Quite a few went out the door as Coupe De Villes , the slightly lighter weight of the car helped. Never had a complaint on them as the customers knew by buying a V-6 they wouldn't win any races. I don't think too many of them got good MPG's with them because they tended to stand on the accelerator pedal. Funny story. I sold a friend of mine a triple-brown '79 Fleetwood Brougham who, as a traveling salesman, wanted a diesel in it. He could not be persuaded otherwise. He must have put over 300k on that damned thing without any major issues!!!!!!! Service would marvel at it every time he came for a regular oil change and service. It should have gone in a museum. I had an '89 FW-drive Sixty-Special Coupe that was pretty quick and I really liked the car overall.
The 425 (79 SDV) was a great engine esp. w/ dual exhaust, no cat & bumped timing. I fled a hurricane from Gulf Shores AL to Jackson Miss. in one at a steady 110mph. At the time the car already had 185k. Great car.
You didn't mention the 4,1 litre V6. You could get this powertrain, based on the reliable 3,8 litre V6, from 1980 till 1983. It had also 125 HP but more torque at lower rpm. A good alternative and rarely seen on roads today!
My parents had a 1966 sedan de ville and a 1971 sedan de ville. I bought a new 1979 Coupe de ville with a 429 and pulled a boat and 2 horse trailer with it. I heard so much bad about the 4-6-8 motors I bought Olds for several years. Then my mom and I both bought a Cadillac in the 90’s with the Nortstar engine. Both cars used a quart of oil every 800 miles! The dealer said that was normal! We sold both and went to Lincoln’s. Today my only Caddy is a 1969 Eldorado with a 472 and 375 horsepower! Cadillac sure lost a lots of business from diehard enthusiasts!
I had a longtime customer that I looked after that moved to live with her daughter out of state. She had an 1985 El Dorado that she had purchased new with then 60K miles. No longer needing it, and not wanting to hassle with a sale , , she gave it to me. It was as new and being the last year of the full sized El Dorados, it was a handsome car. I rarely drove it but one evening my wife took it to a meeting and upon her return she stated the car was smoking out the hood. After investigating I found the dreaded intake manifold leak issue. A longtime friend that was a mechanic and service writer for Sparling Cadillac back in the day, repaired the issue. I sold it to a customer that liked large Cadillacs . He boasted about 24mpg on several road trips and how pleased he was with the car.
Can you imagine following one stinker up with an even bigger stinker ( Is NorthStar) Knowing there were problems with the design? I just think of how hard my parents worked irked for their money and how in both says if their car didn't work then neither did they. Aside from the Ford Pinto issue☄ I really think that GM had total contempt for their customer base.
I bought a 1982 Coupe DeVille in 1983 with only 9000 miles on it. Going up hill I was easily passed by 4 cylinder autos. Aside from lack of power, antifreeze would disappear and I needed to add a half gallon to the radiator every week. Cadillac knew of the problems with the HT4100 by 1983 yet they kept putting this motor in their cars till 1985. I traded the car for another make in 1984 and it was the last Cadillac I ever bought.
This assessment is spot-on. Cadillac was known for making luxurious, soft-riding, quiet, comfortable, stylish, and enormously large cruisers, and they were great at it. Motivating these were smooth, torquey, and reliable engines. Once all the downsizing was forced on them relatively quickly by oil issues and CAFE, the engine problems started and helped ruin their reputation. They should have just eaten the gas guzzler tax, but instead they made underpowered cars, then also undersized cars. Things started looking better when they moved into the 90s and started adapting as the 4.9 was good and so were the L05 and LT1 powered behemoths, but not only was it too little, too late anyway, but then the almighty Northstar debuted and ended up having head gasket issues. Cadillac was understandably mostly replaced by imports among the elites, who they then interestingly tried to copy to ditch the “old man” image and return to grace. However, Mercedes, BMW, and others were kings of sporty luxury in the way Cadillac and Lincoln were kings of traditional luxury back in the day, so they never broke through and are now just a shadow of what they once were.
u def. got that right !!!!I had a 1982 Fleetwood Brougham, which was garbage since the day I bought it !!, Only 4 yrs. old at the time, and low miles, it had coolant problems, ECM, problems, overheating , ECT, , I drove it for less that 1 year before dumping it !!, never, never , never, no matter if I found one with 20.000 actual miles, would I own an '82 - 85 Cadillac !!
My neighbor has a '60 Cadillac Fleetwood sedan in light blue. When I see it go past my house, I am reminded of a JetBlue Airbus A320. I think it is about the same size....
Thank you, Adam, for this video on the infamous HT4100. I was friends with a family that had an '83 Sedan DeVille with this engine. I drove the car once and it was not powerful but it got the job done. Their 4.1 was pretty much trouble-free as long as they owned the car. Two things seemed to have contributed to its longevity: They let the engine warm up (year-round) before they drove off from anywhere and the car was an over-the-road car. The car racked up miles rather quickly. They sold the car years later. When I last saw it going down the road it was puffing blue smoke. It was hit and miss with the Cadillac 4.1. If they were maintained and not driven hard they could last. Also, that some of these little engines are still going today and that some went the distance is rather remarkable. After all, any time these engines were going down the road, they were always under load propelling such heavy cars.
@@davidpowell3347 I would assume it did. I remember the owners staying on top of maintenance. Not until Adam''s video did I know that the "pills" were crushed walnut shells. I don't recall ever hearing the owners speak of any powertrain issues, and they put a lot of miles on that 4.1. The car was constantly on the road. The owners never hot-rodded the car from a stop but on the highway, the car would torque out well and they would exceed the speed limit. I can still see the radar detector that was mounted on the dash. Many years later I saw the car on the road and with different owners. As I stated in my previous post, it was still going (it was in the left lane passing everybody else while intermittingly puffing blue smoke, but it was still running strong; as strong as an HT4100 could run). By that time the car must have had 275,000 or more miles on it and on the original engine. Apparently, there were never any gasket leaks or flat cam issues with this particular engine. As I also stated in my previous post, the owners that I knew always let the engine warm up before they put it under load. This also may have contributed to there not being any gasket issues. Letting the engine warm up at a slower rate would have contributed to the bi-metals (aluminum block, aluminum intake manifold, and iron heads) being able to expand slowly and may have saved the gaskets from breaching. This practice was a saving grace regarding the 5.7 Oldsmobile Diesel. Many owners of that engine stated that they let the engine warm up at idle in order to let the torque-to-yield head bolts expand slowly, which helped to preserve their clamping strength. This procedure seemed to have helped to minimize blown head gaskets.
@@randyrankin589 I understood that with any engine,even a Cummins or Cat Diesel in a truck,the maximum stress time on the head gasket(s) is at a cold,say, Arctic start,especially if the driver immediately guns the vehicle into hard acceleration as many drivers in County trucks tended to do. As the engine comes up to running temperature the clamping force increases,although not by as much with traditional iron head on an iron block. Overheat on the other hand could overstretch the head bolts or studs,possibly irreversibly stretching them. Or permanently crushing the gasket beyond its elasticity. If the threads start to pull or the engine deck warp I guess that is a worse problem. I didn't know the "pills" were made from walnut,I did used to have a package of them given to me by a dealer/owner who I bought a Pathfinder from (his business sold Pontiac,Cadillac and GMC truck as well as having added Datsun/Nissan,he seemed to like Pontiac. Never used the pills but I did tighten/retorque the head bolts in my Citation V6 which I eventually took past 100,000 miles with no engine problems except for messy external leaks and a couple of clutches (dealer place put in my aftermarket clutch very reasonable,the owner used to be a fellow runner and I believe used to help sponsor the "JFK 50 Mile Hike-Run" (the Citation did develop a preference for high test gasoline) As I recall the "KA" engine that was in some of the Datsun pickups could have their head bolts retorqued but you weren't supposed to mess with the ones in the "VG 30" engine unless you were replacing them with new ones (might have been "torque to yield" (The VG 30 engines were optional in the pick ups and were the engine in the 300ZX)
"Car Nut" since '51 here again! My Dad retired in '84 and bought his '84 Sedan De Ville from his Corp. & guess either "lucked out" or had the "extended engine warranty" but his 4.1 gave him 4 years of unmatched MPG though he drove probably only 8,000 MPY! Traded in on his '89 Fleetwood in '88.
Ross Perot was famously critical of the Cadillacs about this time- he asked about engine issues with the 4100 and was told it was due to owners not properly maintaining their vehicles. He rather quickly called BS on that one- pointing out that the market segment buying Cadillacs weren't likely to be changing their own oil... Or looking into constant complaints about oil pan leaks- found out that GM knew about the issues- but refused to do anything about it because the upgraded gasket would cost $.05 more per unit
I began to sell cars in 1988 at a store with Buick and Cadillac along with Honda. By 1988, the HT4100 was made into the 4.5L and was improved. Then they went to the 4.9L which was really good. But I've seen a lot of 4100's with a ton of miles on them still going strong as long as they were properly taken care of. Recently, I picked up a mint 1986 Seville with only 22,560 miles. So far it runs out great, is smooth and quiet. So far no issues and I've already had the cooling system flushed and new coolant put in. This Seville is a fantastic addition to my 1988 Cimarron!
