I'm here in a "Super 8" in Ft. Nelson, B.C. nearing the end of a twelve thousand mile touring vacation in my '04 CTS. I started last month from Fairbanks, Alaska and have been on the road pretty much ever since. Fairbanks to Waterloo, Ia. to Dayton, Oh. to Waterloo again to Grand Canyon, Az. to Southern Ca. and back North up Highway 1 and US101 to the Fraser River canyon to Prince George B.C., Dawson Creek and the Alcan again for home. The car has been pretty good except the tow hook plug in the rear bumper broke and fell out, the rear load leveling shocks blew and the car sits leaning over on the right rear by about two inches, the front bumper and all the plastic trim in front sagged and drooped crossing the Mojave desert in 117 deg. F heat so now you can throw a tom cat between the bottom of the hood and the top of the grill, the CD player does the CD shuffle and the DIC resets the numbers randomly, a strange piece of plastic sticks out from a wire harness in the trunk. Other than that the car has been perfect. The Alaska Highway is among the better roads. The worst are the worn out concrete roads with the shifted and tipped blocks that seem to plague all the urban areas. US101 in Northern Ca. took out the shocks. The trip has been nice but I can't imagine why anyone would want to live in the lower 48. The taxes, the congestion, the rat race and all the rest are overwhelming to me. To each his own.

I am completely speechless....

...except a few things. You took the car on a 12000mi straight drive through countless weather conditions, road conditions, terrain conditions and driving conditions. You've managed to do in one month what a typical owner does in an entire year. Maybe.

Each of the issues that occurred, i'm sure, would not have happened if you didn't decide to drive from one side of the universe to the other and make stops along the way.

Furthermore, i'm more than sure that even Lamborghini's wouldn't have survived that challenge, costing a cool $200,000.00 more. Easy.

Dave,

You were in Dayton, Ohio?? Hell we coulda joined up for a long necked brown bottle.:drinker

Fantastic journey you are making. I’d be interested in knowing if you are planning on keeping the CTS after your “vacation.” How many total miles, and, is it still under warrantee? How did the interior hold up and did the seats treat your backside well?

You don’t seem to be particularly upset over what has been damaged or fallen off the car by driving it on the trip. I think that the sagging pieces should not be sagging, nor should some of the other things be broken. How many total miles on the car? I ran into a guy & his wife in 2002 that picked up a new Vette convertible and hit the road on a journey similar to yours. He retired from NASA in Florida and I met them in Pennsylvania. They were headed west and had about 5K on the car. No problems and the car still looked new; I tried to email them a couple of times to see how the trip went, but no luck. Two people in a Vette convertible is a little cramped, I think the CTS is better suited.


How about a little more of your story when you get back?

Take care,
Paul

great story. someday i'd like to do the same and visit Alaska. when you get home please update us with more of what happened on your trip. thanks.

DKoz, great story. Can't believe you were in Southern Cali and didn't say hi...I could take you down to South Central so you could hang with some of the homies -- I know you miss that in Fairbanks....Anyway, glad you made it back safe and sound...sorry about the load leveling on one of my state's freeways....I'm always on the 101, but never pass Santa Barbara....That's when I usually let my CTS out...way out...I noticed you just had to throw in not being able to live in the lower 48 states.... That is just classic and typical and true to form Dkozloski..just classic...:) Great to hear from you:thumbsup:

I got home a few hours ago and am happy to report that my backside is just fine. I think you could sit in those great seats forever. Even my wife never complained one time. I'll be going around to see the dealer tomorrow with my squawk list and we'll see how that goes. The Airforce museum in Dayton was well worth the trip by itself. You can keep highway 1 up the California coast to Big Sur. Hanging on the brink of doom above the Pacific ocean does not appeal to me and it cost $54 to fill the gas tank. The biggest ripoff of the trip was having to pay a dollar to get the use of a shopping cart at a supermarket in Canada. On top of that, the item I was looking for, that great Canadian Nabob coffee, was sold out. Now I have to get in my Ford pickup and drive 1000 miles round trip to Whitehorse, YT to try again. More later. I have to get some checks in the mail and get some gas for my lawnmower.

Hanging on the brink of doom above the Pacific ocean does not appeal to me and it cost $54 to fill the gas tank.
Welcome to my world DKoz! All these additives in the gas over here and the air is still messed up!

The air here in Fairbanks is worse. The greenies won't let us fight the forest fires effectively and the town is full of smoke.

101 is absolutely disgusting for those long patches of uneven concrete blocks...it's a constant pain in the back of my mind cause I have to deal with it everyday. I just feel bad for people with lowered cars or large rims w/ low profile tires...it must be horrible.

Iowa and Nebraska have repaired miles and miles of concrete highway by using copious amounts of epoxy fillers and diamond grinders to level out the high spots. By the way, anybody that thinks the American economy is in the tank needs to get out on the road and look at the milions of trucks out there carrying commerce in every direction. I received dozens of serious job offers, some six figures, when I mentioned in casual conversation that I used to drive truck. If you want to accmulate a poke to start a business or go to college, just go to truck driver school and you're on your way. Speaking from experience, it makes great reading on a resume to say that you have driven truck all over North America, never had a wreck and never got a ticket. My observation is that if you can't get a good job you either don't want to work or you have some peculiar personality defect. You might have to relocate but so what.

I just got home from taking the car to the local Cadillac dealer to fix the stuff that showed up on my long trip. What a disappointment! No loaner. They offered a rental car and then gave me a ride home in an old rattle trap Chevy van. I got no indication of when I could expect my car back. They offered me a 24,000 mile service for $320 that included flushing the sealed transmission and a grease job on the sealed chassis. I pity the poor people they get a hold of that don't know what we know.