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New to me EXT

WHy not hand down the avy and drive the EXT yourself?

 
Let's see some pics!

(y)
 
My son started as a freshman in college in Milwaukee downtown, parking was $500 a year or semester, so he does not need a car. Then two weeks ago he is talking about how there is no social life there, does not like it.....long story short he packs up everything and comes home, it was between quarters. Now he will be going to the local community college through December, then to one in downtown Chicago and will need to get to the train.....so we need another vehicle. Looked at a lot, settled on a gmc terrain all wheel drive, ford sport trac, or maybe an avalanche if we can find one cheap enough with not too many miles. Hoping to get a vehicle that will do good in the snow, and last through college and a year or two after. Was not expecting an avalanche, let alone an ext. We were looking for relatively low mileage, and wanted to stay under $20k.

I saw it on autotrader or cars.com Wednesday evening, called the dealer 2 hours from where I work Thursday morning, and left at 3 pm to look at it. The salesman indicated a guy was working on a loan, but the sales guy didn't think the loan would go through. I also had my wife and son meet me there, but they couldn't leave for a while. The dealer was about 110 miles from work. 10 miles before I get there the salesman calls and says that the guy got the loan, but I get first dibs since they told me I could come and look at it.

I look it over real good. It is mostly clean, with a few scrapes here and there, not perfect like I like my cars, but still worth looking at. Took the car for a drive, everything seemed fine except for a slight shimmy at 75 mph. When we got back I asked the sales guy to have the service department pull the wheels and check them for balance. My wife and son were still an hour away in the avalanche, it was 6 pm, so I went to Hardee's for dinner. Came back around 6:30 and got the bad news. When the service guy went to pull the left rear wheel he nearly burned his hand on the caliper. They took the car in as a trade three days earlier and replaced all four rotors and calipers but one had hung up. No parts available, so now my wife and son drove for three hours and can't even drive the thing. We decided to take it anyways. The sales guy said that the financing came through for the guy and he was prepared to pay the asking price, so that's what I had to do. 2003 Cadillac escalade ext, just under $16k, with 53k miles, not including sales tax, plates, etc.

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The bad
The rims are almost toast. The chrome is peeling bad behind the face, just a matter of time until the face starts to peel. Look good from 10 feet. I assume the next time he needs tires we will pull the escalade rims off the avalanche and put them on the ext, then dig the avalanche rims out of the garage attic and use them on the avalanche.
Tailgate has two deep scratches about 3 inches long each probably from a trailer hitch hitting it. Tailgate also has what appears to be a 3 inch long crack near the scratches.
The tailgate rubber stoppers are both missing, I need to figure out where to get those.
Tailgate latch does not work well, actually dropped while my son was driving home. I will need to figure out how to clean the handle and lock mechanism. I did it a few years ago on the avalanche already.
The right front fender is pushed back slightly, the door to fender gap gets tighter at the top, no issues, I just notice it. It does not appear to have a replacement fender or any paint spray work done to it.
Front bumper had a few spots missing paint, larger than a stone chip would do, so it may be a replacement front bumper that was not properly prepped before painting it.
Drivers seat is very dirty and we will need to work on cleaning it. Any suggestions on how to clean the dirt out of the deep creveces in the leather?
Two owners. The first did not put many miles on it from 2003 through 2009, and carfax shows oil changes every 3k miles.
Second owner oil changes did not show on carfax. No accidents on carfax. I think that the second owner may have pulled a trailer (horses?), it appears to be an aftermarket hitch, maybe for higher towing capacity. It is a "hidden hitch" with a 6000 lb rating. Did the ext come with a hitch? The owner had a dog, based upon all the hair in the back seat area. The back bed area is filthy also. Overall it should clean up well. Drives so much nicer than the avalanche, the Goodyear duratracs on the avalanche don't help with the ride either.
 
So, so tempting to keep it for myself, but we were looking for a vehicle for him, and this meets our objectives and should see him to a real job in the real world. He will end up paying us for it anyways. He has always loved driving the avalanche, and during his junior and senior years in high school the avalanche was available to him unless there was snow in the forecast.....then he got the bus....

I will take side by side pictures, maybe tomorrow.....white ext and black avalanche.
 