I owned a 1981 Cadillac Seville it was purchased new by my father in law and my wife and I later purchased it from them. It had the engine overheating problems and the engine was replaced at around 13000 miles. After that there were never anymore problems with the HT 4100. We purchased it at 80000 miles and still no problems however when you started it during warm up it had a main bearing knock until it was warmed up but it never caused any problems and when I changed the coolant I always put the coolant tablets in we sold it at 278000 miles same engine however I always ran synthetic oil in it and a high quality oil filter and changed it every 3000 miles and this is probably why it didn’t give any issues while we owned it. However at 120000 miles we had the transmission replaced at aamco transmissions with a lifetime warranty as long as they serviced it at there intervals which we did and at 158000 more miles no problems. I did replace the front and rear wheel bearings 2 different times these are sealed bearings so they are not serviceable except to replace them . And that is not a job for a novice mechanic as they are difficult to remove especially on the front as the are mounted on the inboard side of the front steering knuckles so you have to remove the upper and lower suspension mounting parts to remove them. I assume that they were designed that way to prevent the wheels from coming off in case of a catastrophic failure of the wheel bearing. The rear wheel bearings also the suspension has to be removed to replace the wheel bearings so the front and rear are a lot of mechanical work to replace. I will give this automobile this with the exception of some of the mechanical ⚙️ ills it was one of the quietest and comfortable riding cars of that era. And the ahead of its time electronic dashboard was absolutely beautiful. The other Achilles heel of these years of Cadillacs were the H V A C units in them the hot air door motors on the thermostat side of this H V A C system was quite prone for failure and the parts were also quite expensive as I replaced them myself so I know the pain that they were to work on. And if the heater core ever failed to remove it the dashboard has to be removed. You would think that the GM corporation would know about this and have made the heater core more robust and this is shameful for a vehicle that costs this much money. Why cut corners on something so important??? So I agree that Cadillac really did mess up on this era of automotive technology. So very sad.
In late 80's I started driving for a limousine company for 20 years. First came the fuel injected ones, and later on many more good things. Their local motto was only Caddys and blue at that. A few years later quality started to decline, and customers asked for Lincoln Town Cars. Today in 2023 the 3rd generation business is almost all Lincoln and Toyota and a few Hondas. Black too (I'm retired lol.)
It was the attitude rather than a decision or a decisions. Putting corporate parts into cadillac “the standard of the world” with little or no addition of excellence in quality or luxury destroyed and made a mockery of that tag line. Crappy engines were a result of that attitude. One of the great examples of leadership drift and the purge of car lovers by accountants and bureaucratic process addicts.
I had a 93 deville with the 4.9l. That engine ran amazingly well. I think i would get close to 30mpg highway cruising. Changing the spark plugs by the firewall was very difficult however.
Caddilac should've put the Olds 307 in like Buick did in their 79-85 Rivieras. Great motor. I even have the 307 in my 88 Fleetwood Brougham. It has no problem pushing it around and they get 17 miles to the gallon.
Let’s not forget the 4.1L V6 that was available in the Fleetwood. As a 22 yr old in ‘93 working as a salesman at an Olds dealer, I picked up a 1981 Brougham D’Elegance with that engine. It had come in on trade, and I think I paid around $700. For it. But man oh man…what a dog. The early 80’s were definitely the worst for the entire industry.
That was really weird. The 4.1L V6 was a Buick engine that was offered that year at Cadillac and you had to wonder, "Is GM hedging their bets on the HT4100"? Why is this engine even in the lineup? It's not like their mileage was any different.
That 4.1L V6 had the same horsepower and more torque than the HT4100 did. And it was more reliable. It would have been better to stick with that engine than the expensive disaster that was the HT4100.
I purchased a 1985 Eldorado a few years ago as a summer cruiser. It's in very nice shape with no rust and immaculate interior. It had at the time of purchase just over 60K original miles and I knowingly change the oil and coolant each summer and am very conscientious to pay attention to the engine. Definitely a poor choice to move away from the 368? cubic inch V8 during the early 80's. Thanks for the comprehensive history on the HT4100 engine.
Owned a 1984 Cadillac Coupe De Ville with the HT 4.1 V-8. Put 150K miles on it without a problem. Overall the car was very reliable. Smooth, quiet and got really good MPG. Not a speedster but got the job done well. Went on to own a 1990 Fleetwood 60 Special with a 4.5 V-8. Great car! Also had a 1995 Sedan De Ville, 1997 Catera, 2001 Catera Sport, 2003 CTS Sedan and a 2007 CTS Sedan. All of the cars were bought new and gave me very good service.
Thanks for the analysis. One piece of a very sad story. After playing second fiddle to Packard for most of the pre WW II years , after the war Cadillac made so many good moves it dominated the high end of the US market about 30 years. Then the market shifted, and the party was over. That engine was one of their worst problems, but for Cadillac, it was only one of a string of seriously wrong moves. Their stuff has been pretty nice in recent years, but the buyers are conditioned to think Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Audi before Caddy.
Probably the best engine to put in the full sized 82 caddys would have been the Crossfire 350 from the vette. It was reliable, made good usable torque, and was hooked to an overdrive transmission.
True, but a CHEVROLET engine in a CADILLAC?!?!? The horror! GM caught hell putting Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles in the 1970s. They literally got sued and dealt with bad press. The heart of the problem was as the host points out, the cars the engines were designed to be in (the downsized C-Bodies that appeared for 1985) were supposed to be out in 1982 or 83. GM was tooled up to produce those engines and they had to go somewhere. Eventually the Oldsmobile V8s made their way into Cadillacs by the mid-late 1980s.
I had a DeVille with the HT4100. It was such a beautiful car. But the engine never went more than 40,000 miles without a rebuild. The engine was gutless in the city, but did great on the highway. The highway mileage was really decent too, for such a large car. I don't understand how GM got the HT4100 so very wrong. The Japanese had been building aluminum engines for a while and got it right. Couldn't GM have gleaned a few clues form them?
I've quit american built cars more than 40 years ago and I never regretted my decision. the cadillac is just another example of the big 3 thinking. The good decision would have been to recall all these engines and replace them by a revised version on a special warrenty instead of that, they preferred to loose their name. It is that way Toyota,and other european and asian manufacturers have gained the market. very good video.
I owned a 1983 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with the HT4100 engine. It was slower than cold molasses. One of the worst Cadillacs that I have ever owned. I replaced the engine with a newer HT4100 only to be rear-ended shortly thereafter. That totaled out the car. Only the Northstar was worse. The Northstar was complete garbage. I bought a 1998 Eldorado ETC. Within 3 months, the engine developed the "Northstar problem". I brought it back to the dealer and told them to keep it. Never again will I own a Northstar. I have the 4.9 in a 1995 Sedan DeVille that I have owned since 2014. According to the dealer, the car was originally owned by Bette White from The Golden Girls. The engine has never given me any problems. It has ample power too. I have other Cadillacs in my driveway but, I like taking the '95 out from time to time. My 1976 Fleetwood is reserved for long trips.
I remember the 4100 in a family member's Sedan de Ville. In 1985, I recall thinking it had pretty good power and appreciated the return of the V8 sound. However, I don't think that car was around long enough to experience a catastrophic failure.
GM did release a updated intake gasket & bolts in Jan. '89, (TSB T 90-61) for the 4100 & 4.5, but by then the damage was done. Front main bearing knock was common, a revise bearing was released for that concern as well. Carbon sticky exhaust valves were also common.
I worked for a Cadillac dealer during those years. Another very common issue with the 4100. Vehicle would come in popping back through the intake. You would then go to the parts department and ask for a Cadillac tune up kit which consisted of a camshaft and lifters. Intake lobe on camshaft worn perfectly round.
You're right about the reputation going downhill quickly. The big 70's models still had some appeal to many buyers, even with the build quality getting worse every year. The big V8's were underpowered for their size, but they weren't junk. Early 80's - smaller Cadillacs with not so great build quality, and the underpowered engine was junk. Within a few years there Cadillac became the brand to avoid owning.
If you think the Oldsmobile diesel was a bad idea in 1978, that's nothing compared to the HT 4100 V8 an engine that was as fragile as the Chevy Vega once was.
A decision like that could have only come from a corporate board room, not from anyone with engineering experience! That began GM's trend of rushing a new model to production before working the bugs out of it, during which they lost sales until it was improved. They talk about the automatic overdrive, but that was a by-product of the gutless HT4100. Prior to '82, the 368 V-8 could use an extremely low 2.19 final drive because of its torque, precluding the necessity of overdrive. The low power of the HT4100 necessitated the use of a much higher 3.42 axle which had to be countered by an overdrive to reduce RPM. They used a 3.15 axle in the Eldo, but that was still too high and noisy. I also notice the piece of junk R-4 pancake compressor in these cars which was a disaster that replaced the best compressor in the industry, the R-6, which FoMoCo began using in 1972 through 1979.
There is a video test drive of the new 79 Eldo Biarritz with the olds 350. Should have stayed with it and add overdrive with TBI later on to keep customers for the long-haul vs V8-6-4 and the HT4100. as others have mentioned, GM should have learned from the vega with aluminum cores.
I am one of those that sworn off Cadillac due to the 4100 engines. It wasn't just the engine though. The transmission they had in those cars were equally a pile of plastic junk. My 82-model stayed in the garage more than it ever did in my driveway. I wish I had taken some pictures of that 50-acre field across from the GM plant in Atlanta off I-285 back then. It had so many Cadillacs and big GM Buicks & Pontiacs parked so close to one another they actually had to roll the windows down to get out of the cars. All of them parked there because of engine and tranny problems that GM could not fix. Thousands of cars. My car was so bad and had been sent back to the dealership for repairs so many times that the dealership actually and intentionally wrecked my car so they could total it out and not have to spend more money on it. Know this to be true cause my insurance company at the time sued the dealership for that reason and won the case. Insurance company was paid as well as myself. I received $25k out of the case and I promptly purchased a brand-new Mazda 626 for $12k. One of the best cars I ever owned.
