regfootball

re: the four cylinder. projected 0-60 is 6.1 seconds. That is plenty fast for a base Caddy, the 4 has more torque than the 6. The four will occupy the showrooms in winter states and then they will be leased for cheap lease payments or go for 14 grand off sticker 18 months later......except in the non snow states, I think the 4 banger may do ok for those who don't want the weight and bulk of AWD. Only 3700 pounds on a vehicle with this size wheelbase and track would make it a skate in slick weather, while it would be very entertaining in the dry. I'd be surprised if they make 2,000 of these a year with the 4 cylinder. I think its a nice option. Since the v6 is only a couple grand more and comes with AWD it will do well and therefore I don't think Cadillac will need to discount these much. Which is the whole goal. Still will be light and athletic. In fact, the reviews are praising the CT6 for its dual talents......great steering and handling, but also is a good cruiser. Its like this car combines both on a new level. The v8 isn't needed because the 3.0tt v6 goes like stink. Sounds like it can go toe to toe with other engines in the lux segment. Right from launch! This engine will justify the large price jumps in the upper trim levels. I like the positioning here. S class and 7 series can be perceived as too heavy, but provide space and luxury. Many buyers have turned to crossovers for the extra space. This car could reinvigorate some interest in large sedans in general.....it won't give up interior space and comfort to crossovers, and the ride and handling experience will be what stands out. You might start to get those first waves of people who are trading in their first crossovers to get back into luxury sedans. Also with gas prices down and interest in large vehicles returning, that may be favorable to larger sedans segment. Culture is moving towards steering away from big excess as luxury. You get the benefits of size and room which is luxury, but the car is efficiently engineered to be lighter and its character is not ostentatious. I think it may appeal to some younger demographics that don't like heft and styling excess, and appreciate engineering. I also think some older demographics who downsized their rides over the last decade may be tempted to indulge in larger ride again. Still in those cases the CT6 won't appear large and ponderous. I think the styling is good to very good but its not a knock out of the park. It keeps moving in the good direction, and even though it has some similarities to the CTS, it doesn't have some of that cars styling awkwardness. I think ultimately this car brings back some buyers to Cadillac showrooms because now Cadillac can say they are finally building a larger car again, which is lets face it what a lot of people expect out of cadillac and has been missing for some time now. It should bring in some new interest as well. Cadillac should be concerned about how the rest of the lineup functions around this car, because if they tweak some things, they can really benefit from this flagship draw (and that of the XT5). I would develop the ATS to service conquest lessees, brand entrants, and younger demographics and give up on trying to make it a huge cornerstone, and let it ride out somewhat anonymously until the replacement. Maybe give it a new interior and freshen the styling. The size is a problem in the US, let the ATS sell well elsewhere. I would reprice and repackage the CTS and similarly redo parts of the interior, and fix the styling problems. The CTS would be the car i would be focusing on for promoting performance and driving. The CTS should be the best selling Cadillac sedan but it needs fixes and help to do that. I would keep the XTS to service fleets and rentals for awhile, and some folks like the package. I don't think there's much harm in keeping it around for 3 more years. Perfect for the Cadillac fans who wait for the cars to age 5+ years and then buy them off old lady trade ins for dirt cheap. Eventually we see the Cadillac flagship and until then the CT6 is fine enough to invigorate the brand and build off of for sedans. The Continental, how can Ford think anything of it when it looks like it does with its pfffft interior and strange exterior, compared to this?

since the discussion came around the Torrent GXP and a small mention of the Equinox Sport, just remember the Suzuki XL7 from 2007+ was the first implementation of the 3.6 GM motor in that chassis. The XL7 really was a stretched Equinox and probably 2/3 of them out there were equipped with 3rd row. Literally was a fully rebadged genuine GM product. I only mention this because they are inexpensive to buy if you search thoroughly and find the right one with low miles that has been taken care of. They aren't perfect, but as an alternative to an Equinox or Torrent with a little more cargo room, they might be worth a look. And the sticker under the hood says GM too. I think it had some of the same 3.6 gremlins that other GM products had from the start, and the interior is spartan, but the Equinox then was nothing posh either. I only think its worth looking at if you can save a few thousand vs. something comparable (i.e. Torrent / Equinox ) and just invest in a warranty. It's a little like the 2011 Saab 9-5.....if you can find one that's a good buy, its like a Saab LaCrosse with the 2.0 GM turbo motor.

