I answered "I love my car". I had a problem but the dealer fixed it right away. That did not detract from my very positive opinion of the car. Stuff happens. So my point is even though I can't say "no problems", I still love my car.
It is a lot of things. Most of them good.
It is NOT a good High Speed Cruiser.....
Hmmm. Hate chiclets. Very interested in why you're unhappy with the 'high speed cruise'. My experience at 70-85 cruise has been fine, but that may well not be your version of high speed .
You guys do not understnd wht makes a high speed cruiser.
It's not doing 80 miles per hour down to the Dunkin Donuts. Or even 80 MPH to work, 50 miles away.
Nor is it driving 2 hours at speed....but you are getting closer.
Try 75 MPH for 8 hours and when you are done, repeat the next day, but make it 10 hours just for the hell of it.
We are off on a 4000 mile trip that we havemadmany timesbefore andknowhow a ca should feel and more imprtantly how we should feel.
If the car is agood cruiser, you will not even be tired t the end of the day.
If it isnot a good cruiser, you will beverytired.
THings you will notice:
The seat that was not great before but seemed adequate.....actually sucks after 5-6 hours. The bottom cushion is virtually non existant.
the Center stack that was very close to your leg and added to the cockpit feeling is actually quite confining after a few hours.
The dead pedal works good if your inseam is 39".....on the left and 30" on the right.........Who the hell tested that litle feature.......?
50% sidewalls are not meant for cruising. What is athletic for nhour or two is rough riding after 8 hours........
Slaps the concrete expansion strips loudly with kidney jarring mini bumps...more than 1 per second if you are makinggood time.
Combined with nervous steerring.....
Steering - Here I have to make an adjustment. I may have screwed up...
I inflated the tires by 3 pounds for the trip to 36....I usually do this on the Murano.
Mybe I need to take them back down to thefactory setting of 33 pounds.
The problem, which may not be valid - I will lower the pressure and see....is that the camber must be at zero. there is little to no self centering.........both me and my wife noted that we tended to weave a bit when tired....this is a function of A- being much more tired than when we make the same trip in our Murano, which is a superb high speed cruiser....... and B- no self centering.
Here's a test- take a long sweeping curve on a large parking lot......
let go of the wheel.....
The steering is SUPPOSED to straighten out.............this CTS does not. It just continues in the same arc.........That's wrong and combined with fast steering ratio makes for constant attention.....that's finewhen you are hustling it through traffic back home....that sucks when you are trying to cruise the super highways for hours on end........You have to becareful though, too much camber can wear the tires prematurly.....even if the specis 0 maybeI canget them to dial some in.......
A very minor point (to me) but my wife, who was a chief bookeeper in her working life, is attuned to details, especially concerning user interfaces.....Its all part of the study of ergonomics
The issue, in her words.....
"Who was the moron that decided the rest of the world was wrong? It is like GM has decided that green traffic lights will be blue ffrom now on........sure it wll work, but why?????"
The cause of her ire?
The gas gauge.
She had never noticed it before in her few short trips and I never noticed it.....
It really upsets her.
Why is empty 0 and full 1? Wht exactly was wrong, and what problem did it solve switching from E for empty and F for full? And why with such a small tank is the reserve so big?
She likes to stop and get gas when the reserve comes on...that makes for a small cruising range on this car.......
She understands that it is a nit, but she also knows that it required a conscious effort to change it from the norm an the same people may have been in charge of other more importantthinsg.......
She calls it The "Wild, Rabid, MBA effect".
Chiclet keyboards? That what they call laptop keyboards....and I told you I was on a trip so i am tyong this on my laptop. Some people can't type well on flat, characterless laptop keyborads.
I am one of them.
Typos? too bad.......
As I said this car is not a good high speed cruiser (once you understand what most people mean by that term) but I still have to lower the tire pressure to see if that helps.....it "could" change" the camber just enough....if that doesn't help, I will tke it in and have the dealer check the cmber.....i don't knowwhat the spec is since GM has decided that we don't need a service manual........
My other caris a 2003 Murano.
It is a superb high speed cruiser as noted on theat forum years ago.
It is fast, smooth, and has great seats.
It also has 65% sidewalls and a firm suspension, so it rides concrete highways well. The CTS does for awhile and than what was fun become tedium. And besides we don't have mny concrete highways n Florida.The rest of the world though uses them a lot. One of the things we are aware of is the ride on concrete highways as we make thistrip late sping every year and another oneup the east coast in mid summer...
I don't know what I will do.
I love the car and have had no defects.
If I keep the car I wll have to change my plans andkeep thecaddy for a grocery getter and sort range trips, and go back to using the Murano for long trips.
If I get rid of it I don't know what I will do...go look at the M car I guess.
The problem, is, unless you get a wekend test drive andactually drive the thing for 8 hours yu don't knowhow it will fare.
Well, we will see if dropping the tire pressure helps.....that still won't help the other issues tho.
a few thoughts based on Southern post #16 - way too much to quote and it's only 3 posts back.
1. are you sure it's camber? that plants the tire vertical so the contact patch is all on the pavement. also helps spread the load on the wheel bearings in the olden days. with these wide tires I would think camber should be pretty close to zero in the + direction. I wonder if the caster is zero or maybe a bit negative. that along with reduced power assist at speed may lead to wandering since it is naturally unstable. this being a sporty car it's probably designed fairly close to 0. a little positive caster really helps it track straight on a flat highway, but gets annoying on crowned lanes. either way I would not trust the factory to have every car set exactly on spec. a good dealer or alignment shop should be able to set you straight
2. have you been twiddling with the seat adjustments. I think that the firmness of the "cushions" makes it much more sensitive to being an exact fit to the natural contours. I bet there's a setting somewhere with your name on it. I've driven on trips up to 3-4 hours at a time with no issues. but then I've ridden harleys for 10 hours a day, maybe it's just relative.
3. to each his/her own but I think the 0-1/2-1 gas gage is kinda clever (you know, "digital"). at least it's better than gm's old empty-half-full-almost-full circles, especially the vehicles with the backwards gas gages.
JMHOs. good luck on your trip and I'm looking forward to more reviews.
rg
Interesting observations. As you I had a Murano and thought it was a fantastic highway cruiser, but remember I did an extra deadening so it was a very quiet car….now to your review, I drove to Naples, Miami, Virginia etc. I think CTS is a nice highway car. I had no problem with car keeping straight line, though because of the sensitivity of the steering at high speed you cannot do what was possible with the Murano – slightly move the steering wheel and still keep the straight line. I would advise take the car to the dealer and have the alignment check.
Seats – I preferred Murano on long trips, my wife hated them! She loves the CTS seats! Go figure…..Space – there is nothing on the market than beats Murano in terms of a package – space, smoothness, performance, overall comfort. So if I was to repeat my trip again Atlanta – New Mexico – Atlanta I would definitely go with the Murano over the CTS… for various reasons. One of them is tire noise. At highway speeds there is definitely too much tire noise….but maybe my benchmark is just too high for CTS to meet….
Good luck with your trip…….looking forward for more reviews….
Very interested in why you're unhappy with the 'high speed cruise'. My experience at 70-85 cruise has been fine, but that may well not be your version of high speed 
.
