Model years › Cadillac ATS

2016 Cadillac ATS

Complaints about this year name got far more often than the model's other years — 19% of them, about 12× the usual rate of 1.5%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

Also unusual this year

• defect — 10% of complaints, 26× usual
• police — 9% of complaints, 23× usual
• passenger seat — 9% of complaints, 23× usual

What owners wrote

Transmission drags. When stopping the car jerks bad and sometimes proceeds to accelerate. When at a stop auto start has a hard jerk I reported this problem to Cadillac dealership when I first got the car. They claim they couldn't find an issue. The touch pad g…

WHILE DRIVING ON THE FREEWAY THE ENGINE LOST POWER AND I HAD TO PULL OVER TO AVOID A POSSIBLE ACCIDENT. GOT A FLASHING CHECK ENGINE LIGHT AND STABLITRACK LIGHT CAME ON. TOOK IT TO THE DEALER THEY GOT P0300 CODE. HAD TO REPLACE THE PISTON AND RINGS. ONLY 70250…

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 15V463000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 15V558000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 26V329000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2016 Cadillac ATS? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Cadillac ATS was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.

This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.

Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.

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