Massachusetts man buys dead $80,000 Cadillac at 96% off then finds an 'embarrassingly simple' fix

A Massachusetts YouTuber just bought an $80,000 Cadillac ELR for the price of a beat-up commuter.

The listing said it didn’t run and the mileage was eye-watering.

Still, he dragged it home, convinced the problem wasn’t as catastrophic as it looked.

Turns out, he was right – and the fix ended up being ridiculously simple.

DISCOVER SBX CARS – The global premium auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie

How much he paid for the Cadillac that needed a simple fix

Rich Benoit, co-founder of YouTube channel Rich Rebuilds, picked up a 2014 Cadillac ELR for $3,500 at a local auction.

That’s roughly 96% off what it cost new. 

But the caddy’s condition left a lot to be desired.

It had a cracked bumper, spidered paint, a dented hatch, and a broken taillight (for an ELR that alone can be a financial death sentence, with headlights going for $1,500-$2,000 each).

But the bigger issue was the hybrid system – it simply wouldn’t wake up.

The ELR only had a couple miles of EV range left, and the gas generator refused to start.

Which meant Rich couldn’t push the car beyond a slow electric crawl. 

With 237,000 miles on the odometer, it looked like someone had driven it endlessly, hit a problem they didn’t understand, and walked away.

Yet nothing lined up with a major failure. 

The cabin was clean, the car charged normally, and there were no signs of a dead battery pack.

All the usual ‘this hybrid is toast’ indicators were missing.

Under the hood, though, coolant was pooling in the V of the engine and the reservoir was low. 

But strangely the car wasn’t throwing a single warning.

And even after removing the massive one-piece intake cover, there was no clear source for the leak. 

It wasn’t acting like a blown engine or a cooked hybrid system.

It was acting like something minor was taking the whole car down.

And that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

The tiny part that almost sent the Cadillac ELR to the scrapyard

Rich and his team rented a cooling-system pressure tester and immediately saw the system losing pressure, but still couldn’t spot the leak. 

It wasn’t until they isolated a small coolant junction and hit it with soapy water that they finally saw it.

A cracked plastic T-connector, quietly bleeding pressure every time the system tried to build heat.

A part worth a few dollars was keeping an $80,000 hybrid from turning on.

So they replaced it, then put in fresh spark plugs, reshaped a slightly warped valve-cover gasket, flushed the coolant, and battled an overtightened oil filter during the change. 

With the EV range run down to zero, the ELR finally kicked its generator engine to life.

It still shuts off after a few seconds and won’t shift into gear yet, but the core mystery is solved.

And with the success he’s already had bringing it back to life, why wouldn’t Rich continue putting this coupe back together?

The Cadillac everyone assumed was dead didn’t need a battery pack, a control module, or a hybrid overhaul.

It just needed someone to find a cracked $4 fitting hiding in plain sight.

Rich believes a full fix is imminent, so subscribe his YouTube channel to see this Caddy restored to its former glory.

DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie