Cadillac CT4-V Performance Sedan Review | Halfway to Perfection

I've always seen Cadillac as sort of the representation of American luxury cars. The Escalade is one of the first things that comes to mind. But it wasn't always sunshine and rainbows. They've definitely struggled to keep up with the Europeans in both sportiness and opulence. But I'm hoping things will change with this, the Cadillac CT4V. So this is the Cadillac CT4V series. It's not the top of the line V, but they are marking the car as a V nonetheless. So today we're gonna find out if it can live up to the name. Press the ignition and the car boots up with a nice little burble. It does have GM's new 2.7-liter turbocharged inline four, codenamed L3B, in it, and it's quite beefy on paper. One of the first things you'll probably notice is the dated analog instrument cluster in front of you. You can option a digital dash and it'll end up costing a little over two grand in total, but it's certainly worth it in my opinion. The steering wheel is pretty nice, though. I like the thickness of the leather here and the paddles are one of the best I've seen in this segment. They're made of metal and feel quite premium. You can scroll through pertinent data on the small center screen. Like I said, it's dated, but it's what we have to work with and it gets the job done. The 8 inch infotainment system is touch and also controllable through a rotating wheel that feels very satisfying to operate. Because this is a pretty base car, there's not much stuff to look through here, but you can obviously option the car with navigation and surprisingly, the PDR package, which gives you performance recording. Now here I'm setting my V mode, which is a customizable drive setting that you can activate with a press of a button on your steering wheel, similar to the little red M1 M2 buttons that you find on BMW M cars. Anyway, let's get started. Around town in tour mode. The exhaust is pretty quiet. You can hear the turbo spool and there's a light rasp to it, but not much of it penetrates into the cabin. The car has GM's fourth generation Magna ride, and it stays pretty compliant and comfy over most of these bumps that we're hitting. The seats themselves are pretty comfortable as well. Not too much lateral support, but they are plush and have good cushioning. At some point here, I second guessed myself and I went to double check to make sure that we were indeed in tour mode. Compared to some of the German offerings, this is probably one of the softer riding sports sedans, and I really think that it's got the potential to be a great, fun daily driving package. Anyway, all your H vac controls are physical toggles here under the center stack and the response from the buttons are nice. The silver trim on the piano black and the flat black contrasts quite nicely and makes the interior feel a bit more upscale. The steering feels pretty good too. Even in tour mode, there's some heft to it and it makes the car feel a bit more BMW esque. I also like the overall button layout on the wheel. Almost everything I need is right here and I never have to take my hands off of it if I want to activate the adaptive cruise or quickly tackle a corner with the V mode. And I'll probably say this a few times throughout the video, but I really dig the paddles in this thing. So nice. So, speaking of tackling corners, there's a dedicated button down here to let you switch drive modes. It's the usual tour, sport, track and snow, but surprisingly no eco mode. We'll go into the track mode here, but the cool thing is that like Corvettes and Camaros, you can access a PTM mode by double pressing the traction button. Alright, now let's have some fun. As you can see, track mode really opens things up, but it doesn't really turn it into a completely different animal. Even though power delivery is more punchy, the exhaust is louder and the gearbox shifts faster, it's still surprisingly soft riding. I actually feel like it might be a little bit too soft, even as a Cadillac. Through the corners you feel some body roll, which is a little discerning because we were only pushing it at about 7 or 8/10 here on the street. Some of the downshifts are also a bit lackluster, but the response from the paddles is pretty quick. Not DCT quick, but at least better than my old C7Z06. Anyway, we'll take it out of track mode here, but put it into the special V mode that we mentioned earlier, which I basically set up as track mode anyway, except with the magneride on the comfiest setting. Also, let's go back into full auto. So there are two little rotary dials here. One controls the volume and the other is another way to control the infotainment screen. Lots of options. I like that. I don't have any music to play that's not copyrighted, but take my word, here The Bose sound system that comes with the car is pretty mediocre. Not terrible, but definitely wouldn't be blasting any tunes in this thing with the windows down. I mean, I've always preferred to listen to the car's exhaust note anyway, but that's only if the car sounds halfway decent to begin with. Down here there's a pleasantly large wireless charging tray, but that's pretty standard stuff in 2022. I'm not a huge fan of the gear selector. It's a bit big and bumbly and it doesn't have the same quality materials that are in some of the other parts of the cabin. Gets the job done, but I would have preferred to see