I love it!

But I am somewhat biased, I suppose.

(y)
 
USe brush to clean leather.....

Great story and thanks for sharing.... I am sure your son is happy as I know mine would be.
 
My bride managed to almost finish a badly judged U Turn with her 04 CTS. She got in the way of a late model GMC Van. Right front CTS with the left front Van tire.

It whacked the bumper pretty good, the bumper, right head light, collision sensor, other assorted parts, and necessary pieces. After 2 weeks of acquiring the parts, 2 days for putting it back together, I got a call that it was ready.

My initial inspection told me the shop manager was on drugs. I sat down on the ground in front of the car, requested his pen and started with the pointy end down and went from near the windshield down to the bumper along both sides of the fenders. As with yours, the pen fell into the voids. Then, I started on the top of the bumper and worked across to the left side. I stopped above the license plate and asked if he wanted to try again or would he accept my complaint from my insurance agent.

2 weeks later, they had everything within visual specifications, but I did not trust the work and sold the car 1 month later.

My bride has not driven since. She was diagnosed with a medical condition shortly afterwards and surrendered her license.  :E:

Watch the Insurance Rates on the EXT. The premium on the 04 CTS, we bought it new, was higher than the 2003 Z71 and even the 2010 Z71 Avalanche before her accident. My rate on the 2013 was lower than the 2010, but she was not on the policy at that point.
 
My EXT has several character markings and beauty marks, perhaps more than some people would put up with.

Not much I am able or willing to deal with at this point.

One of the the things I did notice early on was the gap spacing of the front bumper.

Mine appears to be fairly consistent with the way your pictures look.

I first thought the gap was overly large (and still think that way), but having taken notice of many other Escalades of that generation, I have come to believe it is more of a design flaw than a problem unique to my truck.

There are half a dozen first gen EXT's in my normal travel path, many of them are the White Diamond color and I have noticed that bumper gap on practically all of them.

The same seems to hold true for regular Escalades and Escalade ESV's.

The gap certainly looks more pronounced on white and silver trucks as opposed to the black, red or blues.

At least to me, anyway.

Perhaps someone with the appropriate skill set could do some body work magic and close the gap, but I doubt I will ever pursue that on my truck.

Overall, I believe I would be very happy with an EXT in the condition of yours.

I hope you guys enjoy yours at least half as much as I do mine.

As for the insurance rate, mine did go up slightly over the rate I was paying on my previous 1999 Suburban and it is also slightly higher than the rate for our 2006 CTS.

My wife and I are both older adults with clean driving records and no accidents, so I am not sure how that may compare to a younger driver's rate, but I feel our rates are not out of line for what we drive.

I wonder what it would cost to have those wheels refinished.

I have thought about Plasti-Dipping mine flat black for a goof, but just haven't gotten around to it.

Wonder how that might look.

I look forward to reading more about your new truck.

(y)
 
I took another look at the frontal pictures of your EXT and I think that the front center point of your front bumper is actually much higher than mine.

I found a picture of my front end and added it here for comparison.



And here is yours.

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It looks to me that the center front point of your bumper cover is a little too high and that would make the gap of the rearmost corners on the side too low, really opening up that gap in that area.

My gap appears to be more consistent all the way from one side to the other and your front bumper almost seems to be touching your grill.

Interesting.
 
Cleaning out the groves in the seats, use hot towel to open the leather up, then use a soft brush and a PH balanced leather cleaner, keep wiping the dirt out as you create foam with the brush agitation. After you have cleaned the seats hand rub a good conditioner into the seats, I say hand rub because it helps the conditioner penetrate better than using apocator or microfiber.
 
I'll have to try the hot towel idea myself. Blackcomb
 
I use a steamer with a towel wrapped around it so as not to scorch the leather. Getting the leather hot opens the pores up and helps get the dirt out.
 
The seats cleaned up real nice just with a tooth brush and leather cleaner, actually are now cleaner than the avalanche leather seats.

As stated above after looking at a lot of similar year escalates nearly all have the fender to bumper gap. No matter, when we have time we will take a look at how the bumper and cover mount, I suspect that loosening some stuff will let us line it up better.
 
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