2003 deville base

jokken

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so, some of you may remember. a while back while looking for a new second car I stumbled across a 02 deville with a salvaged title for $300.

i decide against buying it because of the salvaged title but I now had the bug... i would of preferred a seville but found the deville's being more in the range I wanted to spend - under 3k.

i figured I could find a deville needing work, under 130k mi, for under 3k.

i paid 2k for a black 03 deville base with 119k on it. interior looks great! exterior not so much....

at this point I have probably put more money into it than it is worth but this is what I did

got the front an rear bumpers replaced and painted. (know a body guy, got a good deal) the body guy also installed new engine mounts and o2 sensors and new shocks.

i installed:
new struts
new valve cover gaskets and spark plugs
new rubber intake plenum coupling
(cleaned the whole intake plenum and throttle body)
new idle air control valve

the car runs pretty nice now. getting about 20mpg

i have some questions I'd like to request your feedback on please:

should I be getting higher mpg? I do a lot of highway driving. fueleconomy.gov says 16/25. I was hoping to see 23mpg regularly. On an all highway 70+mph trip, of 1 complete tank, I saw 22.9mpg (OBX trip, yeah!!!). but otherwise I am seeing 20.5mpg regularly can I get higher, if so what could be the cause of getting this low?

99.999% of the idle issues where fixed when I replaced the intake plenum coupling. But there is sometime a slight idles inconsistency usually when the AC is on. The car can idle as low as 600rpm sometimes at 725rpm. Sometimes it just goes up and down between 600 and 725 while idling. Also sometimes when I come off the brake the idle is so high (often coming out of park) that the car jumps forward too fast. Also I get the sense that sometimes while driving at 40 the rpm are jumping up and down, I can see the rpm display going up and down between 1200 and 1600 but I'm not really giving it more or less gas. what could be happening here? (im thinking some rpm sensor or?)

please also let me know what are other common problem areas with this car? are there already threads about these things that I am not seeing in search?

overall I do love this car!

thanks

jim -
2000 LS 5spd Blk
2003 Deville Auto Blk
 
This thread is a bit old but I am a Deville fan and there aren't many newer post in this section. About the MPG, these cars tend to average around 23 MPG, on highway drives you can see these Devilles reach 28MPG or higher. I'm not sure why yours is a bit low but it might be something to do with the idling issue, or you could need some spark plugs. As for common issue for the 2000-2005 Devilles the one you will most likely see happen if it hasn't already is the window regulators always fail sometimes all four can go. Just replace the window regulators because the window motors from factory are basically bullet proof and the replacement window motors aren't as well made and don't have the same reliability and consistency as the factory ones. I'm not sure if the 2003 Devilles have this problem but the early 2000-2001 Devilles sometimes stall and sometimes when you try to start them you turn the key and nothing happens, a problem in the wiring and electrical system. I've seen some people pop the hood, pinch a few wires and it starts. A major issue is the head gaskets on the early 2000-2001 models can still blow even though they tried a new fix, 2002-2003 models you don't seen that many with blown head gaskets, and after 2004 the problem was basically gone when they switched to a new bolt design. Another big issue is the Northstars sometimes burn and leak oil, Not sure if they still did that on the 2003 models but they are very common on 2000 and 2001 models, some people still say they still used the leaky crank case design on the later DTS (2006-2011) but I haven't seen one of those leak oil. Actually just the other day I looked at a 2001 Deville for sale and it leaked oil, it was a shame because the engine started and ran so beautifully. Some people have had to rebuild or replace the transmission, but I don't think that's a reoccurring issue and I think they are pretty good systems. Other than that I cant really think of anything else at the moment. Oh yeah they love to eat up motor mounts too.
 

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