MSG C5

The new ATS is on my short list of new daily driver business sedans. Any member reviews?

Wicked C5

I leased one for my wife in Jan. The car is great only regret not getting the QUE as the base system is soso. Otherwise we have 2.0T with the only option a rear spoiler.

The car get's a ton of looks the only thing that kinda sucks is we get around 19.8 mpg which is awful for such a small motor although the rare times when I drive it I hammer it.

Good luck

PeterK

That is pretty poor. My friend owns a new 328 and it gets over 25mpg in city driving, mid 30s on the hwy. The car feels plenty powerful too.

Closer_2001

Check your local National Rent a Car location - I travel all over the country and rent from National and have seen ATS 2.0 available in the luxury collection.

Might be worth picking one up for the weekend to see if you like it. Looks cool in person.

Vette_Minded

My wife and I looked at a V6 ATS at the Austin car show this weekend and to tell the truth, considering the $47,000 ATS price tag I was more impressed with the 2014 Impala. Of course this is whithout driving them.

Zee0hSix

My Wife was looking for a new car and when I saw an add for a new Caddy for only $30k we went for a look.

What a joke, basic Chevy interior, 200 HP, halogen headlights, even my 2003 Nissan had Xenon headlamps, more standard features and HP............ 10 years ago.

We told the salesman our needs AWD, better interior, more HP, more features. You can get it all in the ATS..........for $50,000.00

After much shopping and research we went with the Infiniti G37x. Less money, beautiful interior, more features, more HP, higher resale value. Much higher rated by the various consumer guides.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

Wicked C5

I don't disagree with that at all. I had a 3 series loaner and that was about what I was getting.

GM sent me $3,000 rewards money plus my dealer found another $2800.00 somehow in incentives so the deal was to good to pass up. I do think they are on crack to ask 50k for a ATS

Zee0hSix

Yep, go figure.....the one color my Wife loved was some special edition blue that required just about every option to get. At $50K it was a big NO!

MSG C5

It's clear that GM/Cadillac is targeting the ATS at the BMW 3-Series crowd, however matching price points is not the way to do it.

The pros on the car are the looks and performance of the V6 engine option. I really like the red/carbon interior option as well (picture below). The trunk space is less than it should be, but I'm willing to give in on that for a spirited sports sedan.

With the electronic options and features I want, the ATS Premium Edition comes in between $48-$50K retail.

That may be due to the fact that the ATS is outselling the current CTS and driving the price premium. That should change when the redesigned CTS comes out in 2014, however Cadillac will probably raise the price on that model to compete with the BMW 5-Series crowd.

MSG C5

The Infiniti G37 is also on my list, however it is also due for a total redesign in 2014 which is a good thing because I think the platform is aging and the other cars in its class have more modern interiors and technology. However, everything I've read about the car has been positive, especially the quality and performance.

Scissors

Didn't see that coming.

PeterK

That is pretty much in line with their EPA ratings.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Power...8i&srchtyp=ymm

00C Just for Fun

Not sure how resale will be on the red interior. This could prove a novelty that goes unpopular quickly.

RJ-92

Boosted motors, and turbos specificly take a while to fully break in. perhaps you should drive it more oftwn as they need a little beating to loosen up a little. You should actually see mileage increase as you approach 15-20k miles.

MSG C5

Perhaps, but I don't think it would hurt resale value any more than the BMW black/red two-tone interiors and the C6 black/red two-tone interiors.

The other options they offer are all black with brushed aluminum trim and a black/tan two-tone trim similar to the black/red trim, however maple wood replaces the carbon fiber.

I think the black/red interior would match up well with the red or black ATS.

It's all personal preference I guess. If not, we would all be driving black Fords.

MSG C5

Not sure if you are a golfer, however can you fit two cart bags/clubs in the trunk? It looks pretty tight.

LDB

Be glad you didn’t get CUE. My wife got that system in an XTS, and we’ve already traded that car at a big loss. CUE may improve with time like BMW’s I-Dive did, but for now, it’s a turkey of a system. It seems slick in the showroom or on a brief test drive, but living with it is really annoying. You can’t do much of anything without wading through multiple screens. And there are some very obvious things you can’t do at all, no matter how many screens you wade through. The worst of those, believe it or not, is that you can’t turn it truly off. If you use an MP3 player or thumb drive, when you turn it what they call “off”, the media keeps advancing, so when you turn it back “on”, you are at a totally different place. Some reviews have liked the system while others have panned it, so don’t take my word, or the word of any of the reviewers. Just look at it, and manipulate all its features, during as long a test drive as you can get away with. If you like it, great. But in our case, it was the biggest of three reasons that we took a $10,000 loss to unload my wife’s XTS after suffering with it for 6 months and 6000 miles. And just for the record, don’t make smarmy comments about us being old farts who don’t understand how to work it. We may be mid-60’s, but we use and like iPhones, iPads, computers, and other gizmos, so the issue is not that we couldn’t work it. The issue is that at least in our opinions, it was incredibly annoying to use.

MSG C5

I wonder if CUE is the same system going in the C7 Corvette just branded under a different name?

LDB

That is indeed a troubling thought that has crossed my mind more than once. Besides the utterly idiotic lack of a true off switch, the remaining huge issue with CUE is that just like any other touch screen gizmo, you have to be looking at it to operate it. Vette controls have always been very tactile. Once you knew the layout, you didn’t have to look in order to manipulate. CUE brags about its tactile feedback, but that is simply a little vibration when you touch something. There is no sense of position on a touch screen. You must take eyes off the road and look at the screen to touch the proper icon. GM claims the next line of defense is to use voice recognition commands, but it only recognized my voice about half the time, and almost never recognized my wife’s. Their third line of defense is steering wheel controls, but only a very few of the very most basic functions are controlled from there.

You can gauge the extent of my dissatisfaction with the system by realizing that I flushed 10 grand down the toilet to get rid of the bloody car when less than 6 months old. Having said that, I recognize that some people will doubtlessly like the system. My warning is simply to try it out verrrrrrrrrrrrry thoroughly before you buy. Put it through its paces by making the kinds of control manipulations that are most important to you, while actually driving on the road. Don’t just do like we did, and play with it for 3 minutes while on the showroom floor, and think gee that’s kind of neat like my iPhone.

Oh, and one more thing. To love it, you gotta love the look of fingerprint smears all over your display screen all the time. No thanks.

MSG C5

Ford's having the same problem with their system. We shopped SUVs last year and we test drove the Explorer and the online reviews basically said the same thing.

I think the auto manufacturers are rushing to keep the latest and greatest technologies in their cars but not allowing enough R&D as to how best operate the systems.

I love my 04' C5 convertible because it may be the last Corvette generation that really doesn't have all of the modern electronics. I want to add a C7 stablemate, however I sure hope GM/Cadillac/Chevrolet get the bugs out of these all encompassing systems.

I was at a local mixed show a couple of weeks ago and there were some really nice custom cars. A few of them had iPads integrated into their center console stack. Pretty scary considering someone could be surfing the net or watching a movie while driving.

Technology is great and I love Bluetooth capabilities and voice recognition, however I don't want a system that is so complex that it distracts the driver.