something a little bit more streamlined. So another cool trick that I wanted to show you guys is that it can engage performance shift mode, which is a high end shift program that you can find in Camaros and Corvettes. Basically, GM says it's the best way to get the most performance out of the car. And here are some downshifts. Like I said, decent but not DCT levels of excitement. Overall, I still think it's plenty Fun for a 10 speed automatic slush box, especially considering the paddles are pretty cool. So here's the car hitting probably the roughest patch of road in my area. In my Lotus Exege it would feel like an earthquake, but it's really smooth in the Caddy. Now there's some noticeable lag from that big single turbo setup, but only when you first get on it. Once you're flat out, the short ratios in the 10 speed auto keep everything spooled up nicely and the car in the meat of the power band. But as nice as it is driving the CT4V on the street, I think it's about time we head off to our airstrip to do my favorite part, the performance tests. Now before we get to the runs, let's go over some of the technical aspects of the Cadillac CT4V. The Caddy is a classic four door sedan that competes in an extremely overcrowded mid range sports sedan segment. We've got stuff from everywhere here, too much to list really. But Even though the CT4V is surprisingly light and the car is technically the cheapest, it's also the most underpowered and displaced when compared to a lot of its peers. Now that's not exactly a bad thing. It still has a decent 11:1 power to weight ratio which beats the Acura. But as the old saying goes, there's no replacement for displacement and I think that's going to prove True today, Even though the 2.7 liter inline four has a lot of grunt with 325 horses and 380 pounds of torque and that big single turbo setup pushes out about 20 pounds of boost, it's simply going to run out of steam on the top end by the half mile. I'm still surprised at how light the car is though. In this day and age. All these luxury sedans are obese and weighing over 2 metric tons is the acceptable norm. I'm hoping that being £3,600 rear wheel drive and being built on the same chassis as the Camaro and ATSV will give the Cadillac some handling advantages over its competition. One of the obvious problems is that this car is probably under tired. It's a 235 square setup and although that might be okay for a Toyota, I think the 380 pounds of torque in this thing is going to overwhelm them quickly. I do like what they did on the rear end of the car though. Some people might consider it a bit poser ish. But I think the AMG style quad exhaust tips are a pretty cool touch. Even if they are fake, they do add flare to something that isn't a flagship piece. Overall I feel like it's an attractive sport specimen from the front and the back, but the side profile here is pretty mundane. I'm also indifferent about the interior. Yeah, the digital dash would have made a big difference, but something about the infotainment, the gear selector and the gauges make this car feel a bit dated already. I do like the orange piping on the seats though, and of course the paddles, but you already know that. Anyway, let's see what it sounds like from the outside. As you can see it's a little bit damp out here, so I'm going to be expecting some traction issues because even if this car isn't a Hellcat, it's still front engine, rear wheel drive and 325 horsepower is definitely enough to get you in trouble. And even though I'm not a fan of white cars, I stand by what I said earlier about it being a good looking specimen from the front and the back. I think that all it really needs now is some wider wheels and maybe a black deck lid on the trunk and then you're in business. Alright, it's time we got this party started. So the car supposedly has launch control and the way to activate it is to go into track mode, double tap the traction and then select Race in the ptm. Then you hold the brake and floor the throttle. Let's do that again. The PTM definitely helps to mitigate the traction issues, but I don't think the launch control is official since nothing shows up on the screen. Sam so right off the bat I'm a little disappointed that the car couldn't hit 130 miles per hour in our testing, but we'll substitute car and driver's results for the 60130 metric on the fast list. We were however able to get a 100 to 200 kmh time and that's basically the metric version of this test. Anyway, let's start with our in house 40 100, which is what we like to use for slower cars like this. The Caddy did that in 9.75 seconds and that means it's way slower than an M340i, C43, Audi S5, Infiniti, Red Sport, and even the old BMW 340. That's kind of disappointing, but the car is quite a bit cheaper than all of those options. The good news is though, at least it's faster than the Fords that we've tested. Our 100 200kmh results had the same story. The CT4V did that in 14.9 seconds, which is slower than what I want it to be. And I'm actually starting to second guess if I place this car in the right segment because it's significantly outperformed by similar stuff here like the Stinger GT and the M340. But the truth is Cadillac did this to themselves the moment they put a V badge on the car. Lastly, let's take a look at the half mile where the trap speed is what really matters. The baby V crossed the line at 124.37 mph and