Worked at a repair shop in the 1990s and a Cadillac came in for a oil change with the HT 4100 With new oil and filter knocked so badly , we tried different oil weights, filters to no avail Woman owner was furious at us! We eventually called Cadillac and they towed car from our shop to dealership. They replaced the engine, under warranty. Only had about 60,000 miles Nightmare of an engine design as many technicians will attest to. Sad how Cadillac bean counters made a once proud division deteriorate
I had a 1984 Deville, it was a slow car with a terrible knock in the engine. I think it had 182k when I traded it in on a 454 Suburban in the mid 1990's. The diesel,V8-64 and the HT4100 did so much damage to Cadillac. the car line had beautiful bodies, but to power trains worth a hoot. And the GM 200 and 200R4 transmissions were problematic too. No wonder customers flocked to Lincoln with a reliable EFI 302 with 4 speed overdrive.
We had a 65 Caddy convertible in white. Then Dad bought an 81 diesel Eldorado and that was a disaster. The dealer replaced it with another diesel Eldorado with more options and it didn't explode. At least until my sister forgot it was a diesel and put regular gas in it. Dad had someone put a small block Chevy in it and was a far better driving experience than it ever was with the diesel.
The latest Cadillacs are awesome. From about '08 on they were making very good cars again. I'll stack my little ATS 2.0T against anything in its class. It goes like hell, handles like a dream. Unfortunately, the 80s and 90s Cadillacs ruined the reputation of this historic brand.
GMs mistakes would fill encyclopedias. The biggest is allowing the bean counters to take over. I would normally say this is turning the business over to Wall Street to boost stock prices. The insufferable part is the GM attitude that they were above change and the customer would accept what ever they churned out. The attitude is still present. They should have been allowed to fail. They earned it.
If my father were to share his version of events with the man behind the YT channel, I wonder what the latter may think of the former.
yup
more at fault were the greedy unions and their demands, then barak HUSSEIN obama came along and treated union retiree healthcare obligations as 'secured creditors' He violated U.S. Bankrutcy Laws all to payback the UAW. Then, he exercised the stock options well below breakeven for the American Taxpayer. I have a 2007 chevy truck, last government motors vehicle I will ever own. Talk about crony capitalism. The demoCRAPS wrote book on that.
It continues today, but all the big 3 are guilty of the same: elimination if ICE cars in favor of EV's. HUGE mistake given demand for gas engine remains. I bought my last GM "appliance" in 1983 and never looked back. And I never regretted the move either.
Yes they should been forced to fail instead of bailed out, someone would have bought out the profitable parts and made them work. I think the current CEO is even worse than Roger Smith. My prediction is they will be bailed out again. My father worked at GM from the 60s until they they bought EDS, he was transferred to EDS back then. In the end he lucked out and got 2 pensions. We always owned GM cars for years, but quality got so bad in the early 2000s he quit buying their cars. I haven't owned a GM since the early 2000s, I would buy a used one that was pre 93, but thats about it, no new ones.
That 67 Eldorado is a masterpiece.
Not as much as the 1966 Olds Tornado.
@@jackkerouac6186 that is a spectacular automobile, I think you're right. Cheers
@@buckodonnghaile4309 those eldorados were put on the olds frame. My Toronado could do sixty mph u turns . If you had 4 or 5 lanes
@@buckodonnghaile4309 those eldorados were put on the olds frame. My Toronado could do sixty mph u turns . If you had 4 or 5 lanes
@@jackkerouac6186 interesting. A 60mph u turn sounds like my kind of fun.
I worked in an auto repair shop in 1993 that saw an HT4100 powered Cadillac come in needing a new engine. After calling all the good rebuilders in the country, we ended up sourcing a brand new HT4100 long block directly from Cadillac because it cost LESS than rebuilt!
No one would rebuild a 4100 motor if they knew what they were doing.
As someone whose only half as old as the HT4100, I can say, Cadillac's decisions are one of the rare ones that caused issues even 30 years later, since now buying an old reliable Cadillac is nowhere near as easy as it should be
Never mind how ugly they are against the European cars inside and out.
@@Low760 To you. That's a matter of personal taste. Precisely how I feel about all the Euro-trash that were supposedly more "stylish".
Hemmings
@@Low760 I think the '92 to '04 Seville is drop dead gorgeous inside and out.
As someone who is older than you, you have no idea what you're commenting on and the wikipedia article doesn't count as the same thing as experience.
First of all you don't know the differences between the 4.1 and the 4.9, second you seem unaware that the fleetwood brougham didn't have that engine, and third you obviously haven't looked very hard if you can't find a mint running and driving one with sub-100k miles, either that or you're living somewhere i'm genuinely surprised has an internet connection at all and still uses horse and buggy to get around.
I remember that in the 1982 Caddy people that selected the 4.1 Buick V6 with the 4 barrel were a lot more satisfied than those buying the 4100 V8. That 4100 was a dog in the big body rear drive Caddy.
I appreciated the 4100 as a rookie at the dealership in the late 80's because replacing intake gaskets at about every 30K miles became a money making gravy job.
I had a cousin who bought a new white Sedan deVille with the V6 and loved it. Not fast, but a great road car and his was trouble-free.
My Fathers 1984 Fleetwood Brougham, was flawless. He put 186000, miles on it from 84-92! Noe issues with that engine. It was under powered. I agree. I once had it up to a little over 100 mpg! Perhaps it was trouble free, as 90% of the mileage was highway?
@@markross9781 100 mpg? That must be a typing error.
When your best engine is a delete option carbureted V6 from a lesser division, the basic design of which was over 20 years old at the time… and you spend tens of millions replacing it with a less economical, less reliable fuel injected V8 of the same displacement, but with no extra power and LESS torque… it’s not great.
1982 was also the year of the Cimarron with its wheezy 1.8L four.
People look back with nostalgia, but it cannot be underestimated how disastrous this era was for Cadillac and for the reputation of American luxury cars more generally.
@@jacknapier7740 The V6 had the same horsepower and more torque than the HT4100,
The 4.9 might have been derived from the 4.1, but by that time it was completely re engineered, and yes was 1 of Caddy's best engines.
Absolutely 💯
Agreed. Nothing wrong with the 4.9. They can run for a few hundred thousand miles if serviced regularly.
Good engine!
I've had two. The 93' loved waterpumps. Other than that, smooth & lot's of torque.
💯% Agree. How much of the 4.9 engine is aluminum?
You'd think after the Vega engine disaster, GM would have learned their lessons about aluminum and iron. It seems Cadillac never had a decent engine after this. The rear drivers got eventually got Chevy or Olds V8s. I think a larger version of the Buick V6 was a no cost option for a year or two in the early 80s. Then you got the Northstar V8...which also had head gasket sealing issues. After that, they seemed to use variants of GM engines.
Iron block and aluminum heads is an awesome combination. Aluminum block and iron heads is a terrible combination.
Awesome? There were several iron block / aluminum head engines from decades ago that blew head gaskets prematurely... Ford's 3.8 liter Essex V6 comes to mind. Today, it appears that head gaskets have improved greatly. I don't think anyone has yet eliminated the difference in thermal expansion rates of aluminum and iron. Aluminum heads on aluminum blocks are even better in my experience. Plasma sprayed iron on aluminum bores looks very promising, at least until EVs make it irrelevant!!!
The best caddilacs are the CTS, ct5 v and Blackwings. Lsa motor.
And what is the definition of insanity?
Okay, explainer time. The 4100/4.5/4.9 are all essentially the same engine design. Aluminum block with iron heads. The cylinders were steel inserts that could be removed and replaced. That makes them different from the Vega engine which had aluminum cylinders with some sort of coating (which wore through quickly).
The Northstar is not as bad an engine as everyone thinks. They are prone to head gasket failure when the cooling system is neglected and they are allowed to overheat. They make really good power for their time and the lower ends are nearly indestructible. The main issue was advertising that it could be driven up to 50 miles with no coolant, giving people the false impression that driving it while overheating was okay. It is the first engine I am aware of that will kill four cylinders at a time while overheating to try and pump air through the engine to keep it cool.
Lastly, the current corporate V6 aka 3.6L dohc made its debut in the CTS in 2004. If maintained and oil changes are done reasonably, they are quite reliable engines. Timing chain failures generally occur on engines with extended oil change intervals, although there was a period of time when the timing chains went through several design revisions to decrease noise and increase longevity.
None of this is to say GM didn’t commit some profound sins, they absolutely have. Just trying to give an objective view as a former Cadillac dealer technician who worked on transmissions and engine mechanical for over a decade.
Edit to add, while the 4.9 was pretty good, the 4109 WAS a terrible engine. At the dealer we used to say that a 4100 wouldn’t even make a good boat anchor because sh*t floats. Lol
You are correct, all of these decisions have affected the Cacillac's reputation. Now, when people think reliable luxury car, they think Lexus. Even Mercedes reputation is tarnished now.
German cars are going down a black hole.
Ill still take a LINCOLN
@@rogersmith7396 Also known as a "money pit".
That's because Lexus cheated and gave customers what they wanted. You're not supposed to do that. It's taboo.
