My new car: 2002 Cadillac DTS

[Bill D]

Only wagon-like vehicles I like are hearses. Cadillac ones being the best

 

[Eldorado2k]

I asked the salesman how they were selling, and he said that they hadn't sold ONE--and that Buick was giving them no marketing support on it.

That’s what gets on my nerves sometimes.. They make Buicks but who the heck even knows they exist? They never make an effort to but themselves out there for the people to recognize any cars they make. They’re supposed to be Amercan made but it seems like they don’t even have the ability to even put up a billboard in this country. There’s so much that GM does wrong that sometimes I wonder if they fail on purpose..

It didn’t always used to be like this. GM used to be great at advertising. I’ve got hundreds of Cadillac ads from 1904-1970’s to prove it.lol.

 

[Bill D]

That’s quite a collection of ads! Yeah advertising in those days was much different than it is now.

 

[Eldorado2k]

That’s quite a collection of ads! Yeah advertising in those days was much different than it is now.

I collect Cadillac brochures too.
Here’s the oldest 1 I’ve got, 1904 Brochure, along with the 1959 Prestige Brochure.

1958 Brochure

That’s the 1st Eldorado brochure on the right, from 1953.

I’ve got a Cadillac Prestige Brochure for every year from 1930-to the present daySomething like 400+ brochures in total.

 

[Eldorado2k]

Here’s the 1 that’ll have your car in it. 1989 brochure. It’s large, 11x11” 92 pages.

 

[Bill D]

I have that brochure!

 

[Setec Astronomy]

That’s what gets on my nerves sometimes.. They make Buicks but who the heck even knows they exist? They never make an effort to but themselves out there for the people to recognize any cars they make. They’re supposed to be Amercan made but it seems like they don’t even have the ability to even put up a billboard in this country. There’s so much that GM does wrong that sometimes I wonder if they fail on purpose..

I read an editorial once written by a guy who started working at GM as a young engineer in the late 60's...he was appalled at what he thought was bad practice and just general lack of caring about "sweating the details"; a co-worked said to him "relax, we have 50% of the market!". My personal favorite was when they hired Bob Lutz, because the CEO at the time said he "wasn't a car guy". Don't you kind of have to be a "car guy" to run a car company? I guess when you don't care anymore because you think you'll always have 50% of the market, and when you put "non-car guys" in charge of the company...that's kind of failing on purpose.

Speaking of Lutz, and I forgot about this when I was talking about GM being cheap earlier...he was quoted after his stint there as begging the bean counters to let him just put $500 more content into the cars, telling them it would make them more saleable, and they wouldn't be giving away $2000 in incentives to sell the cars any more, but they wouldn't do it. I think that was around the time I commented that the carpeting (in the passenger compartment) in a Buick I saw looked more like what they used to use in the trunk... it seemed like not even carpeting.

All that being said, GM is a very changed company since the bankruptcy. We had a member here for a while who worked for GM (I think he came here for advice on his black Cruze diesel, if that rings a bell), and he said one of the first things that Mary Barra did as CEO was to empower the employees "not make cars that suck". Obviously they are still doing some silly things like bringing in wagons that nobody wants to buy, and then not even telling anyone they have them. But I guess sometimes you need to throw some spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks. Although in today's world, I think most people don't come to the dealer to look for a car, they come to buy a car, already knowing what they want. So if the first time they see/hear about a Buick wagon is when they hit the showroom, it's too late.

I’ve got a Cadillac Prestige Brochure for every year from 1930-to the present daySomething like 400+ brochures in total.

Holy cow, that's quite a collection! I have quite a number of brochures that I saved, of all makes and models, but nothing like that, and mine are in an old filing cabinet in the basement, not sleeved and preserved like yours.

 

[fightnews]

Thanks fellas, I Really appreciate it!



Yea I did it myself. It’s not too crazy but if you’re like me you tend to make things like this extra tedious.. For me removing the backing sticker on the new panels was the only minor obstacle as they made it come off in 2 pieces, which was kind of annoying, but it’s pretty easy. My only tip is to line it up and make your plan of how you’re going to apply them, because once any part of the strip touches there’s no turning back because it’s strong, and because it’s strong you can just feel like it’ll compromise the adhesive if you were to try and correct it by trying to pull it up and do it over... You can’t even push it slightly once you lay a portion of it.