If i recall, in the COTY issue, they liked the 2.0 and hybrid and were less enthusiastic about the 1.5 I've been trying to locate a 2.0 on a lot anywhere around here the last few weeks to go for a spin and there aren't many of them available. I suppose by now the 2.0's are finally starting to arrive more. It's quite interesting what Ford is doing with incentives on the Fusion right now. 0% + 2000 cash back (stipulations) and there is also another $750 available. Plus there has to be another buried incentive somewhere. So Fusions can be had 6-7 grand off sticker right now, some pretty ridiculous pricing in some cases. Rather odd I figured considering how hot the Fusion was off the lot since the new body and then it dawned on me that I think the new Malibu is taking some market attention away from the Fusion. The new Malibus are actually going close to list right now so there is a pretty insane spread in actual money for what you can get the Fusion for versus the new Malibu. But i think that is a testament to the new Malibu. If it's getting a good launch then it should have legs for awhile.

yup, all this ^^^^

I'd imagine with their products being RWD based, that the v8 will be a 90 degree design. My old FWD v8 SHO had a 60 degree v8 and I believe had a balance shaft. It was smooth but not inherently smooth like a 90 degree. I doubt there would be any benefit to a 60 degree design for Cadillac.

The GXP Torrant has the 3.6 DOHC rather than the 3.4 Pushrod.... it was made specifically to appease SMK. and there was briefly a matching Equinox sport, nay? I remember getting Pontiac mailers pushing the Torrent GXP, well it had the red dash lighting, that would have been the deciding factor!

many of the younger set have no trouble forking out coin for cell phones and plan. But the thought of even 200 bucks for a car payment rankles them. Mom and dad drove them everywhere for so long, then it comes time that you gotta get yer own ride, pay for it, and drive yourself. Oh the horror. Can't work from your basement, all of ya. Gotta go to your job so you can make money. That's how it works. Sad that all those years of college doesn't guarantee employment or a decent wage but if the recession hadn't wiped out jobs across all demographics and hadn't decimated average wages so much, the system would not have developed such difficult barriers to get into the employment world. Mass transit is a great option for those that don't want to own a car. But you still pay for that too, and you don't have total freedom. Car sharing may be a great scam for quite awhile. But renting cars or group ownership will not save a lot of money vs single ownership over time. Ford's group lease/buy thing just means they can ask more for the price of the vehicle. Nice scam! plus then you are stuck driving the vehicle your co owner has been beating up on.

G35 was well respected, had a ton of equity with buyers. Everyone knew what Infiniti G was. too bad they botched it.

i looked really hard at trying to get into the cruze diesel back about a year and half ago or whatever, when gas was 3.50+ and i was driving 90 miles a day. The price of a fully loaded LTZ was too much for the fact it was a small car and the higher fuel price. Even just comparing leases (Which of course don't work for high mileage but i compared them anyways) you are right, the diesels didn't have a 'cheap lease'. Chevy is giving Cruzes away right now with their lease terms. There was never a buy deal or a lease deal on the Cruze. The Cruze diesel has had some teething issues here also. Nothing catastrophic, but I'm not sure the dealer network is 'fully' ready to deal with servicing diesel issues in the car line. A lot of buyers don't want to deal with DEF either. I test drove the diesel a few times and in truth it was a really nice powertrain. The most enjoyable, which maybe isn't saying much, of the Cruze. But i spent about 1,000 miles in two separate Cruze rentals a few months ago and the character difference between the hyper and noisy gas 1.4 turbo and loafing turbo was night and day. If you wanted a Cruze and wanted the best powertrain available with it, it was the diesel. The diesel as it was was very heavy as well. So the upcoming diesel will weigh less and be more refined. I don't expect just as much power, but I would bet the car gets 50 mpg consistently on the highway. GAs was 1.68 at the station i drove by earlier today. Diesel has been closer to gas lately than it was 18-24 months ago. Still, diesel is a pretty hard sell when gas is that cheap. There are enough diesel fans though, I think that you could move at least 10,000 of the things a year, even with gas prices this cheap. If you are willing to do that and gradually build diesel volume over time, you can poach a lot of VW diesel fans. Too bad CARB and EPA are out to make criminals of all the carmakers. When Cruze diesel comes back, they really should offer a 1LT diesel. Only an LTZ meant the price was high enough to turn profit and could be massively discounted to move them at the end of year and still have a decent enough sell price on them. But I think for commuters of long distances to work, leather etc. is not what they really want too often. A 1LT for around 23 grand sticker would sell pretty well at invoice and with a light rebate. I would build off the Cruze diesel and bring an Insignia diesel over here for Buick.

