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ATS: Fixing Cadillac's problem child

11K views 69 replies 43 participants last post by  SierraGS 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Price, trim adjustments coming for ATS in 2017
June 27, 2016
Mike Colias
AutoNews.com

The ATS was supposed to herald Cadillac's return to luxury relevance when it went on sale nearly four years ago.

The compact sedan was going to be the Cadillac to "finally challenge the German cars at their own game and win," then-GM North America President and current product chief Mark Reuss said at the car's January 2012 unveiling. Instead, it has become Cadillac's problem child. Even in a cold sedan market, the ATS has lagged behind compact luxury rivals -- its market share has declined every year since 2013.

A big part of the problem: Resale values have fallen steadily too, making it harder and more expensive for Cadillac to offer a competitive lease, crucial to success in the luxury market.

AutoNews.com said:
Prices will be reduced between $650 and $1,100, depending on the trim level. And each model will get more content than it did before. For example, Cadillac is eliminating the base 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, leaving the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-banger as the standard engine, and the 3.6-liter V-6 as the top engine. Starting with the '17 model year, buyers of a 2.0-liter turbo with some popular add-ons, such as a Bose surround-sound audio system, will pay about the same price as the 2.5-liter sedan with those same features cost in the '16 model year.
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Will help some, but none of this will fix the fundamental flaw in the ATS - limited passenger/trunk space compared to the competition.

AutoNews.com said:
Registration data show that the shoppers tend to come from mainstream brands, rather than the German luxury marques that Cadillac has targeted. In the first quarter, the top three brands from which new ATS buyers migrated were Chevrolet, Ford and GMC, according to Polk data provided by IHS Automotive.
The ATS is already priced below the Germans (esp. MB and BMW), but isn't seen being a value comparatively (notwithstanding lease rates) since the Germans have more room (the upcoming 3 Series will have more room) and have nicer interiors.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
Re: Fixing Cadillac's problem child

I agree. Kicking the 2.5L to the curb was long overdue. It never should have debuted with that motor as the base engine. Good riddance!

Making the 2.0-liter turbo the standard engine boosts the ATS' base price by about $1,500, to $35,590 including shipping. That's above the base price of the 3 series. The 2.5-liter accounted for more than 20 percent of sales.
I'm kind of surprised that the motor made up 20% of their volume. I wonder if that was mostly to retail customers or fleet customers?

Also, if the 2.0T (in this form, anyway) costs them an extra $1,500 to boost the base MSRP, then I wonder if GM ever considered a "cheaper"/lower-power unit for the base powertrain? Would the cost-savings be significant enough to warrant a detuned 2.0T base engine?

I would still have liked to have seen a visual update, but I guess it's too close to the end of the line to inject extra capital into the project?
 
#12 ·
Re: Fixing Cadillac's problem child

I agree. Kicking the 2.5L to the curb was long overdue. It never should have debuted with that motor as the base engine. Good riddance!



I'm kind of surprised that the motor made up 20% of their volume. I wonder if that was mostly to retail customers or fleet customers?
$199-$249 Lease special.

how soon?
 
#6 ·
This. I mean, you had LEDs on a Chevy Cruz or Equinox. Quite a few Buicks. Can't put them on a Caddy? Should be standard across the board, if anything to make a shared image/design language of the vertical light pipes coming at you.
 
#5 ·
They should have brought ATS in originally substantially under the Germans to make people cross shop them more and build the nameplate. They could have up contented and increased pricing of it over time once they built a reputation. The other issue is that the early care had WAY to many problems.
 
#15 ·
The ATS is way too small. I am 6'5" and I could not get behind the wheel of my wife's sister in law's ATS. My head was at a 45" angle and my knees where on either side of the steering wheel. That was with the seat all the way back and lowered. I don't see how anyone over 6'1" or 6'2" could comfortably fit in the driver's seat. And forget having anyone else sit behind you.
 
#17 ·
Thinner seatbacks to make the rear seat seem larger should have been done a couple years ago. Now it's probably not worth the cost any longer. I'm square in the target market for the ATS but the rear seat space trumps everything else.

What made the 1st two gens of CTS popular was the 3 series pricing for a car that was 1/2 way between the 3 and the 5 in size.

Sell the ATS at A3 prices for now.

And for the next gen, stretch the interior slightly. An extra couple inches in rubber, glass, steel, etc, does not literally cost GM thousands of dollars. I am of course comparing two identical cars, clean slate, new designs, and close enough in size to use all the same powertrains, suspension points, etc. Cabin stretching is cheap and GM used to do it so well.
 
#22 ·
I think the interior volume complaint is a deeper issue that goes back to how people perceive Cadillac vs. BMW. BMW built their reputation around the 3 Series, which in what's considered to be its best iterations, is a tight fitting interior. People expect BMWs to be cramped, but Cadillac? Cadillac is best remembered as being roomier and therefore comfortable. That said, I expect Cadillac's "right size" strategy to make each Cadillac have the most interior volume in their class, while retaining performance.

With the growing size of the compact performance luxury sedans, I think we're witnessing the redefinition of what compact luxury is: Compact luxury includes the luxury of interior room over mainstream or entry luxury compact. Pretty soon, with BMW introducing the 2 Series Gran Coupe, the purists' compact luxury mission exemplified in the E30 and E46 3 Series will be carried out by the subcompact, entry-level model.
 
#24 ·
Definitely not the position an automaker, especially one whose glory days included a comfortable interior, should take. If studies show that taller people tend to make more money, why shouldn't their size be taken into account when designing the car? Cadillac would be cutting out people who'd more likely afford their vehicle.
 