You thinking about going glossy or chrome?

If you go with the black glossy, get the ones that say they’re black acrylic. There’s some other ones that say they’re some kind of poly plastic/piano black, but you can tell those are the older gen.

Idk I bought a carbon fiber film and a tool kit but decided it was to complicated to try.

Did you stick new pillars over the old ones or did you have to take the old ones off?

 

[Eldorado2k]

I read an editorial once written by a guy who started working at GM as a young engineer in the late 60's...he was appalled at what he thought was bad practice and just general lack of caring about "sweating the details"; a co-worked said to him "relax, we have 50% of the market!". My personal favorite was when they hired Bob Lutz, because the CEO at the time said he "wasn't a car guy". Don't you kind of have to be a "car guy" to run a car company? I guess when you don't care anymore because you think you'll always have 50% of the market, and when you put "non-car guys" in charge of the company...that's kind of failing on purpose.

Speaking of Lutz, and I forgot about this when I was talking about GM being cheap earlier...he was quoted after his stint there as begging the bean counters to let him just put $500 more content into the cars, telling them it would make them more saleable, and they wouldn't be giving away $2000 in incentives to sell the cars any more, but they wouldn't do it. I think that was around the time I commented that the carpeting (in the passenger compartment) in a Buick I saw looked more like what they used to use in the trunk... it seemed like not even carpeting.

All that being said, GM is a very changed company since the bankruptcy. We had a member here for a while who worked for GM (I think he came here for advice on his black Cruze diesel, if that rings a bell), and he said one of the first things that Mary Barra did as CEO was to empower the employees "not make cars that suck". Obviously they are still doing some silly things like bringing in wagons that nobody wants to buy, and then not even telling anyone they have them. But I guess sometimes you need to throw some spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks. Although in today's world, I think most people don't come to the dealer to look for a car, they come to buy a car, already knowing what they want. So if the first time they see/hear about a Buick wagon is when they hit the showroom, it's too late.





Holy cow, that's quite a collection! I have quite a number of brochures that I saved, of all makes and models, but nothing like that, and mine are in an old filing cabinet in the basement, not sleeved and preserved like yours.

Interesting.. And yea that dudes description story from the late 60’s seems to be right about the time when Cadillac began to really rest on their laurels and take things for granted. They also began to cheapen out on alot of things. For example: This is what the fine print says on the last page of the 1967 brochure. It’s the 1st time I noticed them saying this so I’m going to assume it’s when they started faking vinyl for leather since most people wouldn’t notice... The birth of “leather trim”

1969 was the last year they used real wood trim in the interior of Cadillacs. They didn’t start using real wood grain again until 1992. That’s a big reason why the interiors from the 70’s & 80’s looked so cheap unless the car was brand new.

I’ve got this 1 off brochure from 1985. [I’ve never seen another 1 like it anywhere]

It boasts how much high quality goes into making Cadillacs... The 1st time I read through it I nearly laughed out loud when I read this part.

So they’re saying they spent nearly 20yrs. designing and preparing the engine that went into the 1982 Cadillacs, the HT4100, which is famous for being a complete turd thanks to having an aluminum block with cast iron heads, which lead to head gasket failure at an alarming rate. For some owners the aluminum block would simply warp if you consistently ran it too hard, and running it too hard was easy since it only had 125HP for a V8 in a Cadillac.
My 1st Cadillac Eldorado had that engine, luckily I never ran into those notorious problems. Lol.


As far as the brochures... It all started after I watched a youtube video of the cleanest 1976 Seville I’d ever seen. Funny thing is that car belonged to and was posted by the owner of a detailing brand of products, so you can just imagine how perfectly detailed he had his car.. Well I liked the car so much that I thought it’d be neat to buy the brochure of that car online... A few thousand dollars later I’ve got this whole dresser full of brochures and I’ve got many more that I need to figure out where to store... They’re separated by decades.

