Perhaps This Shiny Free IPad Will Distract You From The Realization That You Have Just Purchased A Cadillac XTS For Reasons Known Only To Yourself
I’m no Jen Friel, but it’s nice to know that I can influence the auto industry in some small degree. Case in point: Just two days after I suggest that Cadillac reclaim and reauthenticate its heritage by placing one of GM’s world-class V-8 engines in every ATS built, Cadillac has announced that they will be putting a V-8 in the new XTS flagship.
No, wait. I’m reading this wrong.
Turns out they are just throwing in a “free” iPad.
You know, like Hyundai did a couple years back.
Yup.
Standard of the World.
Autoblog uncritically “reports” that, although Hyundai may have had this idea first, Cadillac is, like, totes different with it.
Cadillac dealer [will be] required to have two “certified technology experts” on duty, plus a CUE call center for owners, an online media team looks for CUE questions to answer, and a mobile CUE specialist who makes house calls
This reminds me of that time I bought two Phaetons and was assured that my local VW dealer had a “Phaeton specialist” on site at all times. I think his name was Arthur, but it could have been Archaeopteryx for all I freakin’ knew because the guy was extinct before I actually took delivery. For the next four years at semi-monthly intervals, I listened to a remarkable variety of mouth-breathing morons in dirty coveralls express varying degrees of wonder at things like the “Infotainment” system, the auto-closing doors, and the fact that there are such things as “cars” on this planet that use “wheels” and “tires” to travel on “roads”.
Expect the “CUE Specialists” to be the two lowest-performing salespeople in the dealerships and/or the two least valuable people in the service department. They’ll be sent to “CUE school”, they will ignore everything they’re told, and they will be fired in the near future for using a stack of new tires for a potty when the service-department bathroom toilet breaks. Back to Autoblog:
The point seems to be that this isn’t about getting an iPad with your car,
Because Hyundai already did that, and provided a semi-proper, full-sized, RWD, V-8 powered sedan to go along with it.
it’s about understanding ever tech thing your car can do.
Because the average buyer of this car, who is too old and feeble to properly operate an Etch-A-Sketch, has been dying to play some Angry Birds on his owner’s manual.
If you still don’t know how to access the full power of your XTS, it will only be because you don’t want to.
Oh, I suspect XTS owners will be “accessing the full power” of this hopeless sled every time the road curves slightly upwards. No need to worry about that.
In the meantime, expect the XTS to become extremely popular with the demographic of customers whose hobbies include golf, televised sports, and breaking into Cadillacs to steal iPads.
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I fail to see who would by this car over a Buick Lacrosse or Chevy Impala..
This being TTAC, I expect an anti-GM/Cadillac position, but this is really stretching it when it comes to attacking GM. So Cadillac is offering an iPad with the XTS which Hyundai had previously done with the Equus - WHO CARES!! Yeah, maybe GM should have made the FWD the flagship Buick instead of a Cadillac, but at this juncture, the XTS is a "one-off" stop-gap measure - serving as a transition model until the other Cadillac products make their way thru the pipeline (right now, there are no plans for a 2nd generation XTS). And even if TTAC wants to harp on the FWD XTS, I don't see TTAC giving the same sort of treatment to the BEST-selling Lexus sedan, a "warmed-over" CAMRY-based model known as the ES, much less the entire Lincoln lineup. Unlike Lincoln, Cadillac in a few years will have a pretty complete lineup of RWD sedans - the entry ATS, the larger and more luxurious CTS and (just recently confirmed by Car & Driver) a RWD fastback-styled sedan that will likely pave the way for the XTS being discontinued (as a Cadillac anyway). http://blog.caranddriver.com/cadillacs-omega-platform-comes-into-focus-rwd-xts-successor-on-the-way-long-rumored-flagship-and-more-derivatives-still-being-discussed/ With the likelihood of another Omega-based vehicle slated to be the "flagship" of the Cadillac fleet. Compare this to what Ford is doing with Lincoln or Honda with Acura - but this being TTAC, we'll see more diatribes on GM than on the "warmed over" Fords and Hondas masquerading as luxury models. But nah, we're not going to hear about these developments for Cadillac on TTAC.