My Pastor only bought Cadillacs beginning in the late 1960s . But he bought his first BRAND NEW Cadillac which was a 1982 Sedan de Ville with the 4100. It was so troublesome that he switched to a Lincoln Town car a couple of years later. He NEVER bought a Cadillac or any GM again. Before that, the last Ford product he owned was a used Model A that was given to him in the 1950’s. That’s how bad the 4100 treated him. Dad had several other customers that switched to Lincolns after the 4100 experience.
Exactly what I did. Read my comment above.
my dad was also one of those people. he went from buying a new sedan deville every year to buying a new town car every year. all his town cars were fantastically reliable, smooth and luxurious. he felt that after his decades of loyalty, Cadillac shit on him.
Lincoln is a much better car especially the Town Car
Was he a good Everyman pastor or an over the top “I gotta be looking flashy!!” pastor?
@@gm12551 He was a GREAT pastor. He began his ministry by WALKING 10 or 20 miles regularly. A judge GAVE him the Model A . And he owned several older cars before he was able to afford the Cadillac. His MAIN source of income was a State job. He was a middle aged man when he got the nice cars. He was near 70 when he bought the NEW 1982 Cadillac. He lived to be 99 and drove until the last few months of his life. But anyway, he regularly brought people to church who didn’t have transportation in his Buick, Cadillacs and Town cars. He actually loaned his Cadillac to my Father when Dad and mother had to take an emergency trip out of town to keep dad from having to rent a car and drove Dad’s car that weekend. He’d get up in the middle of the night to go pray for a person. One year When the young folk needed to take a trip, he drove us in my dad’s old 67 Dodge van (no AC) . I could go on. He lived in a very modest home in a very working class neighborhood. As far as I could see, the nice cars were his ONLY splurge. Everything else was ordinary. In his later years his neighborhood gradually became a bit rough and high in crime . But even the lawbreakers would NOT allow others to mess with him. When he slowed down and was home a lot, Young and old would come sit on his porch just to listen to his wisdom. He died in 2012 . I still miss him greatly. I could go on. But you get the picture
Adam, I greatly appreciate your giving us the torque numbers for the engines instead of just the horsepower numbers. It really helps to understand how much power these cars really had. Sorry if my multiple comments on this issue seemed a bit harsh. It was never my intention.
As always, great video and I thank you for sharing your thoughts and knowledge on these wonderful vehicles
The veteran car tester Tom McCahill always said from the beginning of automotive history the emphasis on horsepower was wrong, that it was torque that did the work. Those very early cars in the 00's and teens had huge displacement 4's and 6's with 400-600 cubic inches but only about 65 horsepower--the 1910 Oldsmobile Limited had 750 cubic inches. They were built more like trucks because of the almost non-existent roads of the time, but those huge engines had lots of low speed torque, allowing travel at only about 1,500 RPM in many cases because the crude transmissions were hard to shift and the emphasis was on staying in high gear as much as possible.
Was guessing just based on the title of the video, you were going to mention the Cimmaron. There are a lot of poor decisions to choose from
I was thinking the same thing. If that was a Cadillac my daughter's Beetle is a 911.
@@buckodonnghaile4309 Ha, well said
Dad bought a new Seville in 84 with the HT-4100. It was good for a very placid rate of acceleration. He was shocked when his car business buddies informed him that the engine was doomed to fail in a few years. Surprisingly, the car lasted until 2002 when it was sold to the third owner, who trashed it. It did better than his 1980 Brougham diesel, which needed stop motion photography to record any movement.
Lol the Cimaron. The Cadillac Cavalier.
I wrote a ton of repair estimates for Caddies of the late 70’s to mid 80’s. I watched the devastating effect the bean counters had across the GM line.
I will totally agree. If I were the prospective 77 DeVille owner trading in sometime in the early to mid 80s, I would've been super disappointed. Nobody was making fast domestic luxury cars at that point, but wow, taking a 307 powered Buick Park Avenue or a 302 Lincoln Town car wouldve been faster than the 4100, more reliable in the short term, and more durable in the long run. I hate the 4100 today because it's tainted all those otherwise wonderful early 80s Cadillacs. A ragtop eldorado, had they just dropped in the olds 307 like they had in the Riviera and tornado, would've been killer. It's no wonder GM lost so many buyers at this time.
Starting in 1985-6 the FWD Buick Park Avenue and Olds 98 Regency were much better cars all around than the FWD Caddys. The Oldsmobuicks had slightly more progressive styling where Cadillac clung to too many Brougham-era design cues that looked cartoonish on the smaller car to the Caddy faithful and dated on day one to potential conquests and movers-up, and then there were the developments of the HT4100 vs the dead-nuts reliable Buick 3800 V6.
Those 4100's really impact the value of these cars. I just sold an extremely nice 1985 Seville with the 4100 on Bring a Trailer. And it's probably no surprise to you that it fell extremely short on the money! I actually lost a couple thousand on it, which is just part of the business. And the thing was, this car was serviced SO well and it even came with a 5 year supply of the crushed walnut tablets!! Lol! Love your CZcams channel as it is very informative! Keep up the good work!
My wife’s first Cadillac was an’84 Fleetwood with the HT4100. White with red interior, it was slow but sharp looking. Regular use of the walnut tabs kept things at bay and she drove it to 120k miles.I put a water pump on it at about 80k. It was replaced with a ‘91 Fleetwood Brougham D’Elegance with the corporate 350 (chevy) engine. It was plenty fast and reliable. Regret letting that one go.
The V8-6-4 immediately came to mind when I saw the title of the video. Followed by the Northstar and diesel
I own a 94’ Sedan Deville and it has the 4.9 V8. What a smooth quiet and surprisingly powerful engine. It’s quite easy to work on and gets great Mpg on the highway (Over 25). I’m glad it’s the 4.9 and not the early northstar and I couldn’t be more happy with that engine. Great vid, a fallow up on the 4.9 and cars it was placed in would be awesome too!
GM signed it’s Death-Warrant in the 1980’s ! The last of the great Cadillacs were the early to mid 1970’s ! The two best engines Cadillac built were the 472 Big block in 1967 and the 500 cubic inch 8.2 Liter in the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado !
472s started in '68. The '67 was a the 429 with a different front cover.
It looks GM made some many mistakes in the early 80's with Cadillac. Cimmaron, V8 6 4 engines, Diesals , 80 Seville, look alike Devilles downsizing (which looked like other FWD cars , not Cadillac). etc, etc .. CEO Smith and upper Management heads did some terrible things to GM in the 80's
What's a diesal?
I think the MAIN PROBLEM was not the companies as it was the GOVERNMENT inserting itself into the equation! Ronald Reagan said it best" Government is NOT the solution! Government IS the PROBLEM!! A little study of history from 1970 to the present will show that.
This brings back childhood memories of my parents fighting over replacing our ‘77 deVille with an ‘83 for my mother…the old man’s apprehension was correct even though he had moved out and was still paying the bills, but this purchase was definitely a mistake. I remember my light footed mother having the pedal floored and we could barely get up to speed entering the freeway. What finally did this car in after 2.5 years and 30,000 miles was a road trip through twisty grades and the car could barely make it over peaks at 20 mph. Still remember having the car towed 3 hours back home once we reached our destination. Well, this young impressionable car fan perception of Cadillac was ruined for a lifetime. And meanwhile my parents became lifetime Benz owners the past 40 years. I like to say our ‘83 HT4100 led to my folks divorce, but that’s not entirely Caddy’s fault. 😊
Thank you Adam. I like the fact you are objective and tell the truth no matter what about cars and engines etc. You say things so well even when it is bad news. I recall this engine. I used to think a 130 hp Cadillac V8? The 4.5 and 4.9 liter V8's could not come fast enough in 1988 and l991 model years. It makes you wonder if the 4.5 and 4.9 had not come sooner what would have happened. The Northstar came and it was the same thing over again. The 4.9 should have been used longer until they could have got Northstar right. You covered the engines quite well as well. I liked the fact you mentioned what damage was done to Cadillac. They lost buyers from a lot of missteps in the 1980's. The video is so well stated.
In my circle the HT stood for HUGE TURD! You haven't seen the other problems that have been encountered with this engine! All the machine shops I knew would NOT touch this thing and ALL the dealerships WOULD NOT work on them either,.. They would replace them. " Same goes for the Northstar". These things were a nightmare to work on and after seeing for myself I can agree!
Adam, this video and another recent video of yours pretty much encapsulates my family's experience with Cadillac in the 1980s and I've told a similar story to people about how Cadillac lost its way. First, when I was in 8th grade, my mother bought a new brown 1979 Cadillac Seville. It was a great vehicle and I still wish we had it somewhere. Considering my step-father drove a 1975 Buick Apollo, it's weird to think that both cars began with the same bones, so to speak. But she smartly avoided getting the Diesel engine, probably just because she didn't know much about them. In 1984, she traded that car for a Sedan DeVille and in 1986, she replaced my first car as a teenager (a new 1980 Chevy Citation!) with a gently used 1980 Cadillac Coupe DeVille that an elderly neighbor had driven and had only 20,000 miles on it. My brother and I shared that car through college and he eventually kept it all the way through law school. The 1984 Sedan DeVille and 1980 Coupe DeVille were pretty much identical except for the the color, number of doors and the powertrain. The 6.0L big block V8 wouldn't be confused with a CTS-V's V8, but at least that car could get out of its own way. The 1984 Sedan DeVille was a veritable slug by comparison. At least some of the worst reliability kinks had been worked out of that car and she kept it for many years until she traded it for a 1993 Sedan DeVille featuring the 4.9L V8, a car I would eventually purchase from her four years later and drive until an unfortunate tangle with a city bus (the Caddy lost). But the 4.9L was a very nice engine, decent power, especially compared to the 5.7L Olds gas engine, the 6.0L Caddy V8, and the 4.1L Caddy V8, all which had been in the family during this era.
