Madame Zolta,
I hope your friends recover soon!
It's awfully hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to cars.
Example:
I recently picked up a '98 Buick Century for $750. The pleasant young man selling it flat out said: Antifreeze disappears in it!
No Mayo inside the oil filler cap, no computer diagnostics indicating a bad head gasket or anything else, just disappears! He was genuinely baffled. Buick dealers here had told him it would cost nearly $2K to fix.
So, yeah, I buy him (and, boy is this car a 'him', call him Jamie), run down to the local Walmart (GM actually caries the same product, but good luck getting a dealer to admit to it), put two cans in and et voilá, the magic disappearing act is gone for good (yes, pedantic ones, for good. Lots of documented cases of it being gone and staying gone for over 50K miles).
Unfortunately, though - the gasket problem GM had with the Northstars is a real thing. It was compounded by the headbolt problem (gosh, now, why does that ring a bell...Oldsmobile Diesel prestressed anyone?) and the intentional throw-away design of the engine (still waiting for that rebuild kit number, dahlinks....).
So, yeah - if you find a Cadillac with a Northstar you like and you either don't mind blowing $5K on it at some point or trashing it or the owner has proof they had it fixed...go for it!
I hope your friends recover soon!
It's awfully hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to cars.
Example:
I recently picked up a '98 Buick Century for $750. The pleasant young man selling it flat out said: Antifreeze disappears in it!
No Mayo inside the oil filler cap, no computer diagnostics indicating a bad head gasket or anything else, just disappears! He was genuinely baffled. Buick dealers here had told him it would cost nearly $2K to fix.
So, yeah, I buy him (and, boy is this car a 'him', call him Jamie), run down to the local Walmart (GM actually caries the same product, but good luck getting a dealer to admit to it), put two cans in and et voilá, the magic disappearing act is gone for good (yes, pedantic ones, for good. Lots of documented cases of it being gone and staying gone for over 50K miles).
Unfortunately, though - the gasket problem GM had with the Northstars is a real thing. It was compounded by the headbolt problem (gosh, now, why does that ring a bell...Oldsmobile Diesel prestressed anyone?) and the intentional throw-away design of the engine (still waiting for that rebuild kit number, dahlinks....).
So, yeah - if you find a Cadillac with a Northstar you like and you either don't mind blowing $5K on it at some point or trashing it or the owner has proof they had it fixed...go for it!
except the Rover is decently easy to work on and parts avalible-I'm about to do HGs on my '03 Disco at 116,000...Pour in HG repair concoctions can work good-fixed a '97 F150 4.6(keep away from ALL 4.6 v8s ?...LOL)The Ford was a bad case-blowing steam out exhaust,shorting plugs,Poured the stuff in the radiator,then drove the hell out of the truck for ~45 min.and fixed! been good for 3yrs now 