Then there’s the ads. I’ve got that huge stack of 11x14” ads that just stays on top of that dresser for now covered by a microfiber towel, and almost 100 more smaller sized ones, mostly from the early 1900’s through the 1920’s. Man the bug bit me and it bit me hard!lol.

Idk I bought a carbon fiber film and a tool kit but decided it was to complicated to try.

Did you stick new pillars over the old ones or did you have to take the old ones off?

Oh you bought 1 of those do it yourself kits? Lol. I wouldn’t even attempt that myself. That’d be like being asked to tape a vehicle in prep for polishing, but you must do it PERFECT! lol. I’ll pass.

Yea, I just stuck them on top of the previous ones. I know it sounds weird, but you can’t even tell. Keep in mind that you have to buy the ones that fit your specific vehicle and not all vehicles will be compatible, luckily mine were.

 

[Bill D]

I passed on two Eldorados, an ‘84 and ‘85 ,once I found out about that engine. They drove like crap too although they were stylish cars.

 

[Klasse Act]

I passed on two Eldorados, an ‘84 and ‘85 ,once I found out about that engine. They drove like crap too although they were stylish cars.

Should've just pulled the engine and dropped in a 455 Olds and called it a day, smooth, powerful V8, no more 125 hp V8, LOL!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[Eldorado2k]

I passed on two Eldorados, an ‘84 and ‘85 ,once I found out about that engine. They drove like crap too although they were stylish cars.

1 of my longtime friends still talks about my 1st Eldorado all the time. He fell in love with it. He claims he want to buy 1 someday but I have to warn him to be mindful about that engine it comes with.

Very cool that you have your brochure. You know what’s up!

Should've just pulled the engine and dropped in a 455 Olds and called it a day, smooth, powerful V8, no more 125 hp V8, LOL!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

It’s not that easy.. Remember the Eldorado is a front wheel drive car with a transverse V8. People always say to just throw in another engine not realizing what a big change it’s going to be.

 

[Klasse Act]

Oh, I'm thinking it was the 1979-85 body style, my bad

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[Justin at Final Inspection]

Sweet brother! Always love me a Caddy! Wife won't let me get one until I'm 50 lol as she says it's a old man car! Hahaha. Although I could swing her on a CTSV.

Sweet job man.

 

[Klasse Act]

The current CTS-V w/640/640 is just a hammer =======

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[Setec Astronomy]

Oh, I'm thinking it was the 1979-85 body style, my bad

That was also FWD. The Toro was always FWD from '66, then in '79 they put the Toro, Riv, and Eldo all on the same north-south FWD chassis. Then in '85, maybe it was '86, they shrunk them and went to a transverse engine, with the Eldo being the only one with a V8.

 

[Setec Astronomy]

There’s so much that GM does wrong that sometimes I wonder if they fail on purpose..

GM just announced that next year they'll be eliminating 15% of their white collar workforce and closing up to five plants in North America, for a total job loss of over 14,000. And here I thought we were past all that. Largest restructuring since the bankruptcy.

 

[cyclops]

Not only excellent work and a great write up but over 2400 views in 10 days! :wow:

Keep up the good work!!

 

[Eldorado2k]

Not only excellent work and a great write up but over 2400 views in 10 days! :wow:

Keep up the good work!!

Hey thanks man. Much appreciated.

Here’s a few more pics that were previously left out.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After clay, polish, seal.

Clean trunk.

Clean rubber trim.

Engine detail.

Polished wood trim.

New emblems.

New trim.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

 

[Eldorado2k]

GM just announced that next year they'll be eliminating 15% of their white collar workforce and closing up to five plants in North America, for a total job loss of over 14,000. And here I thought we were past all that. Largest restructuring since the bankruptcy.

Breaking news*
GM is killing these 6 cars...
Cadillac CT6
Cadillac XTS
Buick LaCrosse
Chevrolet Volt
Chevrolet Impala
Chevrolet Cruze

Wow, I can’t believe they’re killing the CT6 just like that.