G. David Felt

When the type of auto that the public wants is not there of course there is no market demand. Americans want their roomy full size auto's and until the auto industry delivers said auto's the demand will not be there. Once Rivian gets the R1t and R1s full size truck and SUV being built, I expect considerable demand. I also believe that once Ford rolls out their F150 EV based on the skateboard concept that demand will be there. I think allot of folks are waiting. I know I am and once the right EV is on the market, will happily buy.

This is going to give the Germans a run for their money as well as the Americans I believe.

WRONG Padawan, EV Trucks and SUV's from a motor stand point can easily replace Diesel and give far more HP and Torque than a Diesel motor can deliver. We all know Batteries is what is holding EVs back and variety of auto options that should start to be removed as they hit the market. Solid state batteries that have been proven and are just now going into production will be a big deal such as the Toshiba Solid state. 396 mile range solid state battery that fully charges in 12 min is no different than fueling an ICE with much less noise and no toxic exhaust. Places that use green energy sources make it an even better play for the environment as Solar, Hydro or Wind can create much green energy.

GM Needs to throw the baby out with the bath water at this point as their marketing sucks, upper executives are clearly not getting that you DO NOT need divisions overlapping each other. Will take a clean break to change the mentality and Johan was NOT it as he just wanted to be a German Sucking follower rather than truly lead Cadillac and optimize their past for future benefit.

How many times do we have to tell you in the 21st century you do not go around grabbing woman and throwing them over your shoulder like a cave man to take them home. ?

I believe @A Horse With No Name or @Robert Hall suggested they support the obese amount of population there by turning the whole plant into a massive variable food court!

True, but then I am thinking more old school of the way auto's used to have that 15 to 18 inches of crumple zone before the wheels and with a steel bumper that had 5 mph absorbers on them. These all plastic noses with only 2-3 inches before hitting the suspension and wheels while is engineered to absorb the impact, also becomes more expensive to repair. They DO NOT, CT4 is a mistake, GM has Buick for near-luxury buyers. Cadillac should only be ubber luxury.

Totally agree, those wheels out to the corner like that is gonna be expensive to fix when damage happens as nothing on the front to absorb the impact. OUCH.

Strange indeed, yet if Rimac is able to get Hundai and Kia to have performance sedans that can toast high end models from other OEMs and yet deliver it as a lower price point, they could really put the squeeze on the competition. Will be interesting to watch.

I think 3-5 min I was sitting there with my foot on the break is all. It did not seem long, but was longer than being at a stop light. Watching the truck in front of me which was a medium duty dump truck get loaded and then it was my turn. Over all truck ran great except for the weird start stop.

Nope, no warning. The truck ahead of me was loaded and finally left. I took my foot of the brake expecting to move forward and pressing the accelerator nothing happened. Checked the dash and the message was there. Very weird.

Interesting side profile comparison of the CT4 top to the CT5 below.

Leathers with studs? ? ?

Was interested to read the details and in the fine print, this warranty is only good on auto's that get certified with less than 124,000 miles and only good up to 124,000 miles for the 2yrs of the warranty. Porsche is a 2yr unlimited miles warranty on CPO auto's that have less than 124,000 miles. https://nationalpreownedporsche.com/approved/ Mercedes-Benz is unlimited miles for the first year only on the CPO, up to an additional 2 years can be purchased giving you a total of 3yrs with unlimited miles during that 3yr period. No limit on the actual miles of the auto. https://www.mbusa.com/en/cpo

Having not had that experience with GM SUV / trucks, I was very surprised to see the message on the center dash and then have to do that. Not sure why Ford does it but would like to know why they think that is a better way then just releasing the brake pedal.

Right now I am not feeling this happening.

