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But I'm not sure I would look to get the CTS performance brake pads of you are going to look to upgrade. I'd investigate ceramic pads. The performance brake pads for the CTS are notorious for brake dust, as make similar pads are in other performance vehicles. (I'm CONSTANTLY cleaning my front polished wheels of dust). A friend of mine who owns a Corvette Z-06 went to ceramic pads and says he'll never go back. He also says the price is not as bad these days as you might think. Best of all, ceramics have the best heat dissapation characteristics of any brake pad.
They also wear out a lot faster than they used to.
Good preview of the CTS-V. can't wait for the real road test.
Some interesting technical stuff: 70mm driveshaft.
extra cooling fins on the rearend.
Carbon fiber engine cover. Carbon fiber strut brace.
loks like GM has given up on the tape and spoiler specials that they were famous for.
This is a real car.
For those of you who haven't seen the new silver smoke color there is a pic of it on page 116 with the new polished 17" wheels.
Automole what kind of wheels are you looking at . Are there many wheels availble with the CTS bolt pattern ?
It is called "gm in the driveway" program.
http://www.gminthedriveway.com
Each employee/retiree was issued 2 coupons each to give to ANY person not elibile (spl) for the GM employee/retiree/family deal.
At first there was NO reissue or extras given out.
Well they must have MOVED some iron because now GM has sent us more ! (NOTE: still waiting for more). I have scrounged a bunch from my mom, uncles, and their GM pals and given them away !
PRICE: The price is the same as GM supplier price.
Which is 4% over employee/retiree/family price.
But the best thing is NO advertising fee (avg. $500) or DOC fee (40 bucks max in NY--$$$$ ripoff in other states!)............geo
But there was one weird issue. The odometer on my old gauge cluster had about 18300 miles on it. The new one was reading 16800 miles! Somebody goofed and gave me back about 1500 miles. Oh well....
One other thing about the C/D article: C/D's editors seem to be convinced that the new Cadillac is for real after reviewing this car, the SRX in the same issue, and the XLR a little while ago. What a difference that great products, high quality and customer focus makes.
When Cadillac's press folks get TopGear to put Tiff Needell in one, that'll be worth seeing.
mannytranny, belated thanks for answering my question about the transmission noise several days back.
I spent many years in Japan where even the low end models had manual lumbar adjustments. Having become accustomed to having that adjustment capability, I really miss it when I don't have it. It is nice to be able to change the feel of the seat on long trips. Power seats allow you to do that, but adjusting the lumbar support provides a different feel (and different support) that helps your body to forget that it has been in the same seat for hours and hours.
I have the Lux Sport with high performance brake linings. I don't have enough experience with the brakes on the base CTS to make a valid comparison, but I can say that I really like the brakes that I have. I've had to stand on them 3 or 4 times. The CTS with the high performance brakes stops in a shorter distance and with more control than any other car that I've ever driven.
BTW, I haven't experienced the brake dust accumulation that sevenfeet0 mentioned... probably because I don't have many miles on mine yet and most of my trips are pretty short ones in light rather than heavy traffic. I use mine for weekend pleasure trips rather than as a daily driver.
My personal philosophy is that you shouldn't skip desired options on a car that costs from $30K -$40K. As long as you are spending that much money, what's a few hundred more?
SRX you can sign up on the waiting list !
He sez do you still want a CTS? Heck, my 12 &13 yos are out growing my Deville......Bummer !
I need some additional information to give to the local Cadillac dealer, regarding the clock change out. The dealer could not find any record of a recall or repair notice about the clock being out of time with the radio.
Today trip I average 24.5 miles to the gallon, at 73 mph most of the time. By the way the outside temperature was around a hundred most of the day, the CTS keep me cooled all of the time.
Best running car I ever owned, holds the road nicely.
I am getting messed around with with this license plate bezel. Mine has bugs in it. I took it up to see about fixing it and they said it is the way it is designed. I told them that doesn't make it right. No one should have to fish around with a credit card until they get the bug out as it is under glass! What do you guys think?
Brakes: I have the stock base model brakes and they're excellent. I can't imagine a need for better performance than the stock pads. Also, the brake dust is minimal...nothing compared to the brake dust from my wife's new car.
Clock: I'm going to the dealer this week and will check to see if they will replace my instrument cluster...I've already mentioned it once but gotten no response from the service dept.
rob35cts/Bezel: I agree with the service dept AND I agree with you. YES, that's the way it's designed and NO you shouldn't have to fish around with a credit card to get the bugs out. Like the cheesey clock fix (Replace the clock with a temp gauge = no more clock problem) I predict Cadillac's "fix" will be to paint the bezel to match the body color thereby making it impossible to see the buildup of bugs behind it. FWIW, I have a bunch of pine trees near my house that drop needles which eventually end up behind my license bezel...the "fix" is to spray it out with high pressure water from the hose when washing the car. I've had good success with the spray method and (knock on wood) I haven't had any problems with my bezel leaking.
