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Coupes & Convertibles Cadillac XLR and XLR-V Cadillac XLR and XLR-V
199 messages, Last post on Jun 06, 2009 at 9:02 PM
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Replying to: 213xlrv (Mar 31, 2006 7:16 pm) My comments were a generalization, as I stated. People buy a car for many different reasons and none of them are wrong. Because they are buying the car they want with their money for themselves (as did you). Whether it is prestige, style, economy, power, ride/handling or a pretty color, if they buy they are correct. Nothing wrong with that. I appreciate the effort Caddy is making to once again (re)establish a brand identity. While the CTS was crossed off my list early, it did seem to signify a new beginning. At least it is bold (and a good drive, from what I've read). As you've stated, while each Caddy may not be the "best" in its segment they are being compared/contrasted with the established peers and are fairing well. Finally, viable alternatives. However, I believe that their "ambitious " pricing has hurt their efforts a bit. Better cars, same discounts/rebates/trunk money/"Employee Pricing" to actually align the pricing with the market. But I'm no business genius, so what do I know? I'm just a car guy and consumer  When it's time for the evil wife to upgrade her Lexus RX, I'm sure we'll check out the SRX (but again, that interior...I'm sorry. I know they all use plastics/woods/leathers but some mfg. just know how to put them to better use. To me, Audi and Lexus craft some lovely interiors. MB, too). I continue to window shop (used) XLRs, one never knows... EMC could hit $100/share again, right??? Keep enjoying the Vs. Post any interesting tidbits, reliability/lack thereof, economy, performance, notes from the road. Unless, of course, you don't have time because you're out enjoying the ride! Three days to the beginning of the Red Sox valiant march to glory! |
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Replying to: laurasdada (Mar 31, 2006 10:21 am) I am one of the fortunate to have the opportunity to purchase a world class luxury roadster. For my requirements, MB SL500,Cadillac XLR and Lexus SC430 were the final three for serious consideration. I should note, Porsche 911, Chevy's Corvette, Jaguar's XK8, BMW's 650i Maserati's Spyder convertible were reviewed and I liked many aspects of what these cars offered. But for all that these cars offered and let me say they are wonderful products, they all were missing a key requirement, hard top drop ease. And quite honestly I was not looking for the ultimate sports car, but instead a GT luxury roadster. First, I would be happy with any of these luxury roadsters sitting in my garage. In my evaluation I ranked Cadillac's XLR best in class luxury roadster. The Lexus SC430 was eliminated after the first test drive. My wife's comment nailed it, "drives kinda like a Lexus sedan" and for me the overall styling was not my favorite. But Lexus has a fine product and we have owned two of their sedans and high quality with a big "Q", Lexus wins hands down. For the SC430, we found it to be a well wonderful car, but not very sporty feeling. So it ranked last. However, the Lexus SC430 was the bargain of the group, coming in at a little over $67,000 The real contest for me came between the MB SL500 and Caddy XLR. For overall styling, (exterior/interior) XLR wins. For me when I walked up to the SL500 I liked what I saw, but it did not excite me, good styling overall and interior design nice, but nothing that grabbed me. But when I walked around the XLR, WOW is what came to mind. What a beautiful, exotic contemporary design. I could see myself peeking at it in my garage. And the interior design is beautiful with a fresh, uncluttered, modern styling that adorns the touch areas with luxury level leather, wood and aluminum. In comparison the SL500 is more traditional, with very good materials, but a bit busy design with lots of buttons when the SL500 is optioned to the level of the XLR. The SL500 priced a little over $108,000 compared to XLR' $78,000 price tag. But quite honestly, this was not the key factor. The key factor was the drive of the SL500. The SL500 is a very heavy feeling and interesting softer in its ride on some road conditions than the XLR. The XLR on the other hand, has better balance of feel and ride with a more sporty to drive sensation compared to the SL500. Let me state, none of these luxury roadsters offer the type of feedback that other high end sports cars offer and that is part of its appeal to me. The race track is not a weekend affair or of interest for me. From the point of view of specifications, both products are to close to split hairs about. Other design approaches become evident when comparing the XLR and SL500. From a driver standpoint the systems integration is better implemented in the XLR when compared to the SL500. For example there are no keys for the XLR (only for emergency). No key hole slot in the doors and as a matter of fact, the doors release electronically, no door handles of the conventional style. I know this may sound like a small item, but it added to the exotic design of the exterior. The same goes for the interior as well, no door handle release to pull, just a small round button and the door is opened for you. The Heads Up display works very effectively and once you become accustom to having this feature, it becomes an irritation to drive without it. All in all. I view the difference between Cadillac's XLR and MB's SL500 as matter of contemporary versus traditional. There is one other factor to consider, how the cars interfaces with its driver. This topic is not talked about very much, but was another edge I gave to the Cadillac designers in that, the XLR was the most intuitive in everyday use and created a ease of use better than the SL500. The SL500 made you feel you needed to review the owners manual from cover to cover before you can use its high tech features. On the other hand XLR's integration makes you feel a quick reference card is all you need. In other words MB SL500 forces you to adapt to it versus the XLR adapts to you. For example the act of making or receiving a phone call. In the XLR, you press a button and simply say Call and provide the number you wish to connect to. If you say Dial, you simple say the key word and the numbers you have stored are completed. This all without taking you eyes off the road. Another example is when you wish to change the XM station or switch to your favorite MP3, CD or DVD disc collection, simply select from your steering wheel buttons and view the results through the Heads Up display, it is seamless. This is one area where the XLR is far ahead of its competition in its design approach. No small feat when you consider the amount of technology within these vehicles. I would expect the next generation of the SL500 and Lexus's new $100,000 GT car will have me re-evaluating my XLR decision. But for now, Cadillac's XLR is, in my opinion the best in class luxury roadster.
