1999 Cadillac Catera from North America - Comments

My 1999 Catera has been my living nightmare! Within two months I replaced the Mass Air Flow. One month later it was the oil cooler, head gaskets, cracked block, coolant leak, alarm would sound off driving down the road. I'm trying to decide whether or not to run it into the river or sell it to a junkyard. Now I'm without a car and have no money for another because I've spent it all on this disgrace of a Cadillac!

I have a 1998 Catera with 83,000 miles, and WOW does it have a mind of it's own. I have had it for a little over a year and put on about 12,000 miles. The computer needs to be reset every few months or the lights and windows malfunction.

Recently, the steering column locked up while driving. It would only take left turns. I took it to a Cadillac dealer and spent over 500.00 to fix it. I can't believe a problem like this can happen and there is no recall. This car is a road hazard. I love the look and comfort of the car, but it takes off slowly and it is hard to stop. POOR GAS Mileage!!! I am lucky to get 16MPG in town and 20MPG Highway, and that's after a tuneup!

I love the comfort of a Cadillac, but will most likely never buy one again. No surprise GM is going down hill.

I think my next purchase will be BMW.

I got to laugh. I am a auto tech, have been for over 24 years.. I have tried to diagnos more than 1 of these Cadilliac cateras. I have a 2000 cadilliac catera in the shop right now that the customer is afraid to take anywhere. We cannot fond the problem with this car that will not accelerate.. We have hade 2 dealerships also trying to help us out. No one seems to have an answer. All of you should know that it costs $1000.00 parts & labor for an Alternator.. Also a lot of the oil leaks are valve cover gaskets & intake leaking at base. This is over $300.00 for the special o-rings, plus close to $500.00 labor in a local shop, not the dealership which is a lot more. I hear and see people getting Great buys on used ones.. Will now you all know the reason. All of these cars should be recalled. They are terrible! And my suggestion to all Cadilliac Catera owners... GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN!

I recently purchased a 1998 Cadillac Catera. I only had it for three months and noticed that the check engine light, radiator light and oil light all came on at the same time. I put my car in the shop and had to get the radiator replaced, and head gasket replaced. All is good now except the oil light keeps coming on. I went back to the shop and they just poured more oil in the car and the oil light is still coming on. I cannot keep the car. I have no idea where the oil is going. I am about ready to put the car on EBAY...

Another satisfied Catera owner here.

Oh man where to start. I bought a 99 Catera in 2002, and the AC went out shortly after that.

Then came the air flow sensor, then the crankshaft sensor, then the alternator, water pump, AC compressor and drier, and the radiator.

Both the hood and trunk won't stay open by themselves.

The fog lights don't work.

Now I have an oil light coming on, and there is milky stuff in my coolant box.

Most recently I have had to fix a coolant leak, which cost me 345.00 bucks.

Before, when I just bought the car, it turned off 3 times while I was on a freeway. Once I was going 70 miles per hour in the HOV lane when it shut off; I still don't know how I avoided an accident.

If there is an attorney out there reading this, you can make a lot of money with a Class Action Lawsuit.

Luckily for me, my friend is a mechanic and he fixed most of my problems for a third of what I would have gotten charged elsewhere.

When I took the car to two different Cadillac mechanics here in Phoenix, they told me that they don't work on Cateras. Go figure.

As soon as I fix this little problem, I am selling the car, and I am never buying a CADILLAC again. Hopefully I will have better luck with my PRIUS.

American cars suck. GM sucks.

I bought a 99 Catera June 12 with 60,000 miles on it. It is now almost September and my car has been in the shop more than I've been able to drive it. First the throttling positioner, then a coolant leak... the coolant leak has been in twice for repairs, I got it back yesterday and noticed its still freakin leaking. Never ever again will I buy a Cadillac. I've only made one payment and I hate this car more and more every day.

Heater core, tires, oil cooler, no ac/defroster/heat, battery, crank sensor, sunroof does not work... and more. this within 30,000 miles I've driven it.

Yea I own a 99 catera.

I also have one of these crap boxes; a 2000 Catera with 66000 miles on it.

I have the leaking oil problem with the valve cover gaskets, the coolant leak problem, heated seat on the drivers side fail, check engine light on constantly, problems with front alignments, tires leaking because the rims are bent, stalls at red lights, replaced spark plugs and coils, etc and so on.

Interestingly enough it would not start about three weeks ago. I took it to the dealership and they stated it would be 1600 dollars to fix the issue. They noted miss fires on all 6 spark plugs. So they said they need to replace the coils on both sides, and the spark plugs to fix the problem.

The company who towed my car said get a copy of the work order, they can do it for way cheaper, so I got a copy and they towed it back to the shop. Replaced the coils and plugs just like the dealer said, and sure enough it did not fix the problem. So then they started trying to figure out the issue; it turns out the fuel filter was clogged, replaced that for 100 bucks and the car now runs again.

So the dealer tried to rip me off to say the least, and they didn't even try to diagnose anything from what I can see.

I have read nothing but the same bunch of problems from hundreds of Catera owners online, and I am not surprised now. It seems to me that GM does not want to own up to this mess, and has since had no recalls to really fix much of anything.

This is crap; I am getting a lawyer and taking GM to court for several things, as well as taking the dealer to court for being dishonest and trying to rip me off.

I am in the process of purchasing a new Acura TL and when I do, I am going to burn this car, call the junk yard and have them haul it away. I could not sleep at night knowing I sold this crap box to another person.

I purchased a 1998 catera 2 years ago beautiful car, but not very reliable. Replace radiator $800, ignition coil $222 new tires $400 oil and coolant leaks continuously Leveling light comes on erratically high mounted brake light dosen't work replaced battery and valve cover gaskets...

I just purchased at 99' Cadillac Catera. I wish I found this site before purchasing this car.

The car has about 74,000 miles used, and is already having transmission problems. Something about the gears jumping from 3rd to 4th gear. When this happens and you are at a stop light, when you press the gas it stalls for a few seconds, and then it will go. If I pull over and turn it off for a few seconds and start up again, it will work fine again until it happens again and again and again.

I took it to the shop (by the way, I'm a girl), and the guy said it might leak fluid. I ask him why did I not get a warning that I am losing fluid; this is what he said, "cars nowadays do not have that". OK, I know I'm a girl, but I'm not stupid. He also said that there is nowhere in the car where you can add more fluid. This guy must think I'm blonde. But it is still under warranty. Please if anyone reads this, give me some advice. Thank you.

Purchased my 99 catera around may/june of 07', bought it with just under approx 90,000 miles on it, now has about 92,500.

Bought it in delaware because buying a car from nyc is a bigger gamble with all our damaged roads.

On the drive home just after buying the car from deliware the check engine light went on, also noticed a few weeks later that the oil pressure was kinda low and fluctuated a lot as I accelerated and if I had the a/c on or not.

Took it to my mechanic who i have been going to for years, once he saw the catera he basically told me I probably should have bought another car, told me parts are very expensive and working on the car is harder than most other cars, he told me to only take it to either gm or cadillac dealers since these are rare and difficult cars to fix, he at least did the oil change for me (when ordering the oil filter the guy on the other line had mentioned how he also hated cateras.. just a lil interesting sidenote)

so I found a caddy dealer about 45 min away and they changed a O2 sensor, reset one key so it would be able to turn engine on, fixed the sunroof switch (it was to delicate and sunroof opened up whenever I hit a bump) fixed my headlight (which I didn't tell them to do and charged me 122 bucks because they also had to do an electrical test) said that my oil pressure issue wasn't really an issue, but I think they said that only because they didn't know what was causing the issue because "they couldn't duplicate what customer had described" well 3 or 4 days and almost $750 later the car was running pretty good.

Took it to a local gm dealer today (i now know someone who worked there and got a hookup) and everyone there basically put on a disgusted face when I mentioned the name catera.. they told me repairs are expensive and difficult to deal with and pinpointing roots of problems can be difficult. changed my oil/gas and air filters and he said my car looked good under the hood and sounds good, but once the car starts giving me problems to get rid of it.

Other notable minor problems I don't deem necassary to fix:

1) front driver door often squeaks as I hit bumps,,

2) transmission light has gone on about 3 times,,

3) oil pressure dips to red zone once in awhile -pressure sometimes dips lower when I have the a/c off for some reason (mechanics said it was normal, but still bothers me once in awhile)

4) eats ALOOOT of gas and recommended premium fuel. I'm getting between 140-190 mpg a tank and tank is approx 16 gallons. (just changed the gas and oil filters and about to do the alignment soon so hopefully I will get more mpg)

5) hard to find a mechanic that doesn't get discouraged when seeing your car.

It is a nice car, roomy, (i am 6'3") fun to drive, slighty more than decent power(200 hp and i think 192 torque), looks real good when its clean,

bottom line: I like the car a lot, but I wouldn't buy it again , so far I've had no major problems with the car, but once it does I will try to get rid of it somehow.

To the person who commented on 18th Sep 2007, 13:05.

Ur mechanic probably didn't figure out that to check the transmission fluid he has to go UNDER the car, I took it to a mechanic who couldn't find a dipstick for the transmission fluid (he must have been new), but when I took it to a gm dealer they told me theres a cap on the bottom you have to unscrew to check, I am the one who commented on sep 19th 07.

This is one of the reason why mechanics who know about this car don't like workin on this car, supposedly german cars are harder to deal with,,

so bottom line, if you take ur car to a mechanic and he treats it like a regular car then he obviously hasn't worked on a catera before.

You are pretty forced to go to a gm or caddy dealer to fix your car, but bring ur wallet or purse and bank card cuz you will be spending more than expected.

I bought a 97 Cadillac Catera with 97K miles for my daughter back in August 2007. Very nice looking car and daughter loves it. Well first the collant and brake lights came on. Check coolant and brakes, OK! Bad sensors. Six weeks after purchase daughter calls and car has stop. After failed attempts at jumping, call tow truck. Long story short, the mechanic says something has broke in the motor which won't let it turn. This sucks!!! Also tells me it may be difficult to find a replacement engine. Dealer tells me my warranty expired 12 days ago, SORRY!!

First caddy, last caddy!!!

I bought a Cady Cattera 2000, on November, 2007 with 81000+ miles on it, from an auction, and drove about 60 miles. The run was smooth. However, I have to report the following problems.

a) Check engine light was on for the whole 60 miles of driving.

B) A heap of water was found on the floor board of the right passenger side. I do not know where it came from.

C)The coolent level was about 1/3 of the tank when I reached home.

D) Speedo meter, and the odor meter were not working for the entire trip.

I wanted to know whether this car would pass its inspection test if the 'check engine light on' was not corrected.

I should have found this web site before my decision to by this CAR.

I am dissapointed after reading all the comments, and having a first hand experience owning Caddy.

I would join any class action for law suite.

Don Patrick.

I bought a 1999 Cadillac Catera in 2002.It was a great deal and the car only had 13,000 miles on it. Since last year the check engine light has come on and no matter what we have replaced in the car the light might go off for 17 miles or so, but comes right back on. The car needs inspected next month and it won't pass with the check engine light on. Now we are contemplating getting a mass air flow sensor for 275.00 and seeing if that is the problem. The cadillac garage where I bought the car doesn't give us any specific answers, only "try this". I think we shouldn't spend any more money on this car. It doesn't drive well in the snow anyway and I was told to get studded tires for winter.