although that isn't bad, it's still a far cry from the competition. Actually, Cadillac claims that this car should compete directly with the M235i, but seeing how a base 228i isn't far behind here, I think they should really re evaluate their goals. Anyway, the car still has a chance to redeem itself in the handling test, so let's move on to that. It. The car posted a modest lap time of 52.46 seconds and that's not bad considering that it had 500 treadwear all seasons on it. If it was the OEM continentals with a 240 rating, we could probably get it down into the 51 second range. A few things to consider though. There's moderate body roll making quick direction changes a bit daunting. When you hit the limiter in manual mode, the computer locks you out of an upshift for a moment, just like the Z06. And the brakes are a little bit unpredictable at the limit. But the good news is that the car really likes to oversteer. And for a 325 horsepower sports sedan, that can be pretty fun to see more times and metrics, check out the fastest link in the description below. So the Cadillac CT4V fell short of our expectations here. Mostly mine. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad car, it just means that it's marketed poorly. Or maybe that they didn't give it all they could give. Because from a power standpoint, we know the L3B powerplant can handle more, especially since we've seen it put out 430 pounds of torque in the Silverado trucks. So I don't see why they couldn't tune it to do maybe 360 horsepower and a little less torque. But as with most factory turbo vehicles, the aftermarket can fix these problems easily. Tune intake downpipe and you'll probably see well over 400 horsepower any day of the week. However, I would have liked to have it roll off the assembly line with a little more capability instead of having to void a warranty to get what the car deserves. But my biggest gripe with the CT4V is probably the brakes. On the street. They do a fantastic job. However, they are brake by wire and for some reason they were pretty inconsistent at the limit. I also found that they were overheated quickly and had a bit too much fade for only a few laps around our course. Then again, this car as a whole didn't feel very confident at the absolute limit. Too much float and roll and overall I didn't feel connected to the source. Regardless, I still think it's an attractive proposition, especially for those at the sub 50 grand budget level. And of course, for those who don't plan to push it. 10 10. Some people might say that the Europeans outclass it here. It's that the price point reflects Kia, Acura or maybe Infiniti. But come on guys, this is Cadillac. This is American luxury. Let's show some respect. I'm pretty sure that the big boy Blackwing would get the job done, but of course that's going to open a whole another can of worms. But we can't deny that Cadillac is trying here. They're basically copying the blueprint of what the Germans have been doing for years now. Introduce a base trim or two, get a super powerful high performance model going and then throw in a middleman somewhere in there with a bunch of cool badges for those who need a compromise. And this car is exactly that. A compromise. Because unlike the C43AMG or the BMW M340i which have both made a name for themselves with either speed or sound, the CT4V hasn't earned that bad yet. There's nothing to write home about. It's not a true V, at least not in my opinion. They should have just called it a CT4 sport and everything would have been fine and dandy because now we have expectations and it just doesn't have the oomph to compete in that segment. Granted it is about five to eight grand cheaper than what the Germans are charging, I would still be hard pressed to consider it anyway. Bargain. Listen, it's not a bad car. It really isn't. It's got one of the better sounding four bangers on this side of 60 grand. The 10 speed auto gearbox is pretty impressive. It's comfy, the interior is plush and I like the materials that they used, but it's just not there yet. Give it 50 more horsepower, tune the Magna Ride to be stiffer in track mode, slot the rotors, throw in a real launch control program and I would gladly pay BMW money for it, but we all know that probably won't happen. Or maybe it will, who knows. GM is unpredictable sometimes, but disappointment aside, I think the CT4B presents itself as a great starter sports sedan with some caveats. Of course you'll quickly outgrow it in stock form, but hey, that's how life goes. Would I recommend this car to a friend? Nope. But I think Cadillac is trending down the right path here and they are certainly catching up to BMW, Benz or Audi. But what do you guys think of the CT4V? Let me know in the comments below. That's gonna do it for me on this episode and as always, catch you all in the next one. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and special thanks to Chris Saar and his dad for lending us their CT4V for review. Regardless of what I say during the episode, I always have a good time and I always try to give an honest opinion as a car enthusiast as well as provide the most realistic performance data possible. So if you like this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up. And if you're new to the channel, don't forget to check out some of my other stuff and hit that subscribe button if you like what you see. Thanks for watching.