Sometimes I write first about a car I've found and add photos after I'm done. Well, when I went to add photos of the 2000 Cadillac Eldorado ESC I had test driven the other day from the dealer site I found the car was gone. My bad for not taking photos when I had the car in my hands. This 2000 Eldorado ESC in the same color scheme but hardly the same condition stands in for it.
I love Cadillac's twelfth and last generation of their storied Eldorado, especially the 1996-2002's with the updated center dash\console design, but I've never driven one. Well, that changed the other afternoon as I got behind a 2000 ESC for sale at a Kia dealership south of Canton, Ohio with an asking price of $4,950 and just 87,000 miles on its digital odometer. Thinking this could be the second coming of our 1995 Lexus SC400 purchase, I saddled up the Monte Carlo for a long afternoon drive south.
When I first pulled into the dealership, bless their hearts they had it out front waiting for me, it was love at first sight. For about thirty seconds. The front air dam was broken, I didn't notice that in the pictures online but in the flesh it was obvious the photographer finagled it to appear as non-broken as possible. I quickly surmised that it was a five-thousand dollar car. She ain't going to be perfect although finding a replacement for the spoiler wouldn't be cheap.
Then I saw rust spots on both rear quarter panels and even with both windows down I smelled the kiss-of-death, the interior smelled of stale cigarettes. You know, not to preach since I used to smoke, but smoking in your car is about the worst thing you can do to your car - let alone yourself. The more you smoke in it, the worse the stench and even though there are devices designed to remove car odors, even the best of them running for several days can't remove all remains of someone's smokey treats; that odor will always be there and the car will always be a rolling ashtray. My bad. I didn't ask if the car was a "smoker" or not and it most certainly was. Still, with the deal gone south for me and more than a good hour and forty-five minutes spent getting there and an even longer traipse back home, I wasn't about to waste the opportunity to drive one of my vehicular idols. Especially with no salesperson accompanying me.
The big old grand dame fired right up with the flick of her old school (and oh-so-problematic) GM Pass-Key ignition, her 4.6-liter, two-hundred seventy-five horsepower Northstar barking to a life with a manly, guttural growl. Perhaps too guttural - I think there was an exhaust leak in front of the catalytic converter. Cheap fix. No biggie and there was no check engine light on. Or the dealership reset it. Oh, who cares. I wasn't buying the lump anyway.
I dropped her into drive and tapped the gas to move her away from the dealership and onto the fairly busy main drag of bustling and hustling Alliance, Ohio. The blast of torque she had off idle reminded me of big old yank tanks of yore. Was I driving a 1968 Cadillac with a fairly smog gear free 472? Let's get this thing on the highway!
Before I did that I tested the air-conditioning - no dice. The compressor clicked on and the fan blew air but it was warmer than the ninety-degree air outside. What's more, a scrolling message on the dash said, "WARNING LOW REFRIGERANT SERVICE SOON". It was followed by another cryptic scroll, "SECURITY SYSTEM MALFUNCTION. CAR MAY NOT RESTART". Damn the torpedo, son. You're driving a twelfth-gen Eldorado.
Sadly, her handling was a mess - even at low speeds. She pulled to the right, brakes were sloppy with very long pedal travel, struts were dead, I could swear the right rear wheel bearing was squeaking too. Still, I could tell that when she was less worn out she must have been everything if not more than I expected her to be. I mean, I had all but convinced myself she'd be much like our '95 Lexus SC400, that being smooth, subdued but at the end of the day sort of dull, but I could tell she was a lot more interesting to drive. There was an edge to her manners, a gritty un-refinement of sorts that I find enthralling and endearing; our '77 Corvette has buckets of that mojo and it's what makes the car so fun. That might be an extreme example of what I'm referring to but the bottom line you have to drive that car as opposed to it all but driving itself. Our beloved Lexus smooths out all edges and while it's a great cruiser, doesn't make for that interesting a ride. Cars are so perfect today the actual fun of driving is all but varnished over. That worn out Eldorado was like an old athlete - they may lose some of their zeal but, thankfully, not all of it.
For the money, were it not for the cigarette smell, I may have done enough mental gymnastics to maybe negotiate the price down further. The brakes, shocks and handling issues I can handle myself. I've got an exhaust shop in Cleveland that could fix the barking exhaust on the cheap. The A/C and the blasted PASS-KEY issues? I'd take that kick to the wallet. Fixing the rust wouldn't be cheap either. The front air dam? Ok. That too.
But the gross cigarette smell killed the deal for me and that was too bad. I gave the sales kid a rundown after I told him I thought the car was a little too "rough for me" and I implied "rough", in that context, was not a good thing. Car was gone the next day, though. Sold or sent to auction? Who knows but I'm more vexed by these cars than ever. Our stand in might be a possibility; she has but 29,000 on her and has an asking price of $16,500. That's a lot of car for the money especially if the Northstar's head gasket issues have been sorted out. But the wife would kill me.
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