I agree that you cannot talk about Cadillac's decline in the luxury car market without talking about the powertrain debacle beginning with the Olds Diesel in 1978, continuing through the 1981 V8-6-4 and by the time the 1982 HT4100 showed up, GM engineers had inflicted so much damage to the brand. Something you didn't mention with the 1982 model Caddys was that there was a Buick 4.1L V6 as a no cost option that year. Why??? It's pretty much seems that GM was hedging their bets knowing that this engine was rushed too soon that there was another option, just in case. If anyone has that engine from that era, it's a truly rare bird.
Agreed, the 4.9L was a beast of a motor in the 91’ Seville. It would easily smoke the front tires with heavy throttle and could effortlessly cruise all day at 90+ mph. I remember very well how impressed I was with the whole car overall.
I did this alot with a 91 Seville hearse. I stand by your claim. If you roll on the throttle in a roundabout, you can smoke the front left through a couple gears with ease, which I found hilarious!
I bought a very nice 1984 Coupe'd Ville with 153,000 miles on it in mid '90s from Brown Brothers Cadillac in Louisville for $2,700 put 90,000 miles on it and sold it for $2,500. I never had any trouble out of the HT4100.
I bought an '88 SDV, with the 4.5. It's the only year of the smaller body and the 4.5.
It had 58k, and I put 100k more trouble free miles on it, until it was stolen. Broke my heart.
I'm 62, and it was my favorite car so far.
Love your content and style, Adam.
GM biggest mistake was pushing out cars and engines without enough development! Then when they just get it right, they end production.
I give Cadillac credit for coming up with the idea of engines on demand, in the early 80's. But they pushed the engine into production, before perfecting the product. That's what happened to the 8-6-4 engine. The concept was great, but the technology was not their to work.
Had a 92 with the 4.9, a good engine. I had injured my left knee requiring a soft cast from ankle to hip. The power seats in the Caddie allowed me to get in and drive. Most other cars I could not get in
As an ex GM dealer certified mechanic I’d rather have seen a diesel Cadillac vs a 4.1 the 368 modulated displacement wasn’t as big a pile of junk as the 4.1
GM's mistakes in the 80s was taking a diesel from a derived gas-powered block. This was a shortcut that bit them in the butt. I also agree the HT4100 was terrible (so was the initial 1993 Northstar, as it is still haunts them to this day regarding leaking head gaskets).
Agreed, North Star head gasket failure rates are one of the worst GM failures.
I knew two people who had GM diesels, my father-in-law and a co-worker. My father-in-law did not maintain his cars very well, oil changes and such. At about 45000 miles the diesel engine blew up. My co-worker maintained his cars on schedule as indicated by GM. At about 45000 miles, his diesel also blew up. These were horrid engines. The car my co-worker had was an Oldsmobile and he had a gasoline engine installed. I do not remember if GM helped with the cost or not.
The Northstar is actually a great performance engine with very minimal upgrades. Which should have been done off the line!
It's hard to anticipate all the problems an all-new engine or transmission might have when it is first released to the public. I think automakers should use low-volume specialty models (things like the Allante or the Cosworth Vega) to, eh, beta-test these assemblies before trying to sell them at volume. With a only a few hundred sold, they could afford long warranties to keep customers happy, and even implement quiet buybacks if the cars were incorrigible lemons. Of course, that can only work if you have the know-how and will to fix all the design defects; it wouldn't have been enough sort out Chrysler's Ultradrive 4 speeds, which were still failing after 10 years of production.
@@pcno2832 Somehow they seemed to get things right in the cases of the Olds V-8 in '49, Chevy and Pontiac V-8's in '55, Buick V-8 in '53, etc. Those engines were the products of real engineers, not pencil pushers.
Hi Adam, your videos are a car lovers dream! I have owned a 1986 Deville, 1989 Deville, 1992 Deville all of which had the motors you mentioned. My 1986 Deville overheated one day out of the blue and cracked the block. My 1989 had the 4.5 liter which was a much better motor in my opinion. My 1992 Deville had the 4.9 liter that had a knocking sound due to play in the #1 crankshaft bearing. An easy fix but never the less an issue. I think the best out of the three with all things considered would be the 4.5 liter. Thanks again
All of those early 80s Cadillacs worked just fine with 1968-69 350 Olds engines in them. No modifications to the transmission or motor. mounts were needed
I've owned 2 5.7L diesel cars , a 77 Seville, 83 and 84 Cimarron, 89 sedan DeVille and many more Cadillacs. The diesel was smooth and quiet and very fuel efficient. The problem was the injection pump, and the head bolts stretching which was resolved with the DX block in late 1980. The damage was done to its reputation. Poor diesel quality fuel in the late 70s and early 80s and GM techs who didn't understand diesels . More damage to Cadillacs reputation was the V864 engine from 1981 and the 1982 Cimarron
I know that in GM Cadillac engineering circles the HT stood for "High Technology" but, for the Techs who had to work on those HT 4100s at the time, the HT stood for "Hook and Tow" as that's how many of them arrived at the shop for repair! 😆
We called them hand tight .
@@JC-ct7wp "Highly Troubled" 4100 when I worked in a quick lube/quick tune shop.
as a retired GM tech it is stunning that maybe 1 person could make this happen at any car maker
I owned an 81 4-6-8 Seville. It was an awesome luxury vehicle for me and my new wife. Loved that car. I did not de-activate the 4-6-8 feature. As a motor head I often heard the engine knock but realized it was the 4-6-8 system doing it's job. I got great gas mileage commuting from Philly to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore 3 days a week in 1988.
Had a 1981 Eldorado with the V8-6-4, bought used in the early 1990s. For all the whining over the system mine did work. The problem as you say was in V6 mode the unbalanced 90 degree V engine shook perceptibly. Not like a hardware store paint shaker, but it was noticeable.
Our family had a '86 Sedan DeVille -gunmetal gray with a maroon leather interior...beautiful! Loved driving this gutless wonder...except when the 4100 engine blew up at 100,000 miles. It was my first time seeing engine oil come out looking like a milkshake!
The Seville was a great car, even with the Diesel. I worked on many in California. The problem was nobody had ever worked on diesels unless they were truck mechanics. Our shop specialized in diesel gm cars, we had specific fuel filtration systems installed,very specific oils, and a 30 gallon auxiliary fuel tank in the trunk, our clients could cross the border into Mexico and fill up for a third of the cost in the U.S. making the owners quite happy versus the rest.
My grandmother insisted on buying Cadillacs and had an 85 Fleetwood two door with the 4.1 liter V8. It was a nice driving car but every few months my grandfather would add some anti-electrolysis fluid to the radiator to keep the engine parts from swapping electrons. He owned and maintained his own aircraft and knew about aluminum more than most and flat refused to use walnut shells.
I replaced a LOT of ht4100 motors. Usually with a new one from a crate. Came with stop leak pellets that were required for warranty, lol. Shown is the actual pellets that were supplied! Thanks for the video.
It's safe to say the HT4100 is at least PARTLY a direct cause of GM's bankruptcy in 2008. Really all the decisions GM made for Cadillac between 1978-89. The thing that GM lost sight of is that Cadillac was once a brand that people were willing to pay top dollar for. So frankly, when CAFE came out, if GM was going to be hit with fines for not meeting corporate fuel economy averages, you include those fines in the sticker price of the Cadillac and you continue to make those cars truly the standard of the world. A serious Cadillac buyer would have still paid another $10-15k for those cars if they were built right with large 6+ liter V8s that had 300+ hp net, ran on premium fuel, were smooth and torquey and reliable, and simply a continuation of the engines they made for Cadillacs coming out of the 60s WITHOUT adjustments for fuel economy and emissions.
A close friend’s Dad drove Cadillac’s exclusively from the ‘60’s to the ‘80’s. His last Cadillac had the 4100 engine. He then drove Lincoln’s for the rest of his life.
In 2000, I bought a beautiful well kept 83 Eldorado, lifelong Southern California car, from a lady who was the original owner. Had a tick over 80.000 miles on it. Now has little over 120.000 miles. No engine issues, original engine. I do 6 month oil changes and coolant change with the tabs every other year. Only drive it about 1000 miles a year now. But still enjoy it, and it's a great looking car in and out, and definitely rides and drives like a cadillac should. I was 24 in 83, and thought they were extremely handsome cars. They did sell like hotcakes, they were everywhere, and cadillac kept the same body and interior from 1979 to 1985! Then a redesign in 1986 FLOPPED and Eldorado sales tanked.
Can we just blame Roger smith for all of everything that went sideways for all GM divisions ??
Roger certainly was a major factor in GM losing market share during and after his tenure.
I blame smith for obsessing over purchases instead of product. Hughes aircraft and EDS purchases were his big mistake.
"Grosse Point Myopia" is older than that. They lost their quality and exclusivity already in the sixties. Cadillac traditionally sold between 100-150k cars per year during the fifties and sixties, slowly upping the production. 1967 was the first year of 200k cars per year, 1973 300k cars, 1979 380k cars per year and so on.
