Beauty IS Only Skin Deep

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo. This was in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur war. It lasted until March 1974.

In Pennsylvania you could only get five dollars worth of gas every other day.  One way of beating the system was to get on the national turnpike.  There you could ride the turnpike and stop at every station to fill up.  The problem was you had to use gas to get to the turnpike and pay the turnpike toll.  If you had a job and needed your car to get to work, money was not an issue.

Even after it was over, people were saying this crisis was going to happen again and again.  General Motors saw an opportunity to make money by building diesel engine cars.  Mercedes had been building diesel cars for many years before the crisis.  

When I came to California in 1976, my first wife and I decided to get a diesel car because they got more miles per gallon and when gas was limited diesel was always available.

Not knowing what I know now, prestige was important to both my wife and I.  I decided to get a low end Mercedes diesel.  I went to the Orange County Mercedes dealer and test rode the car.  The car was very under powered and struggled to get up a steep hill.  

My wife and I agreed it was not worth the money to buy a low power Mercedes.  General Motors had just come out with a Cadillac Eldorado  Beritz diesel.  It was gorgeous and that was important to both of us.  The test drive went great.  The car had lots of power and was priced the same as the Mercedes.  We bought it on the spot.

Three month after my purchase I was driving on the freeway and the car stopped.  It didn't just come to a slow stop - it came to a giant thud stop.  The dealer had to replace the engine because it froze up.  A few months later I was driving around town and guess what, the engine froze up again.  I was so happy it didn't happen on the freeway.

The dealer service manager told me this was happening to other Cadillac diesel cars.  He explained this was happening because diesel fuel was dirty and had much more moisture than gas cars.  Big trucks and, by the way, Mercedes had and have water separators connected to the fuel line to filter out the dirt and water.  General Motors didn't build their diesel cars with a water separator.  Their position was I should get diesel from a filling station that had cleaner diesel.

After replacing another engine, I realized the problem did not occur when I got diesel fuel from a station close to my home.  This was good except I was paranoid to get fuel from anywhere else.  I could live with that because the car was so beautiful.

Around the seventh or eighth month I was on the freeway again and the car made an sound I hadn't heard before and came to a stop.  When Triple A (AAA) came out and looked under the hood they said my fan belt had come off.  They got me to the dealer - again.

The service manager told me Cadillac had taken the standard gas engine and made it into a diesel.  The good news was the engine was very powerful.  The bad news was a diesel engine vibrates three times as much as a gas engine which was the cause of the fan belt flying off.

He gave me three extra belts and a wrench.  He then showed me how to put the belt on should it come off again.  Even though I was scared to drive on the freeway, I could live with this problem because the car was so beautiful.

Ten months into this disaster the car was running fine (except for the two new belts I had to put on) when I heard a loud rattling sound coming from the engine area.  I immediately went to the dealer.  The service manager, who was as frustrated as I, said the reason this was happening was because a diesel engine runs much hotter than a gas engine and the noise I was hearing was the pan under the engine to protect the drive train from the heat.

The pan was just fine, however the bolts holding the pan in place had melted from the engine heat which cause the pan to rattle.  He said the pan would not cause a problem, but if I wanted to stop the rattling I needed to leave the car for two days.  I couldn't leave it because I had a dinner business meeting at an expensive restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. 

So there I am, holding my breath while driving on the freeway with a car whose engine might freeze, a fan belt that might fly off and a rattling noise that could be heard from a hundred feet away.  I was so embarrassed giving my keys to the valet while he was asking if my beautiful Cadillac Eldorado  Beritz diesel was working OK.  I told him the rattling noise was not a problem, however I showed him where I put the fan belts in case they were needed.

The day my one year warranty was over I traded in my beautiful car for an ugly, boxy Volvo 240 that had the best reliability rating by Consumer Reports.  I was so happy the Volvo dealer took my beautiful Cadillac Eldorado  Beritz diesel I hugged him (which he thought was strange).

BTW, I had the Volvo for five years and it never had a problem.  It was ugly, but I smiled every time I got on the freeway.  Two years after I traded in my Cadillac, General Motors stopped producing diesel cars for the American market.  Two years later, they were sued in a class action suit.  

I shouldn't have to give you the moral to this story, but I will.  Beauty IS only skin deep.  Shinny objects can confuse you.  Beautiful design does not mean great craftsmanship.  A pretty face doesn't mean a good heart and soul.  

Make sure you look under the hood before you buy, make friends or marry.  Don't dive into anything because of a beautiful facade. 

It's what's inside that will make you happy.