Ask 10 enthusiasts where Cadillac went wrong, and you are liable to get 14 answers. Here’s one fair and well-reasoned disquisition from Business Insider.
For years, the Cadillac division of General Motors dominated the luxury market in the United States, selling more cars than the rest of the premium makes combined. But today, the once-proud brand holds barely a seven-percent share of the category. What went wrong? That’s a complicated question with multiple layers of answers, not to mention plenty of finger-pointing in various directions. Video producer Irene Kim of Business Insider, who’s done similar explorations of products that fell from grace, including Jell-O and the iPod, put together this piece that we think is worth a good look.
Ms. Kim is not a hardcore gearhead, as far as we know, and in this case that’s surely an advantage. The fall of Cadillac is an emotionally charged subject for many of us enthusiasts, and here she approaches the issue calmly and dispassionately. First there’s a sound little historical backgrounder of the Cadillac brand to set the table, and then we get to the heart of the matter, followed by a sober examination of Cadillac’s hopes for the future. It’s interesting to note that a leading source of the division’s troubles—international competition—is now its only path to tomorrow. Video below.
I worked for a GM dealer back when Cadillac was starting to fade. It faced a lot of problems with the European products but the Japanese started dumping cars here (same as it tried with motorcycles) at cost or below cost (why was it so much cheaper to buy a Lexus here than it was in Japan?). Skuttlebutt said that the Japanese were better cars. Sorry, but they couldn’t convince me there; the Japanese dealerships had sometimes MORE mechanics in their service departments than GM, and every time I entered a Toyota or Nissan service department, it was full of broken Toyotas and Nissans. Add to that the Japanese cars at my place (and they broke down just as often) and there was NO convincing me. Bad publicity by a media that found it politically incorrect to mention recalls by the imports but the domestics got blamed for everything short of the rising divorce rate and Listeria epidemics. No Caddy got handed a bum steer. Too many people got swayed into thinking that nothing good was ever built in America and it was WRONG!
So the GM Diesels and the 8-6-4 engines were okay?.The Cimarron, and the Catera were okay too? When GM started to bring in their Opels and badge them as Caddies and went downmarket to create a small car ala the Chevy Cavalier is when they began to lose their way. Poor management decisions not bad products is what caused the downfall. By the way. Toyota’s sudden acceleration problems were front page news and were lead stories on al;l the major news networks. The Takata airbag problems also made the headlines. Political correctness has nothing to do with business news.
The 8-6-4 had some problems. Mandated fuel economy regs forced Caddy to bring that out before its time. 8-6-4 (and variations on six cyl. engines) is used extensively today (all are based on Cadillac’s original design) and most people don’t even know it’s there. But it works. As far as rebadging small cars is concerned, Honda rebadged Civics and Accords and called them Acuras. Toyota rebadged the Camry and called it a Lexus. Why is it OK for them to do that and not Cadillac? Is it OK because they come from across the Pacific? As far as the diesels were concerned, some did have problems but so did Mercedes back then. MB was better at keeping a lid on it, but it had catastrophic failures. We worked on a lot of diesels and got our share of MBs, VWs, and Japanese engines with their spiderwebbing heads. The worst problems with most light automotive diesels was the improperly torqued retainer behind the primary vehicular control unit…
OY! Civics and Accords are not re-badged as Acuras. Mercedes had diesels as far back as the 1930s and didn’t have any of the troubles that GM had. Where are you getting your facts?? Not conjecture..facts. From Doug DeMuro at Auto Trader: :
There were two key problems with the Olds diesels. First, the head bolts simply weren’t numerous or strong enough for the diesel’s high compression ratio, so they started blowing head gaskets.
One of the consequences of a blown head gasket is that coolant can enter the cylinder, and unlike air (which, along with fuel, is the only thing that belongs in the cylinder), coolant does not compress. If a given cylinder took on enough water, a piston on its upward compression stroke would literally run into the immovable object. The piston would stop, but the crankshaft wouldn’t; the connecting rod would bend and much mechanical malaise would ensue. In most cases, this would render the engine irreparable — but in the event it didn’t, repairing the engine using the same type of head bolt would simply give it a further chance to destroy itself. (Incidentally, Oldsmobile also developed a 262-cubic-inch (4.3-liter) V6 version, basically a 350 with two cylinders lopped off. It had a better head-bolt design and wasn’t nearly as prone to failure.)
Second big problem: GM’s cost-cutters decided not to fit a water separator. Unlike gasoline, diesel fuel is subject to water condensation — hence the need for a water separator. Without one, water in the fuel becomes water in the engine, where it can rust either the cylinders or the complicated mechanical fuel injection pump. The former could destroy the engine, while the latter would denigrate the engine’s running characteristics and possibly deep-six the pump — which, in a mechanically-injected diesel, is an incredibly intricate and complicated device that is very expensive to replace.
George, I just have two words for you . . . Cadillac Allante.
Dennis, the Allante was an awkward addition and I never saw one come through the dealership I worked at so I’ll remain on the fence.
Now, for Paul. I’m going to answer your questions one at a time:
1/ My brother drives an Acura. He told me that it’s nothing more than a glorified Accord and he gets almost all of his parts from Honda. The local Honda dealer whom I’ve known for 54 years services Acura (he wants the franchise but they keep refusing to sign him) and he told me similar things, although he did admit that Acura has brought out some models that are exclusive, yet there are still a lot of parts that interchange. I have no reason to argue with them.
