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VSport premium driving impressions and questions

3K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  99STS 
#1 ·
Test drove a 2014 VSport premium. My background is mostly BMW M-cars (4 in last decade, all bought new except for my E34 M5 station wagon) and I greatly value driving dynamics and manual transmissions. IMHO, BMW has lost a lot of what made them special and Cadillac has always been on my radar. Test drove a gen 2 CTS-V manual wagon at Road Atlanta- what a beast.

Anyway, I loved the chassis. No surprise there. Steering was acceptable, better than BMW 550, but seemed a bit vague on initial turn in (anyone else experience this?). Interior was nice and well put together. Transmission shifted well- I am biased in favor of manuals but for an auto it seemed pretty good. Brakes had excellent feedback. Engine was powerful enough for a street car.

What I didn't like- engine noise, option packaging, and price. IMHO, except in the midrange under full acceleration, the engine sounded like a vacuum cleaner. Do you guys like the sound? Is it something you get used to? Are their aftermarket systems yet?
Option packaging- the digital cluster is so superior to the analog dash it should be standard on the VSport along with performance seats. I would be forced to get the Premium package just for those two features alone- even though I don't find value in the rest of the package. Adding up all the features in the premium package I just don't see it being worth 10K. Can the adaptive cruise control and other nanny features be disabled?
Pricing- my build came out to $72,000 (VSport Premium with Dark Adriatic Blue and Kona leather). Too much. I've read the threads about Cadillac pricing and hopefully saner heads will prevail- if I could order this car for around $62K I would be a buyer today.

Anyway, Cadillac has built a fine car and the engineers should be proud of their accomplishments. I would appreciate your thoughts on my questions regarding initial turn in, engine sound, and disabling certain electronic nannies. Has anyone investigated the possibility of retrofitting a digital dash to a base VSport? Thanks!
 
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#2 ·
No one is paying MSRP for the Vsport, you should be able to get the 2014 you drove for close to the price you desire. I don't think you'll secure nearly as good a deal on a 2015 order. I like the LCD dash too, but not worth the additional costs and come on, no way are you going to easily or inexpensively retro the LCD dash into the non-premium. As far as your subjective issues, I don't at all hear a vacuum. Exhaust is like music genre's, some people like jazz and some don't, but I think for a V6 its sounds distinct and has some balls behind it. Corsa makes a system, can be heard here; http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...ds/606626-anyone-care-hear-corsa-v-sport.html I have a non-premium and the nannies can be turned off, so suspect most in the premium can be turned off too. No issues whatsoever on the turn-in.
 
#3 ·
The engine noise is piped in thru the speakers, not sure if it is a true representation of the actual sound. The Corsa does sound nice. Try check out the Performance section of this forum and read up on the Trifecta tune. It adds another 80 hp and also reprograms the transmission, very favorable reviews.
 
#4 · (Edited)
I've had no problem with the sound, and I traded a 2013 Mustang GT on my V sport. I agree that $10k is way too much for the few things I find of value in the premium. I searched and found the last remaining non-premium in my area just for this reason. By the way, I got more than $12k off mine on 12/31. I don't see why you couldn't get a similar discount now on a leftover 2014, if not even more $$ off.

As a matter of fact, I just checked truecar.com and its showing me $59,331 for a Vsport premium with MSRP of $71,645.
 
#6 ·
CTS VSport owner here with over 17,000 miles, and love it more every day. Since I wanted the Kona brown interior, I also bought the premium package with features I had little interest in. But I must say that I'm very impressed with the adaptive cruise control. Works great on 2-lane rural roads trailing other traffic. I rarely used cruised control before, now I use it every day.

Since I'm six foot, the premium seat leg extensions are great. Love the heated steering wheel, too. Some may not like the lane-departure, cross-traffic, and other seat alerts, but I like them and keep them on. No steering feel complaints; and I like the interior engine notes, especially in track mode. My only complaint was the stock Pirellis. I ditched them at 12,600 miles for a set of Michelin non-runflat AS/3's. Big ride and road noise improvement. Very impressive automobile!
 
#7 ·
As near as I can tell, the cruise control only works in adaptive mode - it can't work as conventional cruise. If you want only conventional, wait for the CTS-V, apparently, they didn't want to sacrifice radiator area for radar sensors, so it still has traditional cruise. Adaptive is awfully nice in traffic though.

All the other nannies are defeatable or at least tied to the seat instead of the buzzer.
 
#8 ·
hello everyone! i am a new owner of a 2014 CTS V sport premium.
i bought a brand new 2014 Lexus IS 350 F sport that i ordered from japan. after 13 months and 9400 miles of ownership decided i just wasn't happy with the performance. so today i ended up getting a black raven with black interior premium.
i got such a good deal i really couldn't pass it up.
my car has been sitting on a lot in Denver for the past year.
last summer the car got hailed on and they did an amazing PDR job looks as good as new!
but being that we are smack in the middle of winter here and with tough negotiations i managed to get my car for $18,000 dollars under msrp!
honestly i didn't think anything like this was possible!
I've only had the car a few hours and i am still discovering all the cool features i did not realize the car had!
i couldn't be happier!
this was the 3rd visit to this car since august and each time i kept seeing the price drop a little more each time.
the dealer gave me 7,000 off and then with all the GM incentives another 11,000 in discounts.
52,000 dollars is only 4k more then i paid for my IS and i am so glad i made this purchase!
i hope this forum helps me learn more about the car and its capabilities and i am glad to be a cadillac owner.
 
#9 ·
The Lexus you had was the top choice for the car that we would've gotten instead of this car. The main thing that I didn't like about the Lexus was the motor. It's a 10-year-old motor that doesn't get great fuel mileage or have enough power to compete with today's cars which all have much newer design motors.
 
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