#2- people bought acadias because they were large crossover cars, with width and volume, they did not want a Trailblazer / Canyon (the lambdas laid waste to the trailblazer and envoy) nor did they want the Yukons and Suburbans, they are entirely separate markets. Lambdas were a huge success because people wanted a LARGE 7-8 seat CROSSOVER that could haul lots of people and cargo and could replace vans in particular with something that drove similar to one but had AWD. #3- stats show the new model is very far off in size, its a smaller class, instead of adding a model to take the place of a wildly popular vehicle (one that had its best sales ever in its 10th year no less), if the 'new model' is not 'too far off in size', why not just keep the name, keep the size, and keep the people happy with what got you there? Call the new model Trailblazer, Envoy, or Terrain. Terrain actually would have worked well because the wheelbase is the same, and you would have been giving people MORE than you had before. The smaller compact size replacement could get a new name since it would literally be a new product. Granite? perhaps. #4- 700 pound weight loss is misleading, it is based on the 4 cylinder model, lets wait to see what loaded 4x4 configs compare at. I am guessing the diff will be around 300-400 pounds max. Despite all the amazing! engineering to lose 30% of your cargo room and 1/3 ton of weight, the epa mpg (1 mpg combined????) gains are near worthless to marginal, in the age of sub $2 gas. Record number of cars sold in the US last year and people are breaking open the wallets for larger vehicles again now that they can act on their preference again, and GM......downsizes. Clearly GM botched their product plan but won't come clean. They did this as part of the pressure to keep pushing CAFE up and when they hatched this plan they probably felt the saudis and world directives weren't gonna push gas below $4. This is probably rooted in issues of which plants for production they were ultimately going to produce something at as well. GM is going to make a ton of money with their new auction site reselling their own Acadia lease returns to people who can't buy a real new one anymore. All those lambda customers (many of them repeat) who don't want anything besides a GMC are left out in the cold. Of course GM left the Camaro customers out in the cold for 7 years, that is 10% of many's lives, but GM doesn't concern itself with that. Imagine if Kelloggs stopped making corn flakes for 7 years. GMC sold over 700,000 (US) Acadias in 10 years, including nearly 100,000 of them last year. GM sold (rough calc) like 1.7 million (US) lambda vehicles; at high margins, pretty incredible when you consider the economic toilet for most of the years they sold these things in. Very few of these were rentals, these were the retail products that kept GM in business in tough times. These are core, signature, staple products, they invented the segment, and GM has decided to tank that market (while chasing many niche markets like CTS wagons and a few hundred SS chevys and a few Astra convertibles now a year). GM will end up splitting up all their sales share over a larger number of crossovers, and they won't end up making any dents in midsize segment leaders Highlander or Grand Cherokee sales with this new strategy. Moving the Terrain and Equinox down will lose business. The Trailblazers and new size Acadias won't satisfy customer demand for the 7-8 passenger crossover either. It would have been nice if GM hadn't been so dull with the styling on this. Styling alone can make a vehicle take off on the sales charts, but a 2016 version of Ascenders, Bravadas, 9-7's, etc, isn't a great strategy. Gouging your towing capacity doesn't help either. Check out a variety of other car forums and there is a majority of people wondering why GM is sticking its foot in its mouth here. Lots of PO'ed current lambda customers.......many of them saying if the GMC looks like a Durango they might as well get a Durango. GM is sending previous happy buyers directly to other manufacturers. This was a segment where GM innovated. Now its gone. Only if the Traverse replacement is the exact same size or larger in all dimensions will they make up for this sin. And then its Chevy vs. Ford and Chevy won't make up the slack that GMC and Buick are losing here.

fiat probably got some technology

where are the batteries for this made

Yes to a degree....but lets backtrack a bit here. The now previous Malibu didn't have class leading interior bits at all. The big thing about the new Malibu interior is the ergonomics and fit have been improved by shifting things and taking it away from a tight cockpit interior with an intrusive lower dash and big vertical center stack.....to something that first of all gives actual room in the back. Then it moves the gauge cluster forward and down and dissolves the intrusion of the console and center stack on your legs. The new center stack is simply a tablet in the dash, which is far more usable than the last mylink. The climate controls are compacted. The plastics on the parts of the dash you see are 'just enough' in terms of level of finish when you consider the nice gauges and center stack display are what grabs your attention. The overall level of finish quality on the inside, while feeling a bit cheap is pretty comparable to the Altima. While having nicer gauges and displays. The new interior is better than the old one because its functionally better and opens up the cabin for a more space and room. And the visibility out the new model is much better. I can live with some cheaper plastic in this instance. Whatever rep that was that made the Acadia comment was spot on, sure he wasn't the only one