20190505_110414-mp4.mp4 Mother’s Day weekend was a busy one. The kids had planned out the whole Sunday for the wife and I had planned the day before to build an area with a raised garden bed for the wife. The raised bed material was bought, the area mapped out and the plan to get up early and rent a truck to pick up cedar chips and black gold compost soil was scheduled. Saturday morning went as I expected, up early, quick breakfast and off to be the first in line at the U-Haul rental place. Figured rather than $75 per delivery, two types of material meant $150, why not spend $19.95 for a single day rental of the truck, pick up the material myself and pocket $130 or so. U-Haul actually has it to mileage and other fees that made the single days truck rental $55 and change, so not as big as I expected but still roughly a $95 savings. Surprise was that the truck I got was a new 2019 F150 with V8 that only had 300 miles on the odometer. Having not been in a new Ford pickup in the last couple years, I was excited to see how it drove, what the fit n finish was like and over all materials. U-Haul trucks are your base trucks with rubberized floors, dash is all hard plastics yet they still had backup camera and the V8 engine. As such the truck had no problem even loaded down with dirt or the cedar chips moving. Over all ride was decent and I actually really loved the seats as they were very supportive to my large size and yet comfy driving from freeway to local roads, never tiring to the body. Radio was a basic am/fm with a base pair of stereo speakers. Decent and functional. Dash being a base truck was hard plastic, as we have seen in many videos about even top of the line Luxury auto’s, the dash did make a big amount of squeak noise. Screen size of the radio system was also very small. Yet as many folks have used the term, the truck was functional. Fit n Finish was very tight, did not find any large panel gapes or errors in the paint job or exterior body. I did find the very simple tie down points with already rusting bolts to be a bit surprising but it still worked and the truck had a bed so I did not have to worry about messing the truck bed up. Interesting observation is that when the truck is locked, so is the tailgate, so with a load, I had to always keep the truck unlocked so the tailgate would open and let me unload my chips and soil. The V8 engine was very smooth and quiet and the only drawback was the weird auto stop / start. If you’re in normal traffic it works just as GMs systems have worked with turning off and on the engine. Yet sit in one place too long and then release the brake pedal and you get a message on the center dash screen saying you have been stationary too long and must put the transmission in park and then back to drive before engine will start back up. Even with following their directions, it seemed the engine did not want to start back up forcing me to put it into park and then manually starting the truck again. Other than that single issue, the truck worked and the backup camera was nice to have to get as close as possible to the wife’s new raised veggie garden. Hit me up with any questions you have about the truck or my project. Yes I did take out the grass the weekend before so my cedar chips are 3-4 inches deep.

Leasing ignoring the business benefits from an individual standpoint is usually used to temporarily own something or appear to own something that one would otherwise not be able to afford. So this would tend to go to the badge thing. The other point that I believe @surreal1272 is getting at is that while the Germans have done an outstanding job of marketing their products, the actual quality seems to not live up to the marketing hype and many of the reports tend to imply that the cost of ownership past the lease period is not worth the actual cost of owning the auto. German brands are well known to be very expensive to service and repair, thus leasing is the best way to drive one since they seems to have repair issues and the costs of ownership outweighs leasing, thus leading the assumption that the quality is not there for personal long term ownership. Honestly do you really see many older BMW or Mercedes-benz around? I do not compared to long life of American and asian auto's.

Let's further help SMK out: Actual options per MB web site: https://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/special_offers/finance_options Pretty much even MB wants their customers to Lease and not buy. Here is a story that supports that many Americans are moving to Leasing especially for European branded auto's compard to buying for American or Asian. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/auto-finance-industry-trends-lease-residuals.html For those that want a better understanding of how dealers make money on selling versus leasing: https://www.cross-check.com/blog/selling-vs-leasing-how-auto-dealers-make-their-money Here is the Meat and Potatoes of where the statistics come from: https://www.statista.com/topics/1721/us-automotive-industry/ https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/automotive-lease-volume-reaches-record-high-in-2016-according-to-new-edmunds-report-300397551.html Biggest point of news is the Leasing report which is only up through 2016. lease-report-jan-2017.pdf Interesting read is the Lease Trends report: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/auto-finance-industry-trends-lease-residuals.html To quote the report: Record auto sales in the past six years have been driven primarily by increases in leasing volume. One quarter of new vehicle transactions, in fact, resulted in a lease.2 As those leases near the end of their term, they are likely to set a particularly high rate of lease returns. This should make for some amazing CPO deals as these auto's hit the lots. Additional info on leasing trends: JAN-2018-us-fsi-hot-topics-in-auto-finance-lease-residuals.pdf Overall, Audi is #1, then BMW, than MB but this pretty much shows that German brands are not to be owned long term. I have always felt this, but am surprised to see Lexus and Infiniti in the tops for leasing. Is anyone surprised by VW being the number 1 top low end auto maker on Leasing? Another German auto company. ? So what does this really say about long term ownership of German brands when they lead the world in Leasing?

Let's add the Fake Engine sound of Fail! I am really getting pissed with the fake big engine power sound on a tiny engine that I have heard in some auto's and especially movies lately and even with an EV, they are making fake engine sounds. Fake = Bad

Even the E-Class is squeaky plastic mercedes. Where is the World Class Quality or nothing at all?

Saw two Brand new Rangers yesterday while coming home with the wife and kids from Mothers day dinner. Just visually, they are not that impressive. The wife thought the front end just blended with everything else and she thought it looked as if it was a new F150. Son was equally not impressed with the new trucks. Gonna have to get inside to see how the interior is, but the exterior is meh. Forgettable, if not for the HUGE Ranger on the tailgate.

I can totally understand this and the cost of the battery systems will go down by sharing the cost across Honda and GM. Economy of scale. I can totally see a fully automated assembly line in the future where once puts in the desired content and within hours an auto comes out the other side ready for pickup and use. Electrification will drive simplification of auto's.

So then you agree that all MB products need to be compared to the same products from Chevy and Toyota since they use allot of cheap materials, hard plastics and over all have gone from a Luxury product line to a Toyolet product line with the cheap cars and vans, etc.

Really? OK, it was listed on the Google search as a CT5 trunk. Thank you