Big Als Z

CTS has a nice interior, no doubt. But it misses a lot of stuff, especially when you compare it to its actually class, the 5/E/A6.
Hell, the CTS doesnt even have full leather seating! It might not seem like a huge deal, but its just a cheap move.
CTS doesnt have a power rear sunshade just another item. The 5 series has several different types of leather and different types of colors. Hell, so does the DTS.
STS-V had a full suede headliner, CTS-V does not. STS has blind spot detection, CTS does not. Hell, FWD midsizers and compact cars have blind spot detection. The Buick LaCrosse has it!! Why doesnt the CTS?
Things like this make the CTS incomplete.
STS's inteiror design was sorry when compared to the CTS and even the SLS in China, which is just a longer STS.
Yet another sore spot, the SLS's interior should have made it over here, but GM NA deemed it not nessessary for American consumption, and that kind of move is what dooms Cadillac.

A refresher...




But we got this...

Geoff Chadwick

I put 900 miles on a CTS less than two weeks ago - and at first I said the same thing. The CTS-V is a million bucks less than the BMW M5.

But - when you compare a CTS to a base 3 series or base 5 series, the car isn't much cheaper than they are - and it doesn't have the interior they do. The Dash in an M5 is nearly a dash in a 535. There's the telling point. I thought the CTS interior was worlds ahead of the cadillacs of old (and the STS, I agree we should have gotten the SLS interior) and even more recently. There are OBVIOUS cheap plastic parts in the interior that at times overshine the nice bits.

The same thing - why can't Cadillac get the powered headrests? Why not the auto-aiming headlights? Who decided we'd get a button for everything instead of a central control system like I-drive? The CTS has a bajillion buttons!! Thankfully the automatic headlights and wipers work great - those were buttons I could ignore.

1fastdog

Ignorance toward other folks is rampant and I feel for anyone living in a place where what you drive labels one as a silly stereotype.

Chevrolet stands for dependability, value, performance, and all around bang for the buck. A whole lot of vehicle for a reasonable price.

The origins of "red-neck" are due to folk that work their *** off outside getting a sunburn on the back of their necks. I'll be the first to agree that there are idiots in every part of the country. It has absolutely nothing to do with their speech inflection or colloquial tone. I have even met idiots that never worked hard a day in their life.

I'm a southerner. Proud to be so.

My people have been in this country before it was a country. Some of them fought against some very big odds to create and keep this as a country.

Thankfully, Chevrolet makes cars and trucks for all kinds of folks. I'm happy we try to earn business from "smart money" people.

As for "value" shoppers? Everyone is a value shopper. Some put stock in a degree of intangibles and some insist on the hard goods being required.

I have nothing against "cork sniffers" or red-necks. That is, until one or the other tells me I can't like what I like.

Y'all be good, now.

The Untouchable

im sorry but any idiot that say that the vette base should go north of 50k because it "HURTS" the vette's image need to be dragged into a alley shot in the ***** with buck shot ,there drivers lic. taken away and banned from ever owning or driving a a car.

and what the hell is wrong you people thinkin the interior need to be more lux, are you retarded i buy a vette for its power performane,handling and speed NOT for some creme puff interior . if you want lux go buy a caddy and stay the hell away from a vette you dont belong there .

if i had my way the vette would come with bride reclinable swede racing seats with 6 point safety harness , who need foo foo leather wrapped hand stiched dash and steering wheel , ya want a steering wheel that fits your hands nice and and is still grippy if ur hands get a lil sweaty so they dont slip .

yeah a decent stereo would be nice but again weight saving are important to me ,leave the heavy /extra crap for the caddy not the vette

if i could build a vette to my exact specs, CF body, manual 6 speed, or auto option and optional F-1 style paddle shifter manual gear box, smaller cu.in. motor supercharged to equal larger disp. motor and make same power , "less weight, tubular LCA's , 6 piston and 2 piece CF rotors like F-1 or 2 piece carbon center steel cross drilled and slotted steel outer like AMG s55's. 275 front tire /325or 295 rear tire, onstar ,no Run flats, some type of nav/stereo system with intergrated diagnostic system, magna ride, factory long tubes with optional performance exhaust that sounds good,stronger rear axle, CF driveshaft, i can think of a few more things but not right at the moment but they will come to me.
leave the foo foo lux stuff out of the vette that stuff is for poon tangs,
i buy a vette for performance not driving 5k mile trips and need all the heavy unessesary stuff to make u feel like your in a caddy ,i wanna feel like im in a vette and nothing else

Big Als Z

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand point proven.
Game, set, match, win. Big Al. Thank you boys and girls, Ill be here all night. PM me if you need me.


And the rotors arent carbon fiber, they are carbon ceramic brakes. And to prove my point further, your "ideal" Vette would cost over $100k. It sounds like you described a ZR1..
Carbon Fiber body
Carbon Ceramic brakes
Supercharged V8
Stereo with Navi system
Free flowing, two stage exhaust
Stronger drivetrain...yeah, you just picked out a ZR1, nearly twice the price of what I would like to see be the BASE price of a Corvette.

1fastdog

Regarding I-Drive... Perhaps it has improved as I and others found the early versions to be overly complex to achieve a simple task. If it has been made more intuitive, that would help.

Your desires are good questions, for the most part. The I-Drive bit requires more research on my part... as I said earlier, the first versions were not intuitive and not conducive for simple hop in and drive scenario.

1fastdog

How his post proved your point simply escapes me Al...

Just how does a post describing a top level model have any bearing on a base model needing to be elevated in content?

How, exactly, does his post validate a higher priced base car?

Geoff Chadwick

And you're right. The i-drive requires more setup. I'm a bit of a gadget geek as well. For me, I'd like to spend 5-10 minutes setting things up and then be off for a year without touching anything. The CTS was somewhere in the middle.

I'm not an XM satellite fan either. I didnt put anything on the hard drive. Those two buttons are now useless. When you don't get the pop-up navigation, the 6 buttons beneath the 'standard' lcd are very rarely used. When you have all those controls on the center stack, I almost wonder why the dash display stuff is on the left side of the wheel - where it is happily blocked from direct view without tilting your head. The HVAC stuff was a little convoluted as well, but I got it straightened out. After 900 miles though, I still had to play a bit with the stereo to get it where I wanted it.

Not to say the I-Drive is perfect, I have faults with that too. Also, I don't really like the shade for the panoramic roof - but I like the panoramic roof itself. The wind noise was better than I was expecting - as was the sound of the engine winding up to redline!

I could talk about great finishing details too. Like when you unlock the thing having the exterior lights come on and stay on for a bit. The crispness of the LED lighting. On the inside, the ambient lighting in pure white is classy - it was done just about as perfectly as it could have been done. The panel/body gaps on the car were better than any other GM I've been inside. The gap netween the door and fender was dang near perfect and about as narrow as sense would allow. The tolerancing stackup on that must have kept engineers up at night. I didn't like the exterior styling all that much till I spent time with it. Now? I notice every CTS on the road and I'd bet I'm staring longingly. It is a nice car. For only 6" shorter than a G8, it feels smaller than it is. A bit numb for a sporty ride, but not terrible.

Complaints? The plastic bezel around the cluster, where it has a few telltales in the lower deep "pockets" and the turn blinkers in upper pockets. I know the cluster is just one flat part with the plastic mounted over it - but the deep pockets just dont look right to me. On the passenger side, the vent has cheap plastic around it, then nice material. Same with to the right of the steering column. To the left? No nice material, just cheap plastic. Looking through the steering wheel it means the colors and textures dont match on both sides of the column. I also want heads up display, but you can't get everything.

At the end of the day it comes down to one thing. Before those days and miles I told myself I'd never buy a Cadillac. Not anymore.

formula79

In "All Corvettes are Red" the author said that Chevy was intended within GM for the people who had trouble paying their bills..or something along that line. Not sure if he was quoting someone..but I am sure he did not pull that out his butt. I know plenty of affluent people who drive Chevy's so the sterotype is stupid. What hurts Chevy's reputation is all the used cars out there that have not been maintained and look the part of the stereotype.

Whats funny is..one of my neighbors has a green late 90's accord. The paint is flying off it like a early 90's F-150 it looks pretty rough. Yet for some reason..I am willing to bet that is not looked at the same as if that was a same vintage Camaro or Lumina. I have actually seen several of that generation Accords with the paint coming off..but again..no stigma.

The flip side is...Chevy feeds it's down market image. The current add with Howie Long saying the Malibu is so cheap because it "Is a Chevy"..is pretty stupid IMO. You want people buying chevy's based on how good the vehicle is..not the fact that it is the walmart of cars.

JakeRobb

The magazines used to complain constantly and consistently about iDrive, but they have a new version that everyone seems to like. Off the top of my head, I don't remember which cars it's available on.

CLEAN

Actually, as it turned out, he pulled quite a bit out of his butt in that book.

Big Als Z

His post validates it sevearl ways, depending on how you want to take it.

First off, he wants a race car, so he wants race-car like parts. And why not, its a Vette? But he doesnt want to spend ZR1 money for it.
So why not offer some "race car" hardware on the base model?
I mean, lets look at the C6 vs the C5 Z06. The C6 was 90% a Z06 when it came out, and with the addition on the LS3 and Z51 package, it could probably beat it.
Corvette raised its own bar, now it much rise to the challenge. And they showed that they could do this with an astonishing low price tag. They brought the current Z06's brakes down to the standard C6, as well as its body pannels, tires, some suspension parts, offer a hand built, dry sumped LS3 for manual cars, for 55k!!!

The other part is that he is another person that wants a big engine in a box idea, something tha tCorvette should never be ever.
These types of people bring down the image of Corvette in my eyes.

1fastdog

So ... He's the sort that brings down the Corvette image... but he supports what you seek so give him what he wants, except the part you don't like... so ignore him?

Just to point out the obvious. We offer several levels of Corvette performance. Some are over $49,995.

So do you suggest that all will be right in Corvette land if we just make the GS the standard car, upgrade the interior, and cut the GS price back to the present level? Then Corvette will be respected?

Apparently the lack of understanding is on my end. I'm not following. Might be because I'm from the south.

Big Als Z

No, not at all. In his mind, the Corvette is a race car on wheels, with little to nothing else. I guess some of the sarcasim didnt come through.

I want the Corvette to be a better car, inside and out. And I think that the price point should be raised to make sure that this can be achieved without cheaping out on equipment.
My point on the GS equipment is just an example of the type of target Corvette now has to go after with the C7.
Its no longer acceptable for standard 2 piston calipers.
Its no longer acceptable for the substandard interior materials in a 40K+ car
Its no longer acceptable for lackluster seating
Its no longer acceptable for generic steering wheels
But this goes along with a lot of the things inside GM. More things change, the more they stay the same.

teal98

What if I don't want to pay extra for more pistons on my calipers or all the other stuff you want that would increase the price?