GM made a ton of mistakes in the 80s that pretty much killed any remaining goodwill for well thought out innovation and quality. The early X-cars were horrible & unrefined; with the possible exception of Buick, build quality and fit & finish was shoddy; and as far as Cadillac goes, in addition to the 4100 engine disaster, we can’t forget the Cimarron, Cadillac’s dressed up Chevy Cavalier!
@@ppeters480 see Moore’s Roger & Me. Smith did his best Neutron Jack impersonation, canning thousands of employees and closing factories only to blow a crap ton of money in Saturn which was closed 15 years later?
The American automobile market was GM’s to lose. Goal achieved.
That Cadillac fastback is one of the most attractive of all time. GM management was mostly always wrong from the 80’s on. It continues today.
Good reflection on this tumultuous engine history with Cadillac. Having owned caddies with almost all of the referred to engines in this piece, save for the 8-6-4 version of the 368 -the 4100 was easily the worst. Funny how just a few years of development time eventually the 4100 engine produced the 4.5 and 4.9 -arguably considered among the best Caddys engines to date. Really the EPA/CAFE was more to blame for placing such extraordinary time pressure one GM and the big three to get mileage up. If those 82-87 cars had been powered by those later versions of that engine, we'd have more fond memories of them today then we otherwise do.
I remember back in the 80s that diesel was cheaper than regular gas.
Its quite the opposite now.
i bought my 1983 Sedan deVille in 1992 ... more than 31 years ago, its our wedding car. has the HT4100 v-8 rear wheel drive. currently has 148,000 miles on it. it has always run very well. i always give regular oil changes and add slick 50 at all oil changes. last summer i replaced the radiator, power steering pump, vacummn pump, all belts hoses etc. my beautiful yellow four door plain jane cadillac has always purred like a kitten and still does. have taken it to Las Vegas in scorching hot 113 F heat, cruising at 70 mph with digital air conditioning on. my car still looks and drives like new. Not for sale, but i will soon create a video of this car and post it on CZcams
I was a huge Cadillac fan, even as a kid, until the 1985 models came out - haven't been in a Cadillac showroom since!
The amazing thing about this story is that General Motors had previous experience with the problems caused by trying to mate aluminum and iron with the Vega from the early Seventies. If I'm not mistaken, the Vega engine had a cast iron block and aluminum head. Apparently Cadillac thought an aluminum block and cast iron head would yield a different result. The Olds diesel engine had an astounding failure rate. My 1980 Oldsmobile 98 Regency with the 350 diesel got 38 mpg, but went through three diesel engines before it turned 43,000 miles and we gave up on it. This from the company that invented the overhead valve V8 and ushered America into the modern age of automobiles - The Standard of the World. MotorTrend proclaimed Cadillac to be the fastest production car in the world in 1950. The Jaguar XK 120 may have been faster, however.
Vega engine was aluminum block and iron heads
I've always learned something new from your videos. I have some of those who cooling system pellets for when I worked as a GM parts assistant manager. Interesting to find out they are made out of crushed walnut shells! Some of those Cadillac engines did not have much more for horsepower than our the V6 engine in our S10 and trucks! Your knowledge of various vehicles is amazing. My mother and one of those infamous 5.7 N diesel engines in her pickup. It always achieved 22 MPG no matter what the load. Once she was pulled over for having the most stinky, disgusting truck that the police officer ever stopped that had nothing wrong with it! Of course gaskets failed twice on the heads. Both replaced under warranty, but eventually due to rust we replaced said pickup in 1985 with our current S10`s which we still drive to day.
When I first saw the butchered down deVille line in 1985 I totally gasped. I thought "that's a Cadillac??". To me it was a laughingstock. Same for the Buick Electra and the Olds 98. Absolute jokes (an Olds 98 with a V6? GIve me a break!) Fortunately Cadillac kept the larger body and it became the Fleetwood Brougham and they sold like hotcakes until discontinued in 1991.
When I saw the title, I thought for sure this would be about the Cimmaron. But underpowered engines aside, can we just take a moment to remember the days when the hood and the trunk were the same size as the passenger compartment? What a time to be alive!
I thought the same thing. That car was a joke.
I inherited my mother's 89 sedan Deville 7 years ago when she passed away. That 4.5 litre fwd has made a dozen round trips from Chicago to Denver and as of today sits in my garage with 62k miles on it. The only repairs I've had to make have bern a new alternator and ac compressor, belt and idler pulley and battery. Still looks and runs like a new car. A more comfortable ride than my son's 99 Deville with the Northstar and the 89 gets 28 mpg compared to the Northstar's 23 mpg.
0:26 Oh, that is just a work of fine art. I could stare at this for the rest of the day...!
And that’s without even getting into the transmission debacle Cadillac was dealing with. Or the 1.8L Cimarron.
In 1981-82, Cadillac’s best engine from the factory was a carbureted V6 based on a 20 year-old design from a lesser division. They spent tens of millions of dollars developing an all-new fuel injected V8 of the same displacement, only for it to yield the same horsepower and 15lb-ft less torque than the carbureted 4.1L Buick V6. The HT4100 also got poorer fuel economy and came standard with catastrophic unreliability. Tens of millions spent to end up with a standard engine that was worse is every way than the delete option.
And the ‘81 Coupe deVille 4.1 V6 weighed 3,801lbs. The ‘82 with the HT4100 weighed just 18lbs less.
Cadillac still offered the carbureted Buick 4.1 V6 as a $165 delete option in 1982. Probably the smartest delete option in automotive history.
Agreed 100%.
They should have gone back to the 429 as far as I was concerned. That engine was bullet-proof. The 425's weren't too bad. The downfall is always Government interference. We had rotated-out a couple of hearses at the funeral home that were so lame we couldn't wait to trade them. Everybody else we knew in the funeral business hated theirs for the same reasons. We had been used to powerful engines up until 1975. The 4100's were terrible.
As the previous post mentions the V-6 wasn't too bad. Quite a few went out the door as Coupe De Villes , the slightly lighter weight of the car helped. Never had a complaint on them as the customers knew by buying a V-6 they wouldn't win any races. I don't think too many of them got good MPG's with them because they tended to stand on the accelerator pedal.
Funny story. I sold a friend of mine a triple-brown '79 Fleetwood Brougham who, as a traveling salesman, wanted a diesel in it. He could not be persuaded otherwise.
He must have put over 300k on that damned thing without any major issues!!!!!!! Service would marvel at it every time he came for a regular oil change and service. It should have gone in a museum.
I had an '89 FW-drive Sixty-Special Coupe that was pretty quick and I really liked the car overall.
I Actually appreciate them cleaning up the air, the air pollution in Southern California was horrible.
The 425 (79 SDV) was a great engine esp. w/ dual exhaust, no cat & bumped timing. I fled a hurricane from Gulf Shores AL to Jackson Miss. in one at a steady 110mph. At the time the car already had 185k. Great car.
You didn't mention the 4,1 litre V6. You could get this powertrain, based on the reliable 3,8 litre V6, from 1980 till 1983. It had also 125 HP but more torque at lower rpm. A good alternative and rarely seen on roads today!
My parents had a 1966 sedan de ville and a 1971 sedan de ville. I bought a new 1979 Coupe de ville with a 429 and pulled a boat and 2 horse trailer with it. I heard so much bad about the 4-6-8 motors I bought Olds for several years. Then my mom and I both bought a Cadillac in the 90’s with the Nortstar engine. Both cars used a quart of oil every 800 miles! The dealer said that was normal! We sold both and went to Lincoln’s. Today my only Caddy is a 1969 Eldorado with a 472 and 375 horsepower! Cadillac sure lost a lots of business from diehard enthusiasts!
I had a longtime customer that I looked after that moved to live with her daughter out of state. She had an 1985 El Dorado that she had purchased new with then 60K miles. No longer needing it, and not wanting to hassle with a sale , , she gave it to me. It was as new and being the last year of the full sized El Dorados, it was a handsome car. I rarely drove it but one evening my wife took it to a meeting and upon her return she stated the car was smoking out the hood. After investigating I found the dreaded intake manifold leak issue. A longtime friend that was a mechanic and service writer for Sparling Cadillac back in the day, repaired the issue. I sold it to a customer that liked large Cadillacs . He boasted about 24mpg on several road trips and how pleased he was with the car.
Can you imagine following one stinker up with an even bigger stinker ( Is NorthStar) Knowing there were problems with the design? I just think of how hard my parents worked irked for their money and how in both says if their car didn't work then neither did they. Aside from the Ford Pinto issue☄ I really think that GM had total contempt for their customer base.
GM could'nt care less.
I bought a 1982 Coupe DeVille in 1983 with only 9000 miles on it. Going up hill I was easily passed by 4 cylinder autos. Aside from lack of power, antifreeze would disappear and I needed to add a half gallon to the radiator every week. Cadillac knew of the problems with the HT4100 by 1983 yet they kept putting this motor in their cars till 1985. I traded the car for another make in 1984 and it was the last Cadillac I ever bought.