Granted.. and as I said.. 20 years.. meaning at this point.,. the 90s.. not the 60s. In 1996 we had Cadillac, Lincoln, Benz, BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, Saab, and Jag. Also... I am not saying that Cadillac should be in every segment. Quite the contrary. I am saying that within the segments it is in currently.. it should have variants. For instance.. CTS should have a wagon, convertible, coupe. They can have their own designation or name, but the choice should be available. Same for the ATS. Add Diesels across the board. The only real addition I think they need, outside of a larger and smaller than XT5 CUV, is small sports car, and a super-car.. Make an electric or hybrid version of all. 500K sales JUST LIKE THAT. Mercedes has 16 models.. BMW, 12. They should be outselling Cadillac's 6 models I agree with the 'model plan', but I see your plan doesn't include a sub-ATS. That plan looks fine, should be good for 350K. Again- I don;t want nor care to see 500K from Cadillac. I don't think a sub ATS is needed. I think the ATS could simply be better marketed as to appeal to the pockets of the public. It also lacks at the very least a convertible.. which accounted for 15% of BMW 3/4 compact numbers in 2014 Cadillac does not need a sub ATS, on this we agree. GM could enact a temporary fix in the US and use the Chinese stretched version if they wanted to. It looks better and gives more rear seat space.

CTS has a sales problem. I am not sure how you fix that though. It is the biggest car in the segment, maybe it needs to shrink, get a more interesting looking rear end, better interior, I don't know. The people aren't buying it though, and even more scary is a new E-class is on sale in summer, and a new 5-series is coming shortly after that. Sales problem has been outlined a thousand times and U and some still seem to not get it. No coupe, no advertising, same priced XTS on the lot.. get it thru your head. Interior is award winning. Performance is class leading. Look is subjective but I think its the best looking of the segment Why isn't there a CTS coupe then? Does GM not have the money to spend on Cadillac product development, can they not afford advertising either? The 5-series doesn't have a coupe, it has that GT thing that doesn't sell, but it mostly gets by on 1 body style. And if the CTS is such a good product, why doesn't it outsell the exactly same priced XTS? It has better ride, handling, breaking, overall performance than an XTS, award winning interior but can't outsell the XTS. The CTS was down 32% last year, something is wrong with either the product or their sales approach. CTS front end is ugly and overall the car is a bit of a styling miss, that is a major reason its a miss. Local dealers here advertise 'new' 14's and 15's still.....some at a 20-25k drop from MSRP. For well over a year now. And still the sales stink. WHen you're dropping 20-25k off msrp you are not making "8,000 dollars per unit". I don't spend much on cars but i am licking my chops because you can find new gen CTS's on the used market coming dangerously close to 30 grand now. ALmost went and drove one yesterday. I love the CTS but it has big flaws and pricing problems and that's why it don't sell. The XTS is more appealing to the blue hairs despite the fact its a Cadillac IMpala. Wouldn't take much to fix the CTS, but they are probably better off redoing the whole car and introducing it as the CT5 or whatever. The ATS problem is simple, redo the whole car, give it some rear leg room and trunk and give it a new nice interior. And then keep it down in price compared to the other models. It would cost Cadillac a lot less money to fix the styling problems on the CTS, and redo all the option and trim level packages, than to let the cars rot on the lots and then put them into loaner service or whatever and dump them for 20-25k off MSRP.

Yes. The poor sales and the ugly front end.

Cruze hatch with 6 speed and about 250 hp would be all i would care for. Even 210-220hp this thing would be a thrill ride. I drove the Focus ST at a ride and drive event. It was nice but I don't really want the full sports treatment. The RS is absolute overkill but I know that has its fans. 200+ hp with the manual trans option and decent buttoned down suspension with good steering I think would be a sweet spot I would like. Maybe its GM looked into magnetic ride for a car in this class.

must be long lines at the urinals due to all that GM kool Aid time will tell what happens with this. at least its not an embarrassment the likes of Ford and the Continental and the new MKz grille

Lots of women won't buy Chevy or Buick, but will buy GMC. You just took their choice away. It would help if the new Acadia didn't look as frumpy as it does.

