Gadgetory

what we have here is an ambitious dud the Cadillac cts-v wagon the CTS parts popular the V parts popular but the wagon thing no it doesn't really work let's find out the story behind this car as we drive this 2013 cts-v wagon last of its generation check the temp trivia to start with this is Cadillacs first and so far only station wagon that wasn't designed to carry dead people although the way it sells they simply welcome a couple of corpses coming into Shova they persist with this model because Europeans love this style of highly sort of chamfered urban wagon form Americans don't the Cadillac has big ambitions on Europe so it persists now inside our CTS again an outgoing generation it's kind of like a flashback a few years in car tech once you get over this toaster slice pop up 8-inch screen which it's something is kind of cool I like to have it down when I'm not using the map you realize it's missing a lot of things that navigation interface while perfectly functional it doesn't offer a lot of interesting stuff there's no satellite view certainly no Google Earth no Google search no search to nab it's just an old-school kind of map it is touch based primarily you can get on this thing and move things fairly easily let's get into our audio sources you can do a.m. or FM but not HD radio not on this car that dates it satellite radio is there we have our iPod connector in here and I mean an iPod connector a 30 pin which goes into one of these double harness things but notice the console is so small and a modern iPhone requires an adapter because that's 30 pin you end up having really nowhere to put this thing once it's connected again it's feeling a little dated 10 gigabytes of hard drive space to rip CDs and such - and under the auxilary tab here is where I'm gonna bring up my iPod as you can see there's the USB connection you could also put a thumb drive in there now the Bluetooth system is interesting you do have bluetooth calling on this guy but you either don't or don't simultaneously have bluetooth streaming depends on what part of the manual you read I couldn't get it to pair as a media player at all and the manual says you certainly can't use it as a media player and a phone at the same time now we have general motors rather curious audio TiVo in here that's not their name for it that's mine but it's pause and play of radio like it's a one-hour buffer and this pause play button is what activates it so you got a radio station on satellite or broadcast you push this thing here and see what it does it starts to buffer up to a 60-minute max now notice what we're missing as we go through audio or navigation or our configuration screens or any of this this is not Cadillacs cue system which we've seen it's still fairly early in its deployment we like it a lot this is the old outgoing rig you're not gonna see this on any other Cadillac product so this is where we're coming from q is where we're going to now quit looking through the other controls in this car you got really two ways to influence this cars person Natalie you can pull it back in the drive on this automatic and then either go over here to the sport mode well you can also shift for the suspension you got one button here with two positions you're either in touring mode or sport mode and that's it it's very clean and simple paddles up here on the wheel for when you are shifting again this car is available with a 6-speed manual the automatic is a no choice pick the only unusual doohickeys on the main instrument panel are a boost gauge for the supercharger there is 0 to 15 psi and if you roll up here on one of these little information screens you're gonna find a g-force gauge for lateral acceleration and we have the optional sunroof in this guy it doesn't come standard even on the CTSV which is little unusual but I guess some folks are gonna want to sort of lighten up their vehicle or keep it more pure yeah but this one is got a nice big opening to it the front half moves the back half does it but it really opens up this relatively small cabin a lot alright this is why you really buy a CTS with a V at the end of it to get this big engine 6.2 liter supercharged v8 that's how they used to do it kids it's a lot of displacement it's also a lot of blower pressure coming off this eaton supercharger and that's gonna give you 556 horsepower 551 foot-pounds of torque those are big numbers now this car is not exactly a lightweight 4,400 pounds or so it still gets to 60 and 4 seconds flat thank you big motor here is the downside you're gonna be stopping at every gas station 12 18 mpg there's almost no car left to get such ghastly gas mileage in fact this car has the dubious honor of being the worst MPG station wagon sold in America period rear wheel drive only and as I mentioned your choice of transmissions for no cost you can get that automatic but you'd be a fool get the 6-speed because that kind of transmission and this kind of power are seldom seen in the wild certainly at this price is how great a supercharger is no lag no delay no vagueness or spool eNOS it just gets right down to it we've had other five hundred some-odd horsepower cars in recently and a lot of them get stuck in committee when you step on it this is not one of them power is pretty much right now what is getting in my way is this automatic which is really a tragedy if you're gonna buy one of these get it with a stick it's gonna so dramatically unfilter the power coming out of this engine and there's gobs of it by the way even with its limited slip differential magnetic ride control active suspension just about all the modern technologies it does suffer from being rear-wheel drive in this case because there's just too much power to get put out to those two wheels I'm able to get this thing loose and hopping and slightly airborne over anything but the very smoothest of pavement it could use a little more compliance to keep the button down and keep the power gain to the road there's a little bit of hop and squirrely this back there certainly under full throttle the ride on this is also a bit of a miracle this is one of the nice comfortable sort of cars that are out there today it doesn't lose its CTS ride quality even as it gains its v venom and that's I think largely attributable to that magnetic ride control that is able to really modify things although if I go to the sport mode up here I'm not feeling a huge difference to be honest not in not in road driving maybe it might show up on the track and of course similar thing goes for shifting over here into the sport gate of the shifter it's not night and day difference getting on the manual paddles of course and that is where you really get a difference and keeping this guy hot keeping yourself around 2500 on up is where the boost is really nice and really available of course the interesting thing is if you look at your supercharger gauge you know you're not into it all the time much of the time you're getting tremendous power out of this guy just because it's a 6.2 liter v8 the displacement alone gets you out of trouble all the time then once in a while you'll see that booth need kick in but that's not running most of the time this is a barnburner of an engine with a blower on top of that and yet very civilized in general I don't consider this car to be a wagon but I think it should just exist on its own as a as a bigger sedan it'll carry one or two more suitcases and if you think the look of a body style that's wagon ask is cool that's all the reason it needs to exist but don't buy it cuz you're gonna bring home sheets of plywood not unless you're gonna put them on the roof all right let's price our little black beauty 60 for one out the door is a cts-v wagon delivered not a lot to add to go seen that style as I told you it's all in there such as it is you do want to spend 1150 for that nice big spacious sunroof that's money well spent 1,300 bucks on a gas guzzler tax that's money not well spent about 66 for out the door here's the thing this thing makes no sense at all however as an interesting almost future collectable a 6.2 supercharged v8 with the available 6-speed manual in a wagon shape you kind of got a like you