4.5s turned out to be fantastic engines with the roller cams and large oil pumps - 300,000 mile engines if well maintained
This assessment is spot-on. Cadillac was known for making luxurious, soft-riding, quiet, comfortable, stylish, and enormously large cruisers, and they were great at it. Motivating these were smooth, torquey, and reliable engines. Once all the downsizing was forced on them relatively quickly by oil issues and CAFE, the engine problems started and helped ruin their reputation. They should have just eaten the gas guzzler tax, but instead they made underpowered cars, then also undersized cars. Things started looking better when they moved into the 90s and started adapting as the 4.9 was good and so were the L05 and LT1 powered behemoths, but not only was it too little, too late anyway, but then the almighty Northstar debuted and ended up having head gasket issues. Cadillac was understandably mostly replaced by imports among the elites, who they then interestingly tried to copy to ditch the “old man” image and return to grace. However, Mercedes, BMW, and others were kings of sporty luxury in the way Cadillac and Lincoln were kings of traditional luxury back in the day, so they never broke through and are now just a shadow of what they once were.
u def. got that right !!!!I had a 1982 Fleetwood Brougham, which was garbage since the day I bought it !!, Only 4 yrs. old at the time, and low miles, it had coolant problems, ECM, problems, overheating , ECT, , I drove it for less that 1 year before dumping it !!, never, never , never, no matter if I found one with 20.000 actual miles, would I own an '82 - 85 Cadillac !!
My neighbor has a '60 Cadillac Fleetwood sedan in light blue.
When I see it go past my house, I am reminded of a JetBlue Airbus A320.
I think it is about the same size....
'60 was a good car, except for the MG TA seating, which was fixed in the '61 "chair height" bodies.
Thank you, Adam, for this video on the infamous HT4100. I was friends with a family that had an '83 Sedan DeVille with this engine. I drove the car once and it was not powerful but it got the job done. Their 4.1 was pretty much trouble-free as long as they owned the car. Two things seemed to have contributed to its longevity: They let the engine warm up (year-round) before they drove off from anywhere and the car was an over-the-road car. The car racked up miles rather quickly. They sold the car years later. When I last saw it going down the road it was puffing blue smoke.
It was hit and miss with the Cadillac 4.1. If they were maintained and not driven hard they could last. Also, that some of these little engines are still going today and that some went the distance is rather remarkable. After all, any time these engines were going down the road, they were always under load propelling such heavy cars.
Did it have the stop leak "pills" put into the coolant fluid?
@@davidpowell3347 I would assume it did. I remember the owners staying on top of maintenance. Not until Adam''s video did I know that the "pills" were crushed walnut shells. I don't recall ever hearing the owners speak of any powertrain issues, and they put a lot of miles on that 4.1. The car was constantly on the road. The owners never hot-rodded the car from a stop but on the highway, the car would torque out well and they would exceed the speed limit. I can still see the radar detector that was mounted on the dash. Many years later I saw the car on the road and with different owners. As I stated in my previous post, it was still going (it was in the left lane passing everybody else while intermittingly puffing blue smoke, but it was still running strong; as strong as an HT4100 could run). By that time the car must have had 275,000 or more miles on it and on the original engine. Apparently, there were never any gasket leaks or flat cam issues with this particular engine. As I also stated in my previous post, the owners that I knew always let the engine warm up before they put it under load. This also may have contributed to there not being any gasket issues. Letting the engine warm up at a slower rate would have contributed to the bi-metals (aluminum block, aluminum intake manifold, and iron heads) being able to expand slowly and may have saved the gaskets from breaching. This practice was a saving grace regarding the 5.7 Oldsmobile Diesel. Many owners of that engine stated that they let the engine warm up at idle in order to let the torque-to-yield head bolts expand slowly, which helped to preserve their clamping strength. This procedure seemed to have helped to minimize blown head gaskets.
@@randyrankin589 I understood that with any engine,even a Cummins or Cat Diesel in a truck,the maximum stress time on the head gasket(s) is at a cold,say, Arctic start,especially if the driver immediately guns the vehicle into hard acceleration as many drivers in County trucks tended to do. As the engine comes up to running temperature the clamping force increases,although not by as much with traditional iron head on an iron block.
Overheat on the other hand could overstretch the head bolts or studs,possibly irreversibly stretching them. Or permanently crushing the gasket beyond its elasticity. If the threads start to pull or the engine deck warp I guess that is a worse problem.
I didn't know the "pills" were made from walnut,I did used to have a package of them given to me by a dealer/owner who I bought a Pathfinder from (his business sold Pontiac,Cadillac and GMC truck as well as having added Datsun/Nissan,he seemed to like Pontiac. Never used the pills but I did tighten/retorque the head bolts in my Citation V6 which I eventually took past 100,000 miles with no engine problems except for messy external leaks and a couple of clutches (dealer place put in my aftermarket clutch very reasonable,the owner used to be a fellow runner and I believe used to help sponsor the "JFK 50 Mile Hike-Run" (the Citation did develop a preference for high test gasoline)
As I recall the "KA" engine that was in some of the Datsun pickups could have their head bolts retorqued but you weren't supposed to mess with the ones in the "VG 30" engine unless you were replacing them with new ones (might have been "torque to yield" (The VG 30 engines were optional in the pick ups and were the engine in the 300ZX)
@@davidpowell3347 Yes, engines need some heat before they are worked.
"Car Nut" since '51 here again! My Dad retired in '84 and bought his '84 Sedan De Ville from his Corp. & guess either "lucked out" or had the "extended engine warranty" but his 4.1 gave him 4 years of unmatched MPG though he drove probably only 8,000 MPY! Traded in on his '89 Fleetwood in '88.
Ross Perot was famously critical of the Cadillacs about this time- he asked about engine issues with the 4100 and was told it was due to owners not properly maintaining their vehicles.
He rather quickly called BS on that one- pointing out that the market segment buying Cadillacs weren't likely to be changing their own oil...
Or looking into constant complaints about oil pan leaks- found out that GM knew about the issues- but refused to do anything about it because the upgraded gasket would cost $.05 more per unit
I began to sell cars in 1988 at a store with Buick and Cadillac along with Honda. By 1988, the HT4100 was made into the 4.5L and was improved. Then they went to the 4.9L which was really good. But I've seen a lot of 4100's with a ton of miles on them still going strong as long as they were properly taken care of. Recently, I picked up a mint 1986 Seville with only 22,560 miles. So far it runs out great, is smooth and quiet. So far no issues and I've already had the cooling system flushed and new coolant put in. This Seville is a fantastic addition to my 1988 Cimarron!
I owned a 1981 Cadillac Seville it was purchased new by my father in law and my wife and I later purchased it from them.
It had the engine overheating problems and the engine was replaced at around 13000 miles.
After that there were never anymore problems with the HT 4100. We purchased it at 80000 miles and still no problems however when you started it during warm up it had a main bearing knock until it was warmed up but it never caused any problems and when I changed the coolant I always put the coolant tablets in we sold it at 278000 miles same engine however I always ran synthetic oil in it and a high quality oil filter and changed it every 3000 miles and this is probably why it didn’t give any issues while we owned it.
However at 120000 miles we had the transmission replaced at aamco transmissions with a lifetime warranty as long as they serviced it at there intervals which we did and at 158000 more miles no problems.
I did replace the front and rear wheel bearings 2 different times these are sealed bearings so they are not serviceable except to replace them .
And that is not a job for a novice mechanic as they are difficult to remove especially on the front as the are mounted on the inboard side of the front steering knuckles so you have to remove the upper and lower suspension mounting parts to remove them.
I assume that they were designed that way to prevent the wheels from coming off in case of a catastrophic failure of the wheel bearing.
The rear wheel bearings also the suspension has to be removed to replace the wheel bearings so the front and rear are a lot of mechanical work to replace.
I will give this automobile this with the exception of some of the mechanical ⚙️ ills it was one of the quietest and comfortable riding cars of that era.
And the ahead of its time electronic dashboard was absolutely beautiful. The other Achilles heel of these years of Cadillacs were the H V A C units in them the hot air door motors on the thermostat side of this H V A C system was quite prone for failure and the parts were also quite expensive as I replaced them myself so I know the pain that they were to work on.
And if the heater core ever failed to remove it the dashboard has to be removed. You would think that the GM corporation would know about this and have made the heater core more robust and this is shameful for a vehicle that costs this much money.
Why cut corners on something so important???
So I agree that Cadillac really did mess up on this era of automotive technology. So very sad.
In late 80's I started driving for a limousine company for 20 years. First came the fuel injected ones, and later on many more good things. Their local motto was only Caddys and blue at that. A few years later quality started to decline, and customers asked for Lincoln Town Cars. Today in 2023 the 3rd generation business is almost all Lincoln and Toyota and a few Hondas. Black too (I'm retired lol.)
It was the attitude rather than a decision or a decisions.
Putting corporate parts into cadillac “the standard of the world” with little or no addition of excellence in quality or luxury destroyed and made a mockery of that tag line.
Crappy engines were a result of that attitude.
One of the great examples of leadership drift and the purge of car lovers by accountants and bureaucratic process addicts.
I had a 93 deville with the 4.9l. That engine ran amazingly well. I think i would get close to 30mpg highway cruising. Changing the spark plugs by the firewall was very difficult however.
Hey Adam, thanks for sharing your spot on thoughts on the missteps Cadillac made with some of its disastrous powerplants!!! 👍👍🙂
Caddilac should've put the Olds 307 in like Buick did in their 79-85 Rivieras. Great motor. I even have the 307 in my 88 Fleetwood Brougham. It has no problem pushing it around and they get 17 miles to the gallon.
In the Riviera, '79 had the 350 if you got the V8. '80 was either, though the 350 had reduced power vs '79. '81 was 307 only for V8.
Let’s not forget the 4.1L V6 that was available in the Fleetwood. As a 22 yr old in ‘93 working as a salesman at an Olds dealer, I picked up a 1981 Brougham D’Elegance with that engine. It had come in on trade, and I think I paid around $700. For it. But man oh man…what a dog. The early 80’s were definitely the worst for the entire industry.