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Replying to: 213xlrv (Mar 30, 2006 4:37 pm) And what you're not getting is that the STS isn't superior (like you originally stated) to either one of them at what they're designed to do. Who said that a Cadillac wasn't an "alternative"? Of course they're an "alternative", but they don't best the BMWs at what they're designed for, 5 being sport and 7 being luxury. Why is that so hard to grasp? Just because Cadillac wants to be the odd man out and size their cars differently in a futile attempt to cover more segments isn't BMW's fault. For anyone who wants a car configured exactly to the 5 and 7 series formulas, only a BMW will do, since no one else will ever build the identical car. Cadillac didn't set out to build identical formula cars. I think it's you making excuses for BMWs that are too one-dimensional in their intent, as sedans. I think you've made nothing but excuses for Cadillac since day one. Sorry, but a CTS-v doesn't get "beaten badly" by an M5. Especially when you consider the nearly $30K difference in price. But I already addressed the reasons why the cars are closer than you say, in the prior post. Certainly in North American conditions, the CTS-v formula has more tractable, more accessible power, and in a lighter more entertaining package. It's only missing some extra leather and dead weight compared to the M5, and the gap is even narrower compared to a lesser 5. If Cadillac equipped the CTS-v to an $81,000 retail level of gear and creature comforts, it wouldn't be difficult to beat the M. But there's no need to. The better driver in the "slower" car can beat the average driver in the one with 500hp sitting up there at 7750rpm. I can't believe you're being serious here. The CTS-V gets its lugnuts handed to it by the M5. You can argue all day long about how badly the CTS-V gets beaten by the M5, but the in the end the result is the same....M5 wins. Period. There's no advantage to a surplus quarter ton in a GT car, no matter how much you'd like to sweep that under the rug. It's only penalty. Nothing positive can be achieved by that mass, especially since the price of the car suggests the engineering and materials would be more sophisticated to avoid the needles bulk. An interior is superficial and the differences you complain about are small. No doubt, some people will choose a car on that criterion alone. But then they're not really buying the car, are they? For an extra $40+ thou, I hope Mercedes can put a few more scraps of leather and metal in their interior! The XLR-v ergonomics are fundamentally correct however and they've come to market with something much more distinctive, better engineered for mass optimization, and more entertaining to boot, for enough less cash to buy a sports sedan. I expect there to be a little less of something somewhere. The interior is the logical place to dial back the opium den aesthetic. Yawn, yet when the two are compared the SL gets the nod in the handling department. I have to say your second post reads like nothing ever seen before. No one but a GM apologist could come up with so much nonesense about the M5 and so many excuses in an attempt to put over a clearly outdone Cadillac CTS-V. Most 5 series owners wouldn't know what to do with performance in a car if the instructions were written on the windshield. Really? I guess the average senior-citizen in a STS or DTS would? You seem to live in your own little world when it comes to Cadillac like their buyers are more informed about their cars and that Cadillac has all of a sudden become a performance brand. STS sales down? Yes, modestly. So are E-Class Mercedes. In Cadillac's case, part of this reason is the new DTS which is taking some STS customers who a year prior bought a smaller car than they originally intended. The STS drop off is just a few hundred units. Wrong. An 18 percent YTD drop-off compared to last year isn't modest, especially in the 2nd model year of the car! That ain't "modest" that is a problem for a new model. The E-Class is only down 3 percent YTD compared to last year, and it has been on the market since 2003. You trying to call that STS' drop in sales modest sounds/reads like all these recent press releases from GM in which they talk about their "turnaround" working while they bleed market share and sales every month like a cut pig. M
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Replying to: jlmartin (Apr 01, 2006 9:51 am) While the interior of the SC430 is still one of my fave's, the exterior is a very distant third, imo, to both the XLR and the SL. Many people downgrade the SC as not being sporty enough, but I don't believe Lexus ever marketed the SC as a sports car, rather a GT, sport tourer. I, too, would (most probably) only consider a hardtop convertible. Luckily, over the next 18 months it looks like those ranks will grow offering true(er) four seating capability which, for my family, will be a good thing. Still, the XLR catches my eye. The kids can walk! |
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As premium fuel here in the Boston area rapidly approaches $3/gallon, anyone care to post their XLR mpg? A child of "energy crisis" and "fuel shortage" of the '70s, economy is always on my mind. And wallet...
