Model years › Cadillac CTS

2014 Cadillac CTS

Complaints about this year name differential far more often than the model's other years — 49% of them, about 6× the usual rate of 7.8%.

NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.

What the complaints were about

• differential — 48.6% of this year's complaints, against 6.5% across the model's other years (7.5×).
• axle — 16.7% of this year's complaints, against 4.5% across the model's other years (3.7×). Owners wrote it as: axle, rear axle, vsport, cts vsport.
• lock — 17.7% of this year's complaints, against 6.9% across the model's other years (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: lock, cts-v, mine, going out.

Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.

Also unusual this year

• rear differential — 34% of complaints, 6× usual
• coming rear — 11% of complaints, 27× usual
• power train — 10% of complaints, 26× usual

What owners wrote

while driving approximately 5 MPH, there was an abnormal roaring sound coming from the rear of the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer to be diagnosed. The contact was informed that the rear differential needed to be replaced. The vehicle was no…

Rear differential has gone bad. Hundreds, if not thousands of these vehicles have had this issue. Nothing is being done! It’s a shame that us CTS owners are stuck with these problems.

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.

Recalls for this year

• 18V595000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
• 14V253000 VISIBILITY Fixed free of charge.
• 14V446000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
• 14V338000 POWER TRAIN Fixed free of charge.
• 14V394000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
• 14V614000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.

Own a 2014 Cadillac CTS? What happened to yours?

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How this was worked out

Every year of the Cadillac CTS 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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