Repair-It

Agree with all. I did forget the things you mentioned.

I typed out a bunch of stuff and accidently hit undo and lost it. Great. I walked through my thoughts upon first seeing the car and through the inspection and test drive.

I started to think - could I turn around and sell this for $2850 if I didn't warm up to it? The answer was, no, no way.

Bob wrote:I know you are on your way to get the Fleetwood, but this actually looks like it could be decent with some exterior clean up. Interior looks good. Price is right at $1800.

https://greenville.craigslist.org/cto/6069328740.html

Not too late. This doesn't look too bad. But it is not a Limited.

kevm14 wrote:So the flaws are:
- Sketchy stuff at the front end. I am not worried from a driveability standpoint, only in terms of what kind of effort it would take to restore. The hood isn't aligned flush with the fender, either. Someone definitely hit something. I don't know if I could just live with this.
- Driver's seat. I have definitely seen better driver's seat condition than this. I realize it is a 21 year old car. But it looks kind of beat. Though, amazingly, the leather is NOT torn at all next to the heated seat control. I wonder if it was actually repaired somewhere in its life.

The dent doesn't bother me in and of itself but overall the front body area is not the best that I've seen. Combined with the driver's seat, this car certainly isn't without flaws. I think my price is 3 grand, and that doesn't account for trip cost. I can find other southern Fleetwoods - so the rust-free nature of this is not something that cannot be repeated. The interior other than the driver's seat area seems pretty good, so there's that.

That's right, the driver's seat was kind of messed up. This one had a lot going for it but these two flaws are pretty major imo. I don't know that I want to get into body work. It is possible that re-covering the driver's seat (or both front seats) is affordable but I have never done it and without further research, I presume that it is not something I will be doing.

I think there are better examples but the paint on this one did look pretty damn good to me.

Hagerty Fair:

#4 vehicles are daily drivers, with flaws visible to the naked eye. The chrome might have pitting or scratches, the windshield might be chipped. Paintwork is imperfect, and perhaps the body has a minor dent. Split seams or a cracked dash, where applicable, might be present. No major parts are missing, but the wheels could differ from the originals, or other non- stock additions might be present. A #4 vehicle can also be a deteriorated restoration. "Fair" is the one word that describes a #4 vehicle.

I'd say it was worse than this. Fair was $4200 so that makes sense. I still think $3k was also a stretch.

Fuel consumption on truck: 15.9 mpg. Towing an empty car trailer (<2,000 lbs) but there was plenty of traffic and also plenty of 75+ mph sections. I guess this is reasonable. A 6.0 gas would have been 11-13 probably in the same conditions.

So Bill gave me a good sanity check today. We walked through the CL pictures and he pointed out that these pictures were taken previously. Obviously. Not sure how long ago, but long enough so that the car appears to have no damage, or far less damage than it actually had. File that under misrepresentation I guess. Either way, it looks halfway decent in the pics with fairly shiny paint and no other damage other than the misaligned front bumper. And that is what I thought I was getting and why I drove 5+ hours one way with a trailer.

EDIT: I do see damage on the passenger side, but it is hard to make out at the resolution.

I propose a shift in plans. Kind of. I think I want to go on the hunt for an STS V8. I'd rather have RWD personally - lighter, simpler, easier to work on. I do have to take Jamie into account and the purpose of getting one of these would be a nice (but affordable) daily for myself (but not the enthusiast ride - I'd leave it all stock). But it has to be something she could use, all year, on occasion. So I wonder if I could pull off RWD and convince her that A) it will be incredibly rare that she'd need the backup vehicle coincident with bad snow and B) with good all seasons and all the electronic aids, she'd get there.

This would take the place of the Lacrosse Super. The Lacrosse is little faster by 4 tenths and 4 mph which you would notice (14.6 sec @ 97 mph for the STS vs 14.2 @ 101 mph for the Super) but the STS is the nicer vehicle, probably more rear seat legroom, better handling (or at least RWD feel), all that. The transmission on the STS is going to be more reliable than the 4T65E on the Lacrosse also. But I did like the sleeper aspect of the Super because it's like...how the hell is that thing passing me. But let's look at STSs and see what is out there.

It is also far easier to find one than the Lacrosse. I take that back a little. The V6 is easy. The V8 is less common. I am not even considering the V6, though the later ones got the first gen DI 3.6L which I guess I may be open to. The DI V6 was introduced with the 2008 refresh, which also gave an updated interior. So I will set up my saved searches accordingly.

Budget is similar to the Lacrosse Super budget. Which means whatever that means. $5k? $6k? The good news is, I can totally get what I want for the price - just a matter of selecting the right one (clean, good condition, standard used car criteria).

I already like driving the SRX so a sedan version with less weight and all the luxury toys really appeals to me. The RWD vs AWD thing does need to be a conversation and again they did make AWD. I'd just prefer RWD if I can convince Jamie. But if she refused to drive the car in slippery conditions, then the car does not technically fulfill its purpose. So I need to clarify this.

Imagine if later on I added a Fleetwood to replace my Caprice. I'd take a lot of abuse having 4 Cadillacs...but I guess I don't care what people think. This isn't the 8th grade.

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/200 ... -road-test

I guess I forgot this. The 2008-2011 V6 is about as fast as the Northstar cars.

Standing ¼-mile: 14.7 sec @ 97 mph

I don't know which is more reliable but I'd imagine the V6 would get better fuel economy (C/D test mileage was 14% better on the later V6 than the early V8). I think the V8 is cooler and sounds better. Has more torque, too. But anyway, I'm really not losing any performance with the 2008-2011 V6.

The torque difference is amplified when looking at the 5-60 for both.
2005 STS V8 RWD w/ 5-speed auto:

Street start, 5-60 mph: 6.3 sec

2008 STS V6 RWD w/ 6-speed auto:

Street start, 5-60 mph: 6.7 sec

I think that's where the extra grunt of the V8 pays off and you'd feel that in daily driving, just maybe not when winding all the way out.

I am going to pay less for an early STS V8 than the later V6 I think. Would be nice to get an 08 V8 for the updated interior.

kevm14 wrote:So Bill gave me a good sanity check today. We walked through the CL pictures and he pointed out that these pictures were taken previously. Obviously. Not sure how long ago, but long enough so that the car appears to have no damage, or far less damage than it actually had. File that under misrepresentation I guess. Either way, it looks halfway decent in the pics with fairly shiny paint and no other damage other than the misaligned front bumper. And that is what I thought I was getting and why I drove 5+ hours one way with a trailer.

EDIT: I do see damage on the passenger side, but it is hard to make out at the resolution.

Hilariously, the price listed is now $3,950. Nope.