V8-6-4 and diesel
My uncle had an '81 Seville (the fugly one with the sloped back) and it had the 8-6-4 engine. As I recall he wad quite happy it and felt that was a good engine, but gas mileage wasn't all that great. It wasn't trouble free for him however, but overall it was OK considering what repairs had to do. He even went to the trouble of repainting a two-tone green just because he wanted to.
At one point (a few cars ago) I had a 1980 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham diesel. It was very clean and very comfortable, but had 120K miles showing when I bought it. At that time it had a new factory crate motor (latest DX series diesel), plus new tires, batteries, brakes, etc. It was a wonderful car for the majority of the 8 years I owned it. I put over 80,000 miles on it and never had a problem with the actual engine itself. With the exception of the injector pump failing once, it never failed to start, even when it was 26 degrees in the mountains when I went skiing. It also never leaked or used a drop of oil and consistently produced 28 MPG @ 65-70 mph with the A/C on. I really liked that car and that it was a diesel.
Cory mentioned tall gearing. As I recall my car had 2.56 gear ratio and with the 3 speed TH-200C trans, any moped could/would beat me off the line at the traffic light grand prix (the first 100 feet or so).
It was a great car until little, small, annoying things started failing or falling apart. As was typical with GM products of the time, once it neared the 20 years / 180K miles mark, the headliner fell, small trim pieces (inside and out) started falling off or breaking, some electrical things (switches for mirrors, cruise control, some lights, rear window defroster, etc) stopped working. Oh... there's also the fact I went through 3 transmissions (under sized/under rated for the engine) and 5 alternators. That last one was my fault I suppose, for trusting the rebuilt / lifetime warranty P.O.S. alternators that Pep Boys offered at the time. The longest one survived before failing was maybe 5 months.
When I sold the car to a (at that time) co-worker, the trans was starting to acting up again. I heard he ended up selling it to a junk yard after the transmission failed again.
[this post was last edited: 12/12/2018-15:57]
My uncle had an '81 Seville (the fugly one with the sloped back) and it had the 8-6-4 engine. As I recall he wad quite happy it and felt that was a good engine, but gas mileage wasn't all that great. It wasn't trouble free for him however, but overall it was OK considering what repairs had to do. He even went to the trouble of repainting a two-tone green just because he wanted to.
At one point (a few cars ago) I had a 1980 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham diesel. It was very clean and very comfortable, but had 120K miles showing when I bought it. At that time it had a new factory crate motor (latest DX series diesel), plus new tires, batteries, brakes, etc. It was a wonderful car for the majority of the 8 years I owned it. I put over 80,000 miles on it and never had a problem with the actual engine itself. With the exception of the injector pump failing once, it never failed to start, even when it was 26 degrees in the mountains when I went skiing. It also never leaked or used a drop of oil and consistently produced 28 MPG @ 65-70 mph with the A/C on. I really liked that car and that it was a diesel.
Cory mentioned tall gearing. As I recall my car had 2.56 gear ratio and with the 3 speed TH-200C trans, any moped could/would beat me off the line at the traffic light grand prix (the first 100 feet or so).
It was a great car until little, small, annoying things started failing or falling apart. As was typical with GM products of the time, once it neared the 20 years / 180K miles mark, the headliner fell, small trim pieces (inside and out) started falling off or breaking, some electrical things (switches for mirrors, cruise control, some lights, rear window defroster, etc) stopped working. Oh... there's also the fact I went through 3 transmissions (under sized/under rated for the engine) and 5 alternators. That last one was my fault I suppose, for trusting the rebuilt / lifetime warranty P.O.S. alternators that Pep Boys offered at the time. The longest one survived before failing was maybe 5 months.
When I sold the car to a (at that time) co-worker, the trans was starting to acting up again. I heard he ended up selling it to a junk yard after the transmission failed again.
[this post was last edited: 12/12/2018-15:57]
