2016 Cadillac CTS
This year drew an ordinary 61 complaints for a Cadillac CTS — the model's median is 108. What they were about is the unusual part: 19.7% of them mention warranty, against 6.3% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 61 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 108 |
| Involving a fire | 2 |
| Recalls | 4 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 24 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- warranty — 19.7% of this year's complaints, against 6.3% across the model's other years (3.1×).
- put — 16.4% of this year's complaints, against 6% across the model's other years (2.7×).
- shifting — 13.1% of this year's complaints, against 4.6% across the model's other years (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: shifting, gears, abruptly, torque.
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.
What owners wrote
Torque converter shudders and jerks abruptly. There’s trouble slowing down at times and it has a difficult time shifting up or shifting down i gears.
CAR HAS JUST PASSED THE WARRANTY. PUT THE CAR IN THE SHOP FOR AN OIL CHANGE, WHEN I GOT IT BACK I COULD HEAR A YANG YANG NOISE LIKE I HAD A BAD TIRE, IN THE MEAN TIME ON STAR SENT A NOTICE THAT THE SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE BRAKES AND STABILITY CONTROL. THE…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 18V595000 SEATS Fixed free of charge.
- 19V086000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 25V175000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 26V329000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
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.
Own a 2016 Cadillac CTS? What happened to yours?
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