Is Cadillac this bad???

[Da Game]

My wife wants a Cadillac as a new car, perferably a CTS-V. I thought pretty good choice since I don't see that model around. So a friend suggested I chec variuos forums to get an idea about her choice. As I can see everybody tring to unload this car because of quality, so far as I can tell. Which leads me to the below link, man I don't know I'd hope Cadillac would be leading the way for the U.S.A. in the auto world, but guess not. Time for another decission. Here's the link once again a loong down load, but worth the 11 minutes of viewing. Please let me know your thoughts about Cadillac.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/2421093d-d063-4ea5-89b3-98a500aa04d9.htm

 

[Chris142]

I'm waiting for it to download. IMO Caddy has been junk since about 1984 when they came out with the 4100.

You can't work on them. If you do find someone that will work on them you will pay out the nose for what would me much cheaper on a different brand of car.

Also owning a car that must use stopleak in the coolant to stop coolant leaks from a bad casting design is asking for trouble.

 

[Trav]

I own a late model North* powered Caddy,nice car but plagued with engine issues.Not even on my list next time.

 

[JTK]

IMO, any high dollar car is expensive to fix. As far as reliability, much of that is based on your expectations. My brother has a 1996 Olds Aurora with a northstar and has about 140Kmi on it. It was in one nasty pile-up, was overheated once and blew a trans cooler line which pumped out most of the ATF & he's still never had an issue with it. Just recently did a plug and wire change on it without any problems.

Joel

 

[wavinwayne]

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...IMO Caddy has been junk since about 1984 when they came out with the 4100.

You can't work on them....

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Please explain this statement. Why would working on a Cadillac engine would be any different than working on a Buick, Olds, Pontiac, etc.

 

[Chris142]

The way they design things. Caddy seems to build them so any work you do is a major operation.

Put a water pump on a 4.1,4.5 or 4.9 then put one on a Buick, Olds of the same vintage and it's a snap.

After watching the video (finally after it downloaded) his car is worse than the average Cad. It's probly a bad electrical connection somewhere. Finding it is the problem.

At the shop I work at we won't work on Cads. I'll put a radiator or Compressor in. Anything else and we send it down the street.

 

[CBDFrontier06]

One of the car mags I subscribe to had a CTS-V in their long term fleet and gave it a failing grade in the quality segment due to how many squeeks, rattles, and drivetrain moans and groans it was displaying near the end of it's time in the fleet. Granted, the flogged the #@$%! out of this car whenever they got an opportunity, but they flog the #@$%! out of their entire fleet...and the CTS-V managed to garner negative quality comments. I think they had to have the rear end replaced once, maybe twice while they had it, and symptoms of a 3rd replacement were surfacing when they let it go. It's always been my opinion that this wasn't the greatest choice of cars to bestow 400 horsepower upon, but it was their only choice to compete with BMW at the time. From what I was able to gather, as long as you don't exploit it's abilities at every stoplight, you might be ok....just opt for the long warranty.

 

[JohnBrowning]

I have friend that worked for GM on Cadilacs. HIs first job was to design instrument clusters. He was always in trouble for over designing and leaveing too much money in the design. He was always forced to redesign to cheapen things up. When he was moved to doing the dash design the same thing happened he got his butt chewed on for putting felt strips any place on plastic piece matted up against another. His design would have made the Cadilac he was working on almost sqeak and rattle free for life. I can not rember if it was $.01 or $.03 cents per dash for this but GM bean counters thought it was too much. Those of us who worked for GM either directly or as contract workers know how "penny wise and pound foolish" GM can be. They kill most of their vechiles one penny at a a time!

 

[Bryanccfshr]

The guy may be having problems but he is irritating.

 

[427Z06]

Since American Corporations have moved to the cost-cutting business model, this doesn't surprise me. All car makers have had problems one time or another, but the amount and wide ranging problems this guy had doesn't say much for GM's quality, given this is the flagship division.

 

[buster]

I don't know about Cadillac specifically, but overall, American cars have improved in quality dramatically since the 80's/90's. Cars are so global anymore that what is true "American" has become harder to decipher.

 

[427Z06]

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Cars are so global anymore that what is true "American" has become harder to decipher.

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I speak in the traditional sense, like where the corporate headquarters are.

Saab is an example. How many years after GM bought Saab and started influencing their production did we start to see some serious issues with them?