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Replying to: laurasdada (Apr 07, 2006 6:47 pm) Phil |
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Replying to: merc1 (Apr 04, 2006 11:12 pm) Reviewers have commented that the XLR-v chassis is sharper handling than the SL. It's true. It is. You only have to drive both the V and the SL500 or 55. When you've actually driven all these cars like I have, come back when you know what you're talking about. I didn't mention anything about Cadillac's customers' ability to leverage a performance car's performance. Cadillac isn't the brand with the hordes of status-seeking Mario-pretenders. As I said before, V-Series is a performance brand. Cadillac's brand is broader. The 18% drop in STS sales is modest when you consider the sales that went to the new DTS. E-class being down 3% is a problem for Mercedes too. It's a competitive market where if you're not growing you have something to attend to. BMW was up. Congratulations to them. They've successfully managed their brand for status-seekers for 30 years. Phil
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Replying to: 213xlrv (Apr 08, 2006 5:12 pm) Reviewers have commented that the XLR-v chassis is sharper handling than the SL. It's true. It is. You only have to drive both the V and the SL500 or 55. When you've actually driven all these cars like I have, come back when you know what you're talking about. I haven't read that anywhere, care to give a credible source? Everything I've seen says the opposite, despite all this nonesense about weight and what not. Fine you've driven the cars and you found different, but your opinion is in the minority and I'll take the mags words before I will an obvious GM apologist that has a grand excuse and/or twist for every GM shortfall. I didn't mention anything about Cadillac's customers' ability to leverage a performance car's performance. Cadillac isn't the brand with the hordes of status-seeking Mario-pretenders. As I said before, V-Series is a performance brand. Cadillac's brand is broader. Broader, wider whatever you want to call it, yet they can't catch BMW with a tailwind in either sales or performance. It isn't Mercedes, BMW's or Lexus' fault that Cadillac destroyed their image in the mind of luxury car buyers to the point of not being on the image scale. If Cadillac were still the standard of the world you'd be cheering about how prestigious they are. Another thing has to be said too about this point, Cadillac has made nothing but old folks cars up until now and that group doesn't usually care about image and who not, but for brand who actually make cars that people want drive (instead of riding in) like BMW and Mercedes of course they'll draw more image seekers than a worn-out, tired old brand like Cadillac. The 18% drop in STS sales is modest when you consider the sales that went to the new DTS. E-class being down 3% is a problem for Mercedes too. It's a competitive market where if you're not growing you have something to attend to. BMW was up. Congratulations to them. They've successfully managed their brand for status-seekers for 30 years. An eighteen percent drop in the 2nd model year of a new model is "modest"?! More GM-type spin and excuses. The E-Class is up for a facelift and I'll bet you that they wind up selling more this year than last despite a 3-percent drop for the first few months of the year. Knock BMW and Mercedes because they're hot while trying to play up tired Cadillac as some type of thinking man's alternative because they've finally managed to become merely competitive after 30 years of building people couldn't care less about, yeah I've got it. Oh I get it, the STS' sales tanking in its second year is the result of all the educated buyers having bought one last year so now they've moved on to the even more boatlike DTS. Makes sense to me. Yet these are some type of performance buyers that would compare a STS to a 750i? Absolutely ridiculous. M
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Replying to: merc1 (Apr 10, 2006 9:34 pm) The one thing all these performance sedans have that is universally pertinent is big brakes for stopping power. Excellent! On the other factors, too much "performance" in a sedan begins to compromise its chief function while the form factor precludes the experience that extreme performance bias tries to capture. You end up with a cramped 4000 pound 4-door stuffed with a torque-anemic, V10 having its peak horsepower up in buzz-bomb territory near 8000 rpm. The image and mechanics just don't jibe. Where's the wing on trunk-mounted 3-foot drilled titanium supports? You have to drive the thing like a backwards-ballcap-wearing modified Ricer to extract the spec performance from that thing. You can't maintain any civil dignity in your $80,000+ teutonic, flame-surfaced, humpy box. BUT you can get something larger with more torque and plenty of peak horsepower accessible at 1300 fewer rpms; or something a quarter ton trimmer with more torque and plenty of usable horsepower accessible at 1700 fewer rpms. There, that's how it's done. BMW makes fine cars, really. None that I would own, but good cars nevertheless. They just don't make Cadillac Vs. If I cared about majority opinion at all, I'd have a stupidly-overweight, quarter-ton-too-heavy SL-something, and be sheepishly explaining that I'm just not independent enough to have bought the better car. As for the comment on the XLR-v having a sharper handling chassis than the SL series, Automobile Magazine for one. But as I said, if you actually go drive them, you don't need a reviewer to point out the obvious. Although I am old enough to remember a time when Cadillac made cars that young people aspired to, none of them actually interested me. Older people tended to own them because back then younger people couldn't afford the cars. Young people didn't expect to own prestige cars and if they did buy way beyond their means, they bought sports cars -- Corvettes, Porsches, Healeys and Jags -- or, later, msucle cars. Credit wasn't liberal, leasing was non-existent, and there was a lower incidence of brand status-seeking in the culture. Sure, Cadillac neglected and actively mismanaged their brand since the mid-sixties. But it's really status-seekers who have swelled the sales of BMW, Mercedes and Lexus above any intrinsic core buying population of people who might actually understand the car they've bought. Those companies have done a good marketing job over the last 20 years and until recently, Cadillac has not. I am not trying to open the eyes of status-seekers. They are mindless about product and driven by brand perception alone, and can only be turned around over time. I am only concerned today with car buyers who actually grasp real, meaningful product differences, know how to drive, and are brand-independent enough to be open-minded about better or more interesting product choices from a resurgent brand. I remain mystified how you came to the conclusion that I'm a GM apologist. I am a first-time GM new vehicle customer with no history whatsoever of GM fealty. I've owned at least 10 Ford vehicles. I think Rick Wagoner is latest in a long line of beancounter CEOs whose very mindset has hamhandedly put GM into its current plight. I'm apologizing for nothing about GM. However, when they win on product I'm ready to recognize it. A CTS-v is more usable than an M3 and more emotional and fun than an M5. Mercedes has nothing equivalent. An XLR-v is sharper, lighter and more fun than an SL-55, and more modern in its form. And these attributes are true even before considering Cadillac's price advantage. You continue to miss the point about the drop in STS sales and the intro of the new DTS -- the new DTS picked up some of the prior year's STS volume. Some new customers for Cadillac 4 doors prefer a larger car. They are not performance-oriented, not size-constrained, and for them the DTS works better, just as some BMW customers prefer the porky 7 to the more nimble 5. The DTS also picks up some customers in northern climates who have come to prefer the snow traction of front-wheel drive, irrespective of the fact that FWD isn't appealing to you and me. I don't know where you are, M, so if you're outside the US, what I'm about to say is not relevant. But if you are in the US, then you have a direct interest in seeing Cadillac specifically and GM in general succeed. The reversal of fortune there will not happen overnight. And it will be uneven, product-by-product. The turnaround task is gargantuan. If brand prevents you or others from recognizing, appreciating and supporting with your cash the instances of GM fielding world-class competitors, then you can't expect those efforts to continue. There are many car models where a GM buyer is effectively looking past meaningful product deficiencies to buy American, get Onstar, support a local dealer, or whatever. But the Cadillac V-series cars are not among them. Phil |
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Replying to: 213xlrv (Apr 11, 2006 10:48 am) Then what in the world is all the talk about the CTS-V being better than the M5 when it is about the same size and not nearly as luxurious in addition to being trounced by the M5 on performance? None of what you're saying makes any sense. You're still trying to give these Cadillacs a free-pass on being not up to par as sports sedans because they're slightly bigger depending on which angle you use to put the Cadillac in the best light possible. It won't work because the whole point of a car like the CTS-V is to be a sports sedan, the regular versions can carry people if that is what people are looking for. M5 scorches the CTS-V in any performance contest you can come up with...I'm not sure what about that fact is difficult to understand. The STS-V may be a more appeal package to you, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone else outside of the GM camp that agrees with this. You're clearly in the minority on that one. You can go on forever and a day about the BMW M5 and its V10 and how it develops its power but at the end of the day it will smoke any Cadillac build. End of story. You're right BMW doesn't make Cadillac "V"s they make something entirely different and according to most, better. The bottom line is that the M5 outperforms the CTS-V and there no amount of GM-induced spin that can change that. I remain mystified how you came to the conclusion that I'm a GM apologist. I am a first-time GM new vehicle customer with no history whatsoever of GM fealty. I've owned at least 10 Ford vehicles. I think Rick Wagoner is latest in a long line of beancounter CEOs whose very mindset has hamhandedly put GM into its current plight. I'm apologizing for nothing about GM. However, when they win on product I'm ready to recognize it. I don't see how you could be. You come up with an excuse for GM at every single turn and you seem to think Cadillac has managed to outdo BMW in building a sports/sporty sedan. This whole conversation reeks of excuses for GM left and right and/or a smear of competing brands with points like: 1. Trying to compare Cadillacs to a one-up size BMW - typical specious GM tactic by both supporters and GM corporate alike. 2. Talking about weight in the SL and M5, while at the same time saying that none of these cars should be judged as sports cars. This is the point I made at the start here, the XLR isn't a sports car and most buyers of a 75K roadster aren't going to throw it around like one, yet you went on and on about how the XLR is so tossable and how the SL is so heavy, but now these cars shouldn't be judged on sports car criteria??? Simply does not make sense. 3. Labeling all BMW/MB buyers as mere status seekers like all of them are so clueless, all the while trying to make out Cadillac buyers as this incredibly well informed group of buyers when most of them wouldn't know any more about their cars than buyers of any other brand. In reality they likely know less especially when it comes to competitors cars. The only reason Cadillac is even still around is because there was a group of people so ignorant to the point that they wouldn't buy anything else during the 80's and early 90's when Cadillac heaved more junk on the road than anyone else. This applies to GM as a whole during that time and there is still a large group of GM-only folks around today which have kept the company going until recently. Perfect example of excuse making for Cadillac/GM: You continue to miss the point about the drop in STS sales and the intro of the new DTS -- the new DTS picked up some of the prior year's STS volume. Some new customers for Cadillac 4 doors prefer a larger car. They are not performance-oriented, not size-constrained, and for them the DTS works better, just as some BMW customers prefer the porky 7 to the more nimble 5. The DTS also picks up some customers in northern climates who have come to prefer the snow traction of front-wheel drive, irrespective of the fact that FWD isn't appealing to you and me. This is an excuse. So you're saying that Cadillac is so awful in marketing that they can't sell both the STS and DTS in good numbers at the same time? You've lost Cadillac's (or any car company's) plot if you think the reason for the STS' sales drop is the DTS. The idea is to sell both cars in good numbers to increase market share for the Cadillac brand, not alternate sales between the two. The STS has optional AWD so there goes the excuse about the DTS taking sales because it is FWD. No matter how you slice it, a 21 percent drop for a new model in its second year is a problem no matter what the brand is. Mercedes and BMW are able to sell their medium and large cars side by side without one of them dropping 21 percent when the other one is brand new. How about the truth for once? The STS is dropping like a rock because there are superior cars in its class. Newsflash: STS buyers aren't "performance-oriented" in the least. To even suggest that the STS is too much of a sporty car for the average Cadillac buyer to pass it over for the DTS is just plain absurd. I am not trying to open the eyes of status-seekers. They are mindless about product and driven by brand perception alone, and can only be turned around over time. I am only concerned today with car buyers who actually grasp real, meaningful product differences, know how to drive, and are brand-independent enough to be open-minded about better or more interesting product choices from a resurgent brand. Apparently a lot of buyers have been open minded about Cadillac in the last few years with their sales having risen dramatically in the last 3-4 years. My question for you is how do you know that these buyers are so well informed and so intelligent compared to BMW/MB buyers? Factual evidence please, not a story about someone you know who has an uncle/brother/nice/mother/neighbor/co-worker etc. etc. etc. that knows about cars and what you see on the road because none of that means anything here. Who and what says that Cadillac buyers more techincally astute then BMW/MB buyers??? Where is this written? Where is the proof of this? All BMW/MB buyers are mindless? That fits right in with all Cadillac buyers being geezers right? We both know that neither of those can't be true in every case. I personally don't want GM to fail, but then again if they do its their own fault...though we're talking about Cadillac here not GM. M
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