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It is always a good thing when a sedan keeps those 911 drivers honest.
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ctsambam - We have the neutral carpets and live in the Chicago area, where winter is hard on carpets. My wife got some surplus carpet squares from work and I cut them to fit all four foot wells. They keep the salt and slush off our mats and I take them out in the spring. Nothimg is perfect, but they help a lot.
Rich
Nobody knows yet.
• NHTSA crash test results
........Next is the Cadillac CTS. A year ago the Institute’s engineers found a problem —another late firing airbag. They alerted the manufacturer.
“General Motors, as a result of that test, made a design change to the airbag sensing module,” says O’Neill.
Seven months later the Institute tests the Cadillac CTS and the airbag fires on time. All CTS models built after October 2002 have this new airbag, thanks to the Institute’s testing. The 2003 Cadillac CTS now rates “good” and is also a “best pick.”......
I can't believe Caddy would not consider "late firing airbags" to be something that has to be replaced.
M
It depends on what you buy the car for. By all accounts, the E55 has the motor of the Gods. Well, Hera or Apollo perhaps - Zeus drives a twin-turbo S600. But - and once again I'll say I haven't driven one - none of what I've read (and mag road tests always need to be run through one's personal sanity-filter anyway) much likes the E55's feel on track or when used really hard in anything but freeway-flyer use.
My experience with powerful open-diff cars being flogged hard in track use or even at eight-tenths on tight or poorly-surfaced roads is that they feel 'ragged' without a limited-slip. Tight turns and lumpy pavement leave them lurching, chirping their tires and just feeling uncomfortable, and this has so far proven true regardless of traction/stability control.
As for the Jag, everyone rags on the poor S-Type R but in the comparison test that Georg Kacher wrote up for Car (Brit mag) there was a little box, not referenced in the text, where it referenced road-course lap times, and the Jag appeared to beat everyone else by a pretty fair margin. I wish they'd provided more details. This was the same test that, in abbreviated form, got published in Automobile over here.
Published 0-150 times on the Jag are closer to 540i numbers than M5; I have to wonder whether its aerodynamics are crap, or whether the engine controls won't let you have full boost for 30 seconds. In any case, it's also priced more like a 540i than an M5, it's the CTSv's closest competitor on price, and GM still ought to be able to undercut it by $12K.
M
the car was blue mist and the carpets were not as light as my tan CTS interior but the ice, salt, slush and black snow definitely had a way of climbing in with me...
carpet remnants sounds like the answer for me but would any kind of scotchguard-type of application help?... never used the stuff myself... not even on home furniture...
Sam
Minor peeve: the clocks are out of sync. Anyone know the specifics on how to resolve that so I can tell the service guys when it goes in for its first service? Thanks.
Scroll down a few posts...
I found it interesting that almost all of the M5 owners on that board found it necessary to avow that although they were interested in seeing the CTS they would never be interested in owning one. As if they had to prove their loyalty to BMW, very amusing.
The CTS design polarizes, and I think most of the "wouldn't buy one" comments are directed at the shape.
The silver seems to be a smokier color.
The back end is really improved with the body color license plate surround.
Power: Woohoo! 400 HP and 390 ft/lbs torque is good enough to play ball in the current horsepower war. It's more than the current M3 and matches the current (but not the next) M5 in these figures. Still, an M5 goes for about 70 large, which makes this seem to be quite the affordable supercar. The Corvette based V8 doesn't have the sexiness of a DOHC design, but nobody out there will doubt the street cred of the Corvette engine. It kicks butt and takes names.
Drivetrain: Well, we were all wondering what kind of character that Cadillac's V-series brand was going to have. Was it going to be the hard charging no compromising BMW M? Or was it going to be the speed-sled-yet-luxurious Mercedes AMG brand? It looks like the decision NOT to offer an automatic transmission puts Cadillac square in the BMW M school of thought. I don't agree with this decision for personal reasons. Although I can drive a stick, my extreme height makes driving most stickshift cars difficult or impossible, including the CTS (mine is a slushbox model). Maybe one day GM might offer one when the 6 speed automatic is ready for production. But for right now, I can't own one. Hey GM! How about a paddle shifter manual for a future model (like BMW, Audi and Ferrari?) Then everybody wins.
Chassis: Well, at least they admitted that stuffing a V8 in this car wasn't in the original design specs. With that, they've had to make a numerous amounts of stiffening improvements to an already stiff chassis. This should bode well for the cars handling characteristics. The car gets new sway bars, different shocks, but no magnaride...not sure why. 18 inch wheels are standard. Overall weight is 3800 and change....not Corvette poundage, but less than an M5. To get more than 80% more HP and only add less than 300 lbs of weight ain't bad. A Northstar V8 would have probably weighed more.
Brakes: Brembos. 'Nuff said.
Styling: This was telegraphed by Cadillac themselves several months ago, so its no surprise to see the final product. It's nice to see that CTS license frames will be body color now (only black and silver cars previously seemed to match the old frame). Every styling change seems to have a real purpose for the package. The mesh grill isn't original, but nice nonetheless.