The 307 Olds V8 showed up in the late 80's, early 90's and was about as pathetic as the V6 and HT, but at least fairly bulletproof.
@@scottysgarage4393 agreed…as smogged out as it was, I’d take a Olds 307 over any Caddy offering of that era.
That was really weird. The 4.1L V6 was a Buick engine that was offered that year at Cadillac and you had to wonder, "Is GM hedging their bets on the HT4100"? Why is this engine even in the lineup? It's not like their mileage was any different.
@@scottysgarage4393 at least the HT4100 came with 3.42 Gears. The Olds v8 came with 2.73 or taller, so it wasn't any faster.
That 4.1L V6 had the same horsepower and more torque than the HT4100 did. And it was more reliable. It would have been better to stick with that engine than the expensive disaster that was the HT4100.
I purchased a 1985 Eldorado a few years ago as a summer cruiser. It's in very nice shape with no rust and immaculate interior. It had at the time of purchase just over 60K original miles and I knowingly change the oil and coolant each summer and am very conscientious to pay attention to the engine. Definitely a poor choice to move away from the 368? cubic inch V8 during the early 80's. Thanks for the comprehensive history on the HT4100 engine.
Thank you for highlighting the engines for a change, us motorheads really appreciate it 👍🏼
Owned a 1984 Cadillac Coupe De Ville with the HT 4.1 V-8. Put 150K miles on it without a problem. Overall the car was very reliable. Smooth, quiet and got really good MPG. Not a speedster but got the job done well. Went on to own a 1990 Fleetwood 60 Special with a 4.5 V-8. Great car! Also had a 1995 Sedan De Ville, 1997 Catera, 2001 Catera Sport, 2003 CTS Sedan and a 2007 CTS Sedan. All of the cars were bought new and gave me very good service.
I worked in a Cadillac dealership parts department when the 4.1 came out. Job security.
Thanks for the analysis. One piece of a very sad story. After playing second fiddle to Packard for most of the pre WW II years , after the war Cadillac made so many good moves it dominated the high end of the US market about 30 years. Then the market shifted, and the party was over. That engine was one of their worst problems, but for Cadillac, it was only one of a string of seriously wrong moves. Their stuff has been pretty nice in recent years, but the buyers are conditioned to think Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Audi before Caddy.
0:20 The 1949 Cadillac fastback coupe (aka 1949 Cadillac Series 61 Club Coupe 'Sedanette') was a truly beautiful car.
Probably the best engine to put in the full sized 82 caddys would have been the Crossfire 350 from the vette. It was reliable, made good usable torque, and was hooked to an overdrive transmission.
True, but a CHEVROLET engine in a CADILLAC?!?!? The horror! GM caught hell putting Chevrolet engines in Oldsmobiles in the 1970s. They literally got sued and dealt with bad press. The heart of the problem was as the host points out, the cars the engines were designed to be in (the downsized C-Bodies that appeared for 1985) were supposed to be out in 1982 or 83. GM was tooled up to produce those engines and they had to go somewhere.
Eventually the Oldsmobile V8s made their way into Cadillacs by the mid-late 1980s.
I had a DeVille with the HT4100. It was such a beautiful car. But the engine never went more than 40,000 miles without a rebuild.
The engine was gutless in the city, but did great on the highway. The highway mileage was really decent too, for such a large car.
I don't understand how GM got the HT4100 so very wrong. The Japanese had been building aluminum engines for a while and got it right. Couldn't GM have gleaned a few clues form them?
I've quit american built cars more than 40 years ago and I never regretted my decision.
the cadillac is just another example of the big 3 thinking.
The good decision would have been to recall all these engines and replace them by a revised version on a special warrenty
instead of that, they preferred to loose their name.
It is that way Toyota,and other european and asian manufacturers have gained the market.
very good video.
I owned a 1983 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with the HT4100 engine. It was slower than cold molasses. One of the worst Cadillacs that I have ever owned. I replaced the engine with a newer HT4100 only to be rear-ended shortly thereafter. That totaled out the car. Only the Northstar was worse. The Northstar was complete garbage. I bought a 1998 Eldorado ETC. Within 3 months, the engine developed the "Northstar problem". I brought it back to the dealer and told them to keep it. Never again will I own a Northstar. I have the 4.9 in a 1995 Sedan DeVille that I have owned since 2014. According to the dealer, the car was originally owned by Bette White from The Golden Girls. The engine has never given me any problems. It has ample power too. I have other Cadillacs in my driveway but, I like taking the '95 out from time to time. My 1976 Fleetwood is reserved for long trips.
I enjoyed all of my 350 Oldsmobile diesels
I remember the 4100 in a family member's Sedan de Ville. In 1985, I recall thinking it had pretty good power and appreciated the return of the V8 sound. However, I don't think that car was around long enough to experience a catastrophic failure.
GM did release a updated intake gasket & bolts in Jan. '89, (TSB T 90-61) for the 4100 & 4.5, but by then the damage was done. Front main bearing knock was common, a revise bearing was released for that concern as well. Carbon sticky exhaust valves were also common.
That was a great detailing of the subject! Thank you! (At 9:31 I'm thinking you intended to say, MORE "resistant to warping".)
I worked for a Cadillac dealer during those years. Another very common issue with the 4100. Vehicle would come in popping back through the intake. You would then go to the parts department and ask for a Cadillac tune up kit which consisted of a camshaft and lifters. Intake lobe on camshaft worn perfectly round.
You're right about the reputation going downhill quickly. The big 70's models still had some appeal to many buyers, even with the build quality getting worse every year. The big V8's were underpowered for their size, but they weren't junk.
Early 80's - smaller Cadillacs with not so great build quality, and the underpowered engine was junk. Within a few years there Cadillac became the brand to avoid owning.
If you think the Oldsmobile diesel was a bad idea in 1978, that's nothing compared to the HT 4100 V8 an engine that was as fragile as the Chevy Vega once was.
The Oldsmobile diesel engine eventually became a decent engine. GM made its customers test it for them.
A decision like that could have only come from a corporate board room, not from anyone with engineering experience! That began GM's trend of rushing a new model to production before working the bugs out of it, during which they lost sales until it was improved. They talk about the automatic overdrive, but that was a by-product of the gutless HT4100. Prior to '82, the 368 V-8 could use an extremely low 2.19 final drive because of its torque, precluding the necessity of overdrive. The low power of the HT4100 necessitated the use of a much higher 3.42 axle which had to be countered by an overdrive to reduce RPM. They used a 3.15 axle in the Eldo, but that was still too high and noisy. I also notice the piece of junk R-4 pancake compressor in these cars which was a disaster that replaced the best compressor in the industry, the R-6, which FoMoCo began using in 1972 through 1979.
There is a video test drive of the new 79 Eldo Biarritz with the olds 350. Should have stayed with
it and add overdrive with TBI later on to keep customers for the long-haul vs V8-6-4 and the HT4100.
as others have mentioned, GM should have learned from the vega with aluminum cores.
I am one of those that sworn off Cadillac due to the 4100 engines. It wasn't just the engine though. The transmission they had in those cars were equally a pile of plastic junk. My 82-model stayed in the garage more than it ever did in my driveway. I wish I had taken some pictures of that 50-acre field across from the GM plant in Atlanta off I-285 back then. It had so many Cadillacs and big GM Buicks & Pontiacs parked so close to one another they actually had to roll the windows down to get out of the cars. All of them parked there because of engine and tranny problems that GM could not fix. Thousands of cars. My car was so bad and had been sent back to the dealership for repairs so many times that the dealership actually and intentionally wrecked my car so they could total it out and not have to spend more money on it. Know this to be true cause my insurance company at the time sued the dealership for that reason and won the case. Insurance company was paid as well as myself. I received $25k out of the case and I promptly purchased a brand-new Mazda 626 for $12k. One of the best cars I ever owned.
Worked at a repair shop in the 1990s and a Cadillac came in for a oil change with the HT 4100
With new oil and filter knocked so badly , we tried different oil weights, filters to no avail
Woman owner was furious at us! We eventually called Cadillac and they towed car from our shop to dealership. They replaced the engine, under warranty. Only had about 60,000 miles
Nightmare of an engine design as many technicians will attest to. Sad how Cadillac bean counters made a once proud division deteriorate
I had a 1984 Deville, it was a slow car with a terrible knock in the engine. I think it had 182k when I traded it in on a 454 Suburban in the mid 1990's. The diesel,V8-64 and the HT4100 did so much damage to Cadillac. the car line had beautiful bodies, but to power trains worth a hoot. And the GM 200 and 200R4 transmissions were problematic too. No wonder customers flocked to Lincoln with a reliable EFI 302 with 4 speed overdrive.
Or even chose Buick and Olds with the reliable Olds gas 307 for that matter.
We had a 65 Caddy convertible in white. Then Dad bought an 81 diesel Eldorado and that was a disaster. The dealer replaced it with another diesel Eldorado with more options and it didn't explode. At least until my sister forgot it was a diesel and put regular gas in it. Dad had someone put a small block Chevy in it and was a far better driving experience than it ever was with the diesel.
The latest Cadillacs are awesome. From about '08 on they were making very good cars again. I'll stack my little ATS 2.0T against anything in its class. It goes like hell, handles like a dream. Unfortunately, the 80s and 90s Cadillacs ruined the reputation of this historic brand.