I think if they can fix the CTS problem, that would help, new XT5 should be a huge boon. I would increase Escalade production too.

among the most egregious sins are a loss of 4+ inches of hip room in row 2 and 5+ inches of hip room in row 3. This becomes a max 6 passenger vehicle. Acadia was one of the few true 8 passenger vehicles available on the market. Cargo goes from 116cf to 79cf. that's almost a third of cargo loss. All this for what is looking like 1 mpg gain, despite new engine and start stop, trannies, and all that and several hundred pounds of weight loss. Also highly telling, the current Terrain and this new Acadia are practically the same in front hip room. GMC and fanbois of GM can spin this all they want......on other msg board and forums across the net, lots of folks are not liking the downsize. I just don't think you tinker with what was so well accepted. People wanted a large car based SUV that was not a truck like Yukon. it's been wildly successful, it was a unique market benefit, and now you throw it in to a group stuffed with competition, will bring less demand and price, and it won't push more people into Yukons because they never wanted a truck to begin with. It doesn't touch the Grand Cherokee on style, reputation, and comfort, prob not on powertrain either. They should have stayed in the market space they were in. As a GMC Envoy, this would be perfect. If they decide to stretch this, they should at least have had this ready for market at the get go. The cladding looks horrendous. A commenter from another forum site

U do realize that the new levels will be Yukon XL, Yukon, Acadia, Terrain.. and a vehicle, possibly Granite (?) under that right? Also... as said before by myself and a few others.. the option for a LWB is not out of the question i sure hope the returning Acadia lessees have that option of that XL available to them when they turn in the ones they have. Both the regular version and the "XL" should be available at the same time, launch so there are no gaps for the lessees.

The south american trailblazer is based on the Colorado and it's no featherweight. The Acadia is FWD/AWD on the heavily modified Lambda platform, I'm not sure GM's new coding for it. It's on a new platform called C1XX. No real sharing with Lambda to speak of. Shared with the new XT5. Here are my shots of the GMC Acadia from the show. To me, this is the biggest evidence that the Terrain will shrink significantly next refresh. In 5-passenger trim, the Acadia is dangerously close to the Terrain in interior room with almost all of the extra space happening behind the 2nd row. seems like the wheelbase and length are Dodge Journey sized more than anything. If the width of the vehicle is comparable to the Journey, then in fact yes, it's going down towards Terrain sized. In another thread somewhere, I suggested what GM was probably doing was something along the lines of the last XL-7......something more akin to a stretched equinox. Dimensions maybe not far off that? (i have yet to see the width of the 17 Acadia). GM's not going to lower the price, but it will move a whole size class down. This does not seem like a recipe for success. Time will tell. I just remember when the Lambdas came out. Everyone loved the package. People traded in their Blazers and Envoys and Raniers and stuff en masse. People like my wife's boss when they get kids go to buy the first CUV and gush over the new Acadia they get because adults can sit in the third row. Wanted the GMC because they didn't want the Chevy and they wanted something trucky. Now GM is taking that away. Take away the size, the style, etc. Makes no sense. A 2017 with a 3.6 may end up getting 1 mpg more on the EPA. In the real world, you may or may not see that either. Ask an owner of a 2008 Saturn Vue V6 if they get any better mpg than someone driving a 2008 Acadia. Yeah, it's not going to get hardly nay better real world mpg. Of course I am of the mindset that the Terrain and Equinox shouldn't downsize (their interior space). Escape is a nice garagable size but some may find it a bit small. CRv has nice space but the whole package their is a tin rattle trap. GM can take the weight out of their products without making them into CRv's. I get that the product groups are global now, but GM is seriously cutting themselves in the foot on this one. I guess its time to pick up a Dodge Journey. you driven anything with the 2.5? There's a reason its being banished to the trucks and CUV's.......

Explorer has deficiencies in packaging due to it's too short of wheelbase and long overhangs. Explorer is closer in length to the current Acadia than this new one.

700 pounds is probably misleading, if that comparison is a crude in line 4 cylinder no one wants compared to the old v6. When apples to apples get out on the scale it won't be 700 pounds difference we are talking about. The other misleading assumption is that creating more spacing between an Acadia and Yukon is what people want. People buy the Acadia because of the efficIent packaging and car chassis. You get a Yukon for the truck frame and different ride and drive that the truck gives. You put up with the horrendously inefficient rear seat and cargo packaging as a sacrifice for the truck frame (even though navigator seems to do this right) It's why people buy ridge lines vs f 150s. They ride and drive different and specialize in different ways.