Selling a dead or junk Cadillac

Below: where Cadillac came from, which of its 26 names owners have filed the most complaints about, and a list of every model with its own page.

From the Henry Ford Company to GM's luxury brand

Cadillac began on August 22, 1902. Wikipedia names the Henry Ford Company as its predecessor and lists Henry M. Leland first among the people who ran it, from 1902 to 1917. General Motors acquired Cadillac in 1909, and GM is still its parent. Headquarters are in Detroit, and Wikipedia sums up the product line in two words: luxury vehicles.

Cadillac names in the EPA list since 1984

The EPA's fuel economy list rates 26 Cadillac names from the 1984 model year to 2027. Two eras show up clearly:

• Word names, mostly gone by 2005. The Eldorado ends with the 2002 model year, the Seville with 2004 and the DeVille with 2005. The Fleetwood ran 1985 to 1996 and the Allante 1987 to 1993.
• Letter names after that. The CTS arrives for 2003 and the SRX and XLR for 2004. The CT4, CT5 and XT6 start with 2020, and the Lyriq, Optiq, Vistiq and Celestiq are the newest.

The Escalade bridges both. It entered the list for 1999 and runs through 2027, the longest stretch of any Cadillac name in the data.

Which Cadillacs draw the most NHTSA complaints

The counts below come from NHTSA's public database of owner complaints, tallied across every model year of each name as of October 10, 2026. All 26 names together total 15,274.

The top four hold 10,601 of the 15,274. All four sold for well over a decade, which is part of why their counts run high; a count says how many owners wrote in, not how often a model breaks.

At the other end are names that were short-lived or are still new. The Cimarron (1984-1988) shows 13 complaints and the ELR (2014-2016) shows 21. The Optiq (19), Vistiq (23) and Celestiq (none) have had only a model year or two to collect them, so their small numbers mean little yet.

Selling a Cadillac that no longer runs

A lot of the Cadillacs that reach this point are big, old sedans: a DeVille or Seville that has sat in a garage, or a DTS that quit on the road. Others are SRX and CTS models where the repair quote came in above what the car is worth. Either way the car leaves in one piece.

1. Have the year, model and rough mileage ready. On a Cadillac, also say which name it is; a DeVille, DTS and Fleetwood can look alike to a stranger.
2. Tell us if the engine turns over, if the wheels roll, and what is smashed or gone.
3. Say whether the title is in hand. If not, see selling a junk car with no title.
4. Say where it is parked, so the truck knows whether it is a driveway, a back lot or a shop.

Pickup is free anywhere in the US. Once it is gone, take care of the plates and paperwork.

Rather talk to a person? Call (877) 421-6008.

Every Cadillac model on this site

Sorted by first model year. Each name links to its own page; the complaint column repeats NHTSA's owner tally from October 10, 2026.