2/ GM built its first diesel in 1931 (or thereabouts). It was so good that GM expanded it to fit in locomotives and thus the Electro-Motive Division was born. GM developed the GMC Toro-Flo in the late 50s and marketed it for close to 15 years before it discontinued production. I don’t think MB has anything to lord over GM as far as who developed its compression-ignition engine first.
3/ I was working for a GM dealer when the 350 first came out and started working on them from Day One. I might add that our dealership sold them (mostly pickups) like they were going out of style (we were a rural dealership that also sold and serviced John Deere equipment). Actually I’ve worked on ALL brands of diesel engines and fuel systems for the better part of 50 years before I retired so I’ve got a fair bit of experience behind me.
Yes, there were problems with head bolts, especially when someone encountered cold starting difficulties and decided to use ether. We had one Oldsmobile 88 and one Buick Park Avenue that broke headbolts while going down the highway. ALL the others (11 or 12) could be attributed to either advanced injection pump timing or use of ether. I might add that we had a lot more head gasket failures on the V6 versions than the V8s.
4/ No water separator? Have you cut a Stanadyne Model 50 filter (the OEM filter) apart? It has a water separator element combined with the actual filter element. I have drained far more water out of gasoline systems than diesel. Water comes from condensation in an enclosed vessel; it doesn’t matter what liquid is in the vessel. There’s very little you can do to keep it out other than keep your tanks full and be vigilant about how you handle your fuel. The ‘Water in Fuel’ light means that there IS water in the FUEL, and you need to get it out; the separator element cannot do everything. Having said that, there are some fungi and algae that thrive in diesel fuel. Those plant forms deposit acid which etches out the precision components in the fuel injection system quickly. But there are high quality additives that get rid of the contaminants very quickly.
5/ Even while I worked at the GM dealership we had a lot of MB diesels come through the shop; surprisingly more than the MB dealer. A lot of well-to-do farmers drove MB diesels. Up to the 220, I don’t think you could work one to death; you had to kill it with a stick. The 240 and 300 was a different situation. Camshaft failures of epidemic proportions. And if the camshaft wasn’t enough, the lower timing sprocket would come loose and oscillate from side to side cutting the keyway out of the crankshaft and sprocket. Now the keyway problem came and went over about four years before MB finally fixed it (we sent a lot of crankshafts to the machine shop in the meantime). The camshaft (itself) problems I could actually place some of the blame on the oil formula at the time. And I’ll add here that MB kept a tight lid on this. They had a mandatory program where anytime a 240 or 300 diesel came in you MUST check the camshaft and timing chain!!!
In the late 70s and early 80s we replaced a lot of camshafts in gas pots, and a few in diesels. The thing that probably saved the diesels in our region were that the majority of them were owned by farmers who used oil that was spec’d for severe diesel use. Lots of zinc that preserved camshaft lobe life. Ditto for those running MB. Now (and this is just my theory) the API had an oil spec: SE/CC. All was well. Then they changed the spec to SE/CD. Camshaft failures immediately followed. They changed the spec again to SF and the camshaft failures stopped. Nobody will admit anything but it sure looks suspicious.
Bottom line: Both GM and MB could’ve done a better job, but in their defense, the designers were bound by restrictions, mostly weight, that really compromised the product(s). You can also blame some of the consumers who flocked to the showrooms to buy a ‘Miracle Car,’ a full-sized car that got better mileage than a compact. So many of those found out that running a diesel was a completely different game than a gaspot.
So there you have it: the 25 cent version from a burnt-out mechanic with one crushed hand, two bad knees and a bad hip. Some people call me an expert and I might agree with them as long as ‘EX’ is a has-been, and ‘SPURT’ is a drip under pressure. I’ve worked on nearly everything from tiny single cylinder engines to EMD-16s, and engines built from the 20s to the present day. I also instructed night classes in journeyman upgrading at the local college; I must have done that right because they kept asking me back until they discontinued the program 8 years later.
However things got there, the fact of the matter was that the upscale Japanese imports became cars that people aspired to own and drive, while a lot of people would have been slightly embarrassed to have driven high end Cadillacs of that day. Argue mechanicals all you want to, but aspirations and showing off to the Joneses carry a lot of weight in the car buying choice.
I agree with you; the Japanese managed to sway a lot of people toward their products, but it was more promotion than quality IMO; from a mechanic who spent 48 years in the repair industry: they ALL broke, some catastrophically. Myself, I never gave import cars a second glance. Well, I should qualify that. The ultimate worst piece of junk I EVER owned was a Japanese pickup. My mother had the same make of car that wasn’t any better. Before and since, the only imports I look at are British sports cars and motorcycles.
They were good cars until the 1980’s came along and GM quality went down the toilet. At the same time, they lost their identity by rebadging Chevys as Caddys, people figured out real quick they could get the same crappy car for less, so they did. With the loss of Caddy’s styling dept, they started using GM corporate designs which made it harder to tell one from another. And then to add insult to injury, they quit using names that had been in use for years, Fleetwood, ElDorado, etc, and went to a jumble of letters like STS and CSS. That made it hard to figure out what was what. Some of their newer designs showed promise, but the field was by then so crowded no one noticed.
Parent GM carries the full blame in my book. If they had of respected the history of the brand and let them continue to be the front high dollar leader instead of forcing them into being another corporate parts bin collection, they might not have had as many problems now as they do.