Interior: I've only seen one picture of the interior, but it seems like most of the overall design is unchanged, for better or for worse. The brushed aluminum is interesting and thankfully they didn't go overboard with it. I do miss the wood accents though...that did warm the car up considerably and add a touch of "I bought an expensive car". The gauge cluster looks more serious, although it would be nic e to have all analog temperature/pressure gauges on the dash. There are two new digital instrument clusters which display the other critical temp/pressure and other information. Hopefully it will be useful. And although the emergency brake is redesigned to be smaller, it's still in the wrong place for a car like this.
I doubt we'll see full road tests of this car for a while, but hopefully GM will allow some editors some seat time in the upcoming months leading to production.
thebug...
Engine/chassis mods to fit LS6 - the LS6 isn't very big. The press release played this up, but the actual level of reworking sounded trivial - oil pan (okay, crossmember's in a different place, the LS1/LS6 snout-driven gerotor oil pump means you can notch the pan for crossmember clearance anywhere you want to), accessory drive and exhaust manifolds (okay, 'Vette's engine compartment is wide and VERY low, CTS's is taller and a little narrower).
If memory serves, when Mercedes decided to put their DOHC V8 in the W124 E-class, they had to build a separate short-deck version of the engine to get it between the strut towers!
If GM did not engineer the CTS (which, after all, is comparable in size to the 540i, E500, GS400, etc.) to accommodate engines of, Northstar-width across the cam covers, then they made a very stupid mistake. I don't know the dimensions of the Northstar motors, but the BMW M62TU (540i 4.4L) is 28.5in approx, the Ford 4.6 DOHC mod-motor is about 29in, the LS6 is somewhat narrower than these.
But times sometimes change during product development. And now superhorsepower halo cars are needed in order to compete. From an engineering standpoint, it was probably easier to wedge the 'Vette engine in the CTS than to shoehorn or even redesign the Northstar to fit. By the time the SRX was on the drawing boards, the need of a Northstar V8 was more obvious.
I did notice that I was getting a strong vibration sound from the rear in tune with my music's bass. At first I thought the woofer speaker cover or the speaker itself might have been loose, but after a little investigating it turned out it was the emergency trunk release cable, pressed up against the trunk lid, resonating with the bass. A gentle twist of the cable to bend it enough to keep it from contacting the trunk area and problem solved. I mention this because it seems like it could be a possible common occurrence.
I thought we would hear no more from all of the so called experts who predicted that the cts would bomb, but many of them simply moved over to the tsx forum
BTW, I'm seeing more and more females piloting the cts. I wonder if GM and its ad agency checked this changing demographic before or after they launched the recent tv spot featuring a woman driver.
Happy motoring.
But by the mid '90s you already had the E420/E430 and 540i well established, the GS400 showed up in '98(?), so GM would have had to have had a very narrow view of who the competition was in order to decide against accommodating a V8.
I'm still p/o's that Caddy isn't correcting the life-threatening "slow air bags," on pre-Oct. 2002 CTS's.
This discussion of the age of CTS owners/drivers is a little amusing. I was almost 61 when I bought mine. When I'm driving it, I feel much closer to 21 again.
The discussions about young women driving CTSs concern me a little. The last thing I need is for my wife to see Internet postings reporting sightings of 20 year old girls driving or riding in a black CTS in Colorado Springs. Please be discrete about reporting such sightings. (Honest Honey, she is the Cadillac service technician and she was just testing the car for me. How's that sound, guys? Think anyone will believe me?) :>)
For the poll 44 Male
When I was picking up my CTS there was a young guy trying to close a deal on a CTS and I would put his age at about 25. And I had one of the salespeople comment to me how they are seeing a younger shopper in the Caddy showroom.
As far as I know, I'm only the second person in my family to own a Cadillac; the other is my grandmother. I've got a ways to go though to catch up --she's going on her 15th this summer, THAT'S loyalty. :-)
As for the clock...mine is off by 4 minutes and if anyone knows of a fix please post it.
The V series looks incredible and I eat my words for being a disbeliever in a 400HP engine. I disagree with those that like the new rear license plate facia...I think it's ugly compared to the one that's on the current CTS. The current one is reflective and has a sort of 'carbon fiber' look to it that makes it much different from all the other generic cars on the road. I'm sure that I am in the minority but I'd also like to see an automatic as an option in the CTSv. I only hope that the price remains reasonable enough that I can afford to trade my current CTS in on the 'v' when it arrives.
As for age, I'm 35 and felt very young when I took my car in for the steering recall a couple of weeks ago...I don't think there was anyone under 60 in the waiting room.
While in Cleveland two weeks ago, at a local Cadillac dealer, a grandmother with a black on black lux sport package, and stick parked next to me. She had to be in her late 60's. Had personalized plates with GRANDMA.
I'd have to say, I wasn't really surprised, a lot of the older guys/gals that I work with drive what would be considered a younger person's car, and they say (as batmanscts said), it makes them feel younger. I say go for it. If it feels good, do it.
cu95: You may find that once two hour drive, has reduced by a couple 30 minutes. It's sooo easy to bump up the numbers. Enjoy.
thebug...
You will notice that the front door is completely intact. Not even buckled.
The dash knee area did not come into the driver's knee.
For the demographic record, I'm age 38 and my wife is 35.