 

[simple_gifts]

Having worked in manufacturing, low volume products don't get the attention in the manufacturing process that high volume products do (REGARDLESS of the price of the product) 1 problem on 10,000 CTS V's; not a biggie. The margin is high enough to fix under warranty. One problem on 250,000 Corollae? Problem..... Low margin, high volume....

 

[gedcruise]

Good point. The problem is, though, that if Joe Shmoo doesn't like his Cobalt, he can make his next car a Civic, and you haven't really lost much. If Jack Gotbucks gets honked off because his Caddy is s___, you are giving up a high margin customer. Also, warranties don't mean a thing. The customer wants and expects relibility, not free repairs.
Finally, let enough custmers go because they have had less than satisfactory experiences with your products, and you end up giving global sales leadership to (gasp!) Toyota, while in your main home market, your share continues to decline.

 

[LouDawg]

I know it's a Coke/Pepsi thing, but I've never liked GM cars anyway. They just seem to put so much into design and nothing into quality. I've always thought they made the best-looking domestic vehicles overall with really neat innovations, but that they were the least reliable. Other than one lemon back in '82, I've always had good luck with Fords. Oh, and Hondas!

But hey, that's just me.

 

[buster]

I've always felt that foreign cars just do a better job of refinement. Even if the engine quality was decent in a GM car, they always felt cheap inside with a lot of plastic in the interior. Same with Fords.

My dad leased cars and would get a new one every 3 years so I've seen a lot of GM/Ford cars growing up. I was just never impressed with the "fit and finish" of most of them. One really good car he had was a 91 Buick Lesabre. It had the reliable GM 3.8L V6 (3800).

Now with BMW's and Mercedes', they are often no more reliable then any American cars, but at least when you sit in one you feel like it's worth the $$ you are spending it on. Same with Toyota's and Honda's. My Accord is only a $24k car, but the interior is really nice (IMHO). Has a nice solid feel. Tooslick said long while back that "refinement" was the hardest thing to engineer and the reason why Japan is eating our lunch.

 

[gedcruise]

I can't think of any drop-dead gorgeous Hondas, but I can't think of any really hideous ones either. The cars are at least not painful to look at, which cannot be said for all GM, Ford, DCX (US) or BMW products. Mercedes has avoided ugly.
Hondas have always had thoughtful interiors, with comfortable seats and good ergonomics.
On a Honda, everything works for as long as you are likely to own the car, which cannot be said for either domestic or German products, including those German products (VW) made in Mexico.
Surely both GM and Ford have the design and engineering talent to match Honda in refinement and reliability. They should actually use all that reverse engineering, since they're doing it anyway.

 

[12glocks]

We have a freind with a newer caddy, I'm not sure which one it is. It's frequently been to the dealer for an issue. She complains that she wishes she had her old Camry back. She liked the handling better (sorry this is all personal testiment).

You did not ask the question but... may I humbly suggest your wife test driving a Lexus or Infinity. After that look at how well all 3 hold there value. Heck, I think a Lexus can be cheaper than a caddy.

 

[01rangerxl]

Quote:

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I've always felt that foreign cars just do a better job of refinement. Even if the engine quality was decent in a GM car, they always felt cheap inside with a lot of plastic in the interior. Same with Fords.

My dad leased cars and would get a new one every 3 years so I've seen a lot of GM/Ford cars growing up. I was just never impressed with the "fit and finish" of most of them. One really good car he had was a 91 Buick Lesabre. It had the reliable GM 3.8L V6 (3800).

Now with BMW's and Mercedes', they are often no more reliable then any American cars, but at least when you sit in one you feel like it's worth the $$ you are spending it on. Same with Toyota's and Honda's. My Accord is only a $24k car, but the interior is really nice (IMHO). Has a nice solid feel. Tooslick said long while back that "refinement" was the hardest thing to engineer and the reason why Japan is eating our lunch.

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The interior of my dad's 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid has had some issues. The car has about 25,000 miles on it now and has a loud rattle coming from around the passenger seat/passenger side of the dash. The floor console is not aligned with the dash either. The car has had other small problems that seem to come and go as well. I'm sure Accords have nicer interiors and more attention to detail, but this was still a $24,000 compact economy car.

 

[Da Game]

We have a 97 Q45. I love it, she may look at the new 08 G35. With less than 60K, I wont part with it. Over on the DCX (Charger & 300C) forums the Cadillac owners have traded their V-series stating " The car spends too much time in for repair than being driven".