1997 cadillac Cattera For sale Mint!!! 12000$$

Augh always get the car your selling detailed before you take pictures of it, dirty carpets = not good.

"Paradox" wrote

Yeah...I noticed that too. Oh well, I don't blame the owner for getting rid of that Catera. It might possibly be the absolute biggest piece of shit that GM has ever put together. If someone "gave" me one, I'd sell it the next day.

Ian

Another rebadged car and the Cadillac name takes the hit of course. Thank you Opel.

I wonder if it still " ZIGS " ?

========= Harryface =========

wtf?

I still think the Cimarron (a Chevy Cavalier with Cadillac badges) takes the cake as the biggest POS. How they ever sold a single one is beyond me.

Don't ya remember the silly duck mascot used in the Catera commercials several years back. It was known as "The Caddy that zigs". I wanna know what the duck had to do with it all. It was a duck, wasn't it?

Roger

P.S. Regardless of whether or not it still zigs, it doesn't look so "mint" to me. If that's mint, I'd sure hate to see what one of his dirty vehicles looks like. I went and took a shower right after viewing those pics.

"Rutger6559" wrote

At least that car was still basically a J-car. Sure they were little shit boxes...but fairly easy to work on. The Catera is a nasty piece of European work. GM's "world" engine that they stick in there is the worst engine I've seen as far as design and being able to work on the thing. Just to replace the thermostat is a job that involves having to remove the upper, middle, and lower intakes. And then it gets fun from there.

Ian

I give him credit for taking high resolution photos where you can actually see small flaws such as dirt. Most online ads are too blurry or low-res to see anything worthwhile about the car's condition.

"Paradox" wrote in news:btdns5$5u3cq$1@ID-

It's actually a good engine. The 2 inches of clearance around it is the big problem. You have to take out the engine or remove half of it to fix almost anything.

"Joseph Oberlander" wrote

It's not a good engine. It has timing belt problems, (actually timing belt tensioner and idler pulley problems)....it's an interference engine, it leaks from the water valve, the head gaskets, the oil cooler which is located in the most ridiculous place.

It's such a good engine that GM is finally phasing them right out. At least in the Cadillac line...the 3.6 VVT is taking it's place. Hopefully they never stick that belt driven piece of junk in any other GM vehicle. Ahhhh, the Saturns use them, but we don't work on them.

Ian

PDX wrote : WTF ?....after reading my post that said " I wonder if the car still ZIGS "?

LOL !

Don't you remember the Caterra TV commercial ? That was the tag line at the end of the commercial. After they got done talking about the car the guy would say " Caterra the car that zigs ".

========= Harryface =========

Eew! If that's the case then I agree with you wholeheartedly!

Seems like they've gotten to the point where they not only confuse the home mechanic, but most of their dealer techs as well.

F'd up way to treat your customers, IMHO.

Not much you can do, though, as the whole world seems to be going to hades in a hand basket.

My kingdom for that 64 Biscayne with a straight 6 that I had as my first car! :) Now that was a car (all steel dash and impaler knobs included!)!

If only Chevy would make a car that looked exactly like a 1955 Chevy coupe with 300 hp and today's necessities like ABS and traction control for under $25k. Never happen, I know, but I can dream, right?

It actually is a fairly decent engine- the timing belt tensioner, idler ,and water pump problems were fixed by a general recall by GM. As for belt-driven interference engines, may I refer you to almost every Honda ever built??

And the engine has been around for 7 years now- boy that's a real vote of non-confidence.

"linehauler" wrote

You are certainly welcome to your opinion on this engine. It's hard to imagine that you actually work on this engine for a living if you think it's a good engine....but stranger things have happened. I don't mind working on it, but it's not what I would consider a "good" engine. It's poorly designed as far as being able to work on....and it's not particularly powerful, or smooth, or quiet. The car would have probably been better off with a 3800 stuffed under the hood.

Who really cares what Honda is doing. I happen to think that running an interference engine with belts is a bad idea. When I worked at a Chrysler dealership for a while, I saw the results of this design in the Eagle Talon cars with the Mitsubishi 2.0 DOHC engine. One foolishly designed belt tensioner gives up the ghost and depending on what RPM it throws the belt at....instant 10K dollar engine job.

For whatever reason, General Motors decided to take the route of not building or designing any "domestically" built engine that was both interference and runs a belt. Good for them, it saved customers a lot of grief. The one dark blemish in the GM record was the plastic toothed gears in the 3800 engines. These engines are interference engines and when all the plastic teeth disintegrated off the cam sprocket, there were more then a few of these engines that sustained valve/piston damage.

Ian

"NOSPAM" wrote

I'm not an engineer, but I believe that it's quite often necessary in order to be able to use the valve timing, lift and compression ratio's that most DOHC high performance engines need to run.

Which is why GM uses chains now on any of their late model engines. Plus, it's pretty much a must with the variable valve timing engines. The Northstar is now VVT, the new 3.6 is VVT, the inline engines in the trailblazers/colorados are all VVT (only exhaust cam on the inlines)

Ian (Northstar is VVT in the XLR only, I believe)

No you are clearly not an engineer- you appear to be an auto mechanic whose main object in life is to moan and piss about the Catera's engine. What is your point??? If you don't like to work on them, then refuse the job, it is just that simple. I suspect you are an employee, however, so why don't you just shut up and get on with whatever job your boss orders you to do?

Yeah it appears to be a cramped engine compartment- ever tried working on a Jaguar XJ-12?? I have, plenty, and the Catera can't hold a candle to the Jag as far as difficulty of access to important components (starter for example), or for availability of replacement parts, or the price of those parts.

Catera in my personal experience is a well made car. You and the other poster appear as if by magic every time the Catera is mentioned, always with completely negative comments. I notice you chose not to reply to the fact that these engines were subject to a general recall to fix the problems with the water pump, tensioner, and idler ( the belts were replaced as well ). I notice further that you "don't care" about what Honda does, even though Honda has built a world-class reputation for reliabilty and longevity using belt-driven interference engines the whole while.

In short, you and Rutger ALWAYS get your (biased for whatever reason) digs in whenever the Catera is mentioned.

I'll get my own comments in whenever necessary to contradict the constant bullshit posted by you two.

Paul