Lumbar Support: IMO the lumbar support on the 2003's is terrible. My lower back hurts after extended drives. I'm going to testdrive a 2004 this week...hopefully the seats are a big improvement over the previous year's. If I don't end up with a 2004 I'm going to have to get my wife to sew me a small lumbar pillow that will match the interior of my car for use on long roadtrips.
If you click on the SRX first and select "search inventory" then pick "new vehicle search" at the top of the popup window you can select the 2004 CTS from the dropdown menu. Now if only I had that coupon...
Question: When the dash unit is changed (to get a synchronized clock), what happens to the odometer. In the pre-digital days, I got a zero odometer and a sticker on the door jamb. Is the odometer now reset to the "real" mileage?
For normal driving, I agree that the normal pads are great. For road racing, however, you can never have enough braking power or consistency.
Does the CTS share calipers with any other car? Might want to start checking with Hawk Brake, Porterfield, etc. on pad availability. The Hawk Blue is a pretty aggressive pad, the Porterfield R4 maybe one tick less so. Depends on how much you think you need.
Maybe Cadillac went to the body color bezel not for style purposes and some think but to hide the leaks as AutoMole stated
Automole have you seen the "opal" finished wheels that Konig has. Great color I like the look
Rob35CTS Why would the dealer car about the cost of the cluster it is paid by Cadillac and the dealer gets paid the labor to install it .
#2467 of 4212 Clock Fix !! by tablanke Apr 01, 2003 (9:02 pm)
I took my CTS into the dealer for the recall check and 6000 mile oil change (10% life remaining). I also asked them to check out the problem of the time difference between the digital and analog. To my surprise, the clocks now match in time!
The service report says, "Technician discharged clock capacitors. Technician reconnected battery, reset clock, performs to OEM specifications".
Don't know how long the fix will last, but at least there is a fix.
Am I missing something, or is that a bit on the high side?????
http://kunicadillac.com/location/beaverton-cadillac/frame.jsp?pag- eId=search&url=http%3A//backwebs.homenetinc.com/kunicadillacs- aab/index.asp%3Fforce_make%3DCadillac%26type%3DNEW§ionId=- 2
It's ironic you'd post the Kuni link. I was just there tonight trying to dig up a brochure for the 2004 CTS so I could check out the new available colors. I wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes with my 1.5yr old and wasn't helped by anyone...in fact I would go so far as to say I was flat out ignored. It didn't appear that they had any new info anyway. After tonight's experience combined with the experience I had trying to purchase a 2003 at Kuni last year I would say there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell I would ever buy a car there.
richw5: The CTS is a great handling and braking car. It's helped me out during at least one incident in which I had to quickly swerve and brake in order to avoid a car pulling out from a parking lot that tried to T-bone me. I was able to avoid collision, pull a quick U-Turn, and give the offending driver the finger, all while not even breaking a sweat or waking up my sleeping baby. The problem I have with the seats is my lower back and left leg...I could just use a little more support in the lower back area of the seat. Also, I don't like the lack of padding in the butt area of the seat. Besides the fact that my rear end leaves permanent stretch marks in the leather (I weigh 160) I also have a sinking feeling like the seat bottom could use more firmer padding. Still, the seats are pretty decent and although they could be improved I've driven worse...also it all depends on the driver. I had a Mustang Cobra with adjustable lumbar support and I always pumped up the seats on long trips; if my wife drove she would have to let the air out otherwise the lumbar support would kill her back.
wwhite2: The Opal wheels do look nice. The Konig "Tantrum" wheels also look great and the name would go along great with the angry mood I've been experiencing lately!
We have been talking about it for a week.
Article is similiar to the Automobile article.
Hoping that they don't get too much buzz going on this car.
The markups will stop me from buying one in 2-3 years.
todays Boston Globe has an ad for Cadillac Village( a GM owned store) Norwood Ma, 04 CTS MSRP 30385 you pay 28888. as an aside they have 50 H2's on the lot it's quite a sight
Johnnycsk - there is no worse group of people in NYC to deal with on any car matter than Potamkin. They just about laughed at me when I inquired about getting the GMS price for a DTS - 'we don't do GMS on high demand cars'
Also, they treated me very badly on a service matter. I ended up escalating to the Better Business Bureau.
In the end, I gave up. I now own an Infiniti - I gave up on GM products because even if you can stomach the sales experience, the service is a fraudulent joke.
The one decent dealer for a Cadillac around here appears to be Towne Cadillac, small place with a 4 car showroom, but really nice people (can't vouch for the service) in Union, NJ. Right outside the Lincoln Tunnel.
(sorry, I am off topic)
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