Factory A/c Still Works, Fresh Re-paint, Extremely Clean Caddy on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Cool car technology is cool until it breaks

Ah, technology – the beautiful date that impresses all your friends but costs you a fortune to keep happy, up-to-date, and working. Automotive News puts some numbers to the economic toll we're paying to jockey this technological Trojan horse, an analysis it sums up with "Technology is great - until you have to replace it." Back in 2000, for instance, you could replace a Cadillac Escalade taillight lens for $56.08, or replace the entire unit for $220.49. Crack the rear lens on your 2015 Escalade and you have to buy a new unit for $795 - there's no such thing as just replacing a lens anymore. What about headlights? It was $210 for an Escalade headlight in 2000, it's $1,650 for the current unit (pictured). This is nothing we didn't know, these are just hard numbers to demonstrate it. Edmunds recently provided the same with its sledgehammer-bashing of the 2015 Ford F-150, Tesla Model S buyers have been shrieking about repair costs to their electric sedan's all-aluminum bodywork, and used-car sites are full of articles about which expensive-to-repair features to steer clear of if you want to avoid big repair bills. Those expensive bits increase the price of a car - Kelley Blue Book says the average price of a car is now more than $33,000 - and that raises rates for repairs and insurance. This comes in spite of some carmakers that have been collaborating with insurance companies and repair shops at the design stage in order to engineer parts that are easier and less expensive to replace. But the tech can have its cost-saving benefits: a 2011 study by the Highway Loss Data Institute found that Volvos fitted with that company's City Safety feature "filed 27 percent fewer property-damage liability claims" than luxury SUVs without it, and just last month the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety called adaptive headlights one of the top four crash-preventing technologies on cars today (after coming out against them in 2006). So yes, the technology costs a mint when it needs to be fixed - but being able to avoid an accident in the first place might make it worth it. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Copyright 2015 AOL Cadillac Car Buying Used Car Buying Auto Repair Insurance Maintenance Safety Technology Luxury replacement parts

2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing First Drive Review | Peak oil

We may have embraced the coming of electrification. We may love a good, high-performance hybrid or EV. We could quite frankly not care less how a car makes power, so long as the end result is satisfactory. But man, nothing suits a big, square-shouldered American sedan quite like a V8. Question our commitment to Mother Gaia if you must, but the blat of a small block is the bass line in the song of American speed. And now onstage for the V8's farewell tour is the 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, a midsize, manual-transmission luxury sedan that comes out swinging with a hand-built, supercharged 6.2-liter V8 making 668 horsepower and 659 pound-feet of torque. The CT4-V Blackwing may be great in its own right, but it's still down a pair of cylinders. The old Cadillac CTS-V (S not 5) was never the slimmest, sharpest or most luxurious sport sedan money could buy, but it always offered excellent performance for its price. It was also one of the few midsize manual transmission holdouts, at least until the third-generation V model debuted in 2016; for its brief run, it was offered only with the eight-speed automatic. Its spirit lives on in the CT5-V Blackwing, but Cadillac refined the formula significantly for its transition to the updated Alpha platform. The manual is back, it gained 28 horsepower and 29 pound-feet of torque, and the aerodynamics and braking were completely overhauled for this, the final iteration of the V8-powered Cadillac sport sedan. Apart from the larger footprint and all that comes with it, most of the Blackwing formula carries over almost unchanged to the CT5-V from its smaller CT4-V sibling. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard with a 10-speed auto available as an upgrade (which it truly is, in some ways). The electronically controlled mechanical limited slip differential, fourth-generation Magnetic Ride Control and various other tweaks made their way here too, but there are a few noteworthy deviations. Let’s start where the CT5-V stops: the brakes. Since the larger, heavier CT5 needs more braking capacity, its wheels grew an inch in diameter to accommodate a bigger set of stoppers. The wheels are wider too, the better to fit its Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires in 275/35ZR19 (front) and 305/30ZR19 (rear) – 20 mm wider up front and 30 mm wider out back than the 18-inch tires on the smaller CT4-V Blackwing. Exclusive to the CT5 is a carbon-ceramic brake package that reduces unsprung mass by 53 pounds and rotating mass by 62 pounds.

Question of the Day: Worst year of the Malaise Era?

The Malaise Era for cars in the United States spanned the 1973 through 1983 model years, and featured such abominations as a Corvette with just 205 horsepower (from the optional engine!) and MGBs with suspensions jacked way up to meet new headlight-height requirements. There were many low points throughout this gloomy period, of course. The horrifyingly low power and fuel-economy numbers for big V8s during the middle years of the Malaise Era make a strong case for 1974 or 1975— the years of Nixon's resignation and the Fall of Saigon, respectively— as the most Malaisey years. But then the GM-pummeling debacles of the Chevy Citation and Cadillac Cimarron could make an early-1980s year the low point. 1979, the year of the ignominious Chrysler bailout? You choose! Related Video: