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I know I'm late to the party, but I gotta say it anyway even if no one ever sees it. I get so tired of regurgitated information anyone can find on the web, passed along as experience or knowledge, or this, for example, "Anyway, I have heard a lot of bad things about the HT engine, but mostly about the earlier 4.1 L version. Then they became 4.5L and finally the 4.9 L. By this time, it seems to have become a good and reliable engine, if not that powerful."
Okay, I guess he dismissed the 4.6L altogether, but "not that powerful"? Was he joking? Or, maybe they took the 4.6 power out of the 4.9L when they put the reliability in. I don't know what happened to the 4.9 but anyone who says the 4.6L had no power either never drove one, never owned one, got a lemon or is expecting something the rest of us ain't ever likely to find in our garage......OR I got the only powerful Northstar 4.6L V-8 that GM made. HEY, it's good to be me!
My personal, real-life and continuing experience with the 2004 North Star 4.6L V8 has been nothing but a pleasure. While the rest of the car (SRX) has been a bit of a pain in the ass with glitches and headaches, none of them terribly serious but all of them terribly expensive, we've had not one single problem with the engine. It doesn't use oil, it doesn't lose oil, it doesn't overheat, it hasn't crapped, it's never been towed, it runs clean, smooth, and there is no lack of power. That car, or rather that ENGINE, is what gave my wife an eye-opening appreciation for the power a consumer-level V8 engine can have; how it responds, how it feels, how it sounds, and why you'll miss it if your next car doesn't have it. Do we use it? Yes. Do we abuse it? No. Do we maintain it? Yes. Do we burn Premium fuel? Yes. Is it going to blow a gasket at 140k? Who knows, could happen, but that's not going to change my satisfaction with the years of powerful, trouble-free performance this engine has put out. It's made an otherwise rather "missed-the-mark" luxury car worth the ride, man! Hey, take it for a spin and SEE FOR YOURSELF.
I've got to say... I have had a 4.6L N* Eldo for a couple years now, added this to my fleet as a 'don't care about it' vehicle and absolutely love it. I dropped the cradle and performed the head bolt hole fix with Huhn inserts (MUCH better than the timeserts) and have about 10k on it since then, with no issue. With 160k+ on the clock this engine runs like new; smooth, quiet, but roars to life under WOT. The best part is that these engines love WOT runs. A few passengers have commented on the smoothness and power of the engine.
No, that was the 6.0L engine used in 1981 Cadillacs, and I have heard about how horrible that engine was.
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