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One Year Review 2013 Escalade

2K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  K9Caddy 
#1 ·
For what it's was worth, I posted my personal opinion of my new 2013 Escalade after about three months of ownership; to be honest, I was somewhat disappointed in America finest. For anyone considering purchasing a pre owned 2013 this is what you can expect

The Good
Reliability is 100%. I know 19,000 miles is not a lot of miles, but this truck has been flawless, not an issue, not a light or miss step. All system works as designed all the time.
Super solid truck; tow a 22 ft boat about 6,000 pds. At first I thought the gear ratio would be too low to tow, and thought I needed more like 4:10 or above, but towing is smooth and steady.

Best looking truck, in my opinion better looking than 2015, maybe I need some time for the style to grow on me, but man that looks a lot like an oversized Traverse. I know the new design is really popular; I can get behind it yet.
On Star is an amazing service, it's like having an assistant every time you get into your car. Downloading directions from your phone or On Star is an excellent feature.

The Bad
Aside from my original grievances, which some I have adapted to, here are my one year gripes.
For whatever reason, the heated seat on the 2013 model has been disabled during remote start. When I called the dealer, they said that GM was having some trouble on earlier models, so they decided to disabled it. Hey GM engineers, how about fixing the problem instead of disabling, it's cold in the morning ? Cold climate buyers be warned.

The engine gets filthy and salty(please don't tell me about airflow cooling the engine). In April I had about an inch of salt build up in some engine components. I did something I have never done on any of my vehicles, carefully hose down some parts of the engine. Still didn't get all of the salt off, I am afraid of getting some electrical components damp.
Forget technology as you know it, this truck is stuck in the 90's. No voice commands for virtually any function, including imputing an address, so don't let the On Star subscription lapse.
No interface for you Iphone or Droid as far as contacts. You can try to store some number in the nav manually, but it becomes difficult to retrieve the numbers and some crazy input called Call Tag. It doesn't work. You call people through voice commands, it feels silly but it works.

The build quality and tolerances are horrible. The engineers at GM worked on the ones that most people judge quality by, for example the spacing between the hood and the fenders. But the true indicators of quality are overlooked. In the driver and passenger foot wells where the carpeting or felt meets the dash unit there is almost two inches of empty space, to many gaps in too many places.
The interior door handles flexes because the seam of the handle is located exactly where your hand applies pressure, it feels cheep.
The shifter wobbles form gear to gear, it does not engage with confidence, again, giving an appearance of under engineering.
Aside from poor interior lighting, exposed screws, a door tail gate door that only reverses, no stop function (What?) A mushroom for a center console time it becomes unstable and loose.

They get a lot of things right at GM, but they also get a lot of things wrong, and that's why public opinion is so bad on American cars(even Buick is now selling it cars buy saying it's not really a Buick so buy us), they don't sweat the detail. Sorry for some of the trash talk, but I'll take the heat for what I said.
 
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#2 ·
I stopped buying them in 12' because they lessened the warranty, but that's probably just me. I did not know about the heated seat thing in 13', again I stopped buying them in 12'. I agree with much of what you said, engine, trans and looks they are great trucks, after 10' I switched to platinum editions after 7 standard models, the standard interior was looking tired to me, the platinum interior and seats were nicer and they did a lot to cut the noise way down, still the fit and finish is nothing like my GL63, now you are comparing to be fair a 120k truck to a 84k truck, but still fit is fit and when the panels are "close" on the Caddy compared to perfect on the Benz. The Escalade costs aprox 8-9k more than a GMC or Chevy truck, the door handles should not be the same cheap plastic ones, you don't think it's going to be 100 times better, but it would be nice to be slightly better because you pay for it.
 
#3 ·
Did you try to put the climate control on auto and turn on the remote start? I tried it and it works all the time. It even turns on the rear defroster. As for reliability, it is comparable to Lexus or Honda which is a very big plus. Eventually it will increase its resale for this reason. Leather quality of my hybrid is not bad. It wears it well. No cracks nor discoloration. Cooled and heated seats work better than range rover. My only gripe is the front MRC shocks is only good for 80k miles. The rear is still good.
 
#4 ·
The dealer thought that was the issue and we tried auto and start the vehicle. Climate control worked but not heat on seats. He looked at the a technical note from GM that stated that the heated seat are now disabled for 2013. The thing with Lexus and Mercedes is that the continue to update the current models to make adjustment to what is not properly functioning, making for a perfect vehicle over the years. GM waits to a whole new model year to correct the issues, then it has a whole different set of short comings. By the way my escalade had better features when it was introduced in 2007 then the model I purchased
Heated windshield fluid - Discontinued
Heat Seats with remote start - Disengaged for the 2013 model year
Tilt screen - not sure why not on my vehicle.
 
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