#38 ·
If studies show that taller people tend to make more money, why shouldn't their size be taken into account when designing the car? Cadillac would be cutting out people who'd more likely afford their vehicle.
Pardon the pun, but that's a huge part of the problem right there. Our Earth's fragile ecosystem cannot sustain "size large" humans. If we could all get behind a national campaign that would keep people above a certain height from reproducing, we'd be on our way to a greener future.

I would favor a program to sterilize all men over 5'10 and all women over 6'1. (By breeding more tall women, we might also solve gender inequity issues.) Annually we would roll this number back an inch. Ultimately, our goal should be to reduce the mean human height to about 2'8", roughly half the current size. When this noble goal is reached, a vehicle the size of the ATS would be called a bus and it would could transport many human persons of equal height. Personal vehicles would produce half as much pollution by virtue of their smaller size and the user wouldn't notice a damn bit of discomfort!

Of course the other benefits (smaller homes, less food, less need for water-intensive cotton crops for XXL t-shirts, etc.) are again... Huge. While we transition to the sustainable small-world future, there would be countless job opportunities for public works projects (Jobs!) by narrowing roads, adding half-floors to buildings, and so forth.
 
#34 ·
At least they're fessing up to the fact that they have a problem. Pricing structure being addressed is good. Also it needs more room, GM needs to compete size per size and quit the tweener nonsense.
But that's exactly what they're doing. ATS is within spitting distance of 3-series dimensions and CTS increased in size to 5-series dimensions.

Hilariously enough, "the tweener nonsense" was a lot more successful for Cadillac. There's indications they'll be returning to that strategy too.
 
#27 ·
I think it's fine news that ATS buyers are trading up from other non-German marques. These are people new to the lux market, and they're forming a Cadillac habit as they move up. That's a good thing. Maybe even a better thing than established lux buyers moving over from German cars.
 
#28 ·
The 2.5 4 cylinder is terrible in ATS. I'm glad Cadillac finally woke up and decided to drop that engine. What I don't understand is why they don't do like BMW and de-tune the 2.0T to make around 200hp like BMW did with the 320i. That way they could keep the turbo 4 for sale at a lower price point.
 
#37 ·
I can give GM free advice on what needs to be fixed on this car before ANYONE would consider it along side anything the Germans make:

1. The gauges are cheap and look hideous. In this class, you need jeweled casing for the dials and a clean, simple, organized display with one LARGE tach and one LARGE speedometer, of equal size and a full circle. I cannot stand the gauges in the ATS.

2. MyLink or whatever GM calls it in Cadillacs..... it just needs to be made simpler and easier to use. The mouse or the touch pad like Lexus or Audi uses is perfect. And the redundant climate and audio controls? Please get rid of that "haptic touch" and make them straight forward buttons and dials.

3. Sounds and smells..... when you shut the door on a Mercedes or BMW, the door closes with a perfect balance of soft "whooooph" and bank-vault like "poom". Yes that kind of thing matters. Yes, my Honda Accord sounds better when you close the doors than a Cadillac ATS. And use better materials/leather. When you get in a brand new Mercedes or BMW the smell is exhilarating. Before you even press start.

4. Use less words and more symbols on controls..... wipers, cruise, headlamps/turn signals, HVAC, A/V..... all the controls should have simple symbols that show you exactly what they do, rather than words that tell you what they do. I always thought symbols felt higher class than words.
 
#39 ·
This whole thing really is sad. I was so excited to see this car come out only to be stricken by horrible bean counting decisions.

1) CUE is an abomination. This may be single-handedly enough to push me out of the car. We need dials and buttons, not cost cutting gimmickry masqueraded as new technology.
2) Engines were horrible. Let's face it, any German rival spanks these cars in terms of power and acceleration in all engines short the ATS-V. The old GM 3.6 V6 is old, heavy and slow with very low Torque compared to the Germans. 2.0T numbers are nice, but it doesnt move the car as fast as the German 4 pots.
3) Interior finish is a mash with horrible shiny surfaces, hard plastics, different stitching everywhere, its a mess.
 
#40 ·
So a few have ideas to change the interior of the ATS. I'm an ATS owner and actually like CUE, the "cheap" gauges, the haptic feedback and general design of the interior and my opinion is NOT favorable of the 3 Series interior. I'm all for improvements to the design (say the XT5), but would be disappointed if Cadillac does a 3 Series interior clone.

So the question is, change the interior that current owners may really like and possibly lose them or make a 3 Series clone that may or may not be successful?
 
#55 ·
You bring in some thoughtful suggestions of wanting to be different on the interior, and I respect that. Unfortunately I think the volume of current owners is so low there is low risk there if its changed. Look at other successful car interiors that are "different" for an idea of what to do (Volvo XC90 for example). You dont need to carbon copy a BMW, but it has to be executed with high quality and something fitting of its price. Aside from the interior, the engines are the biggest issue. Put the TT V6 in something other than the ATSV, give it AWD and you have a potential winner, despite my comments on interior. You need to have performance that surpasses the competition, not just brings it close and still gets beat. Just my opinion.
 
#45 ·
I apologize up front for those that like the ATS ...I drove one and didn't care for the look or the drive.

Maybe because I drive a CTS second gen and fwiw....and it's jmo I like my AWD 304 hp fe2 CTS better....which I drove over to the Cadillac dealer.

I think the price upgrade on Cadillacs being both announced and put on msrp of its recent vehicles made me laugh...

Pay more for a car I didn't like as much? I just kept asking myself why?

Cadillac needs a car like the tesla model 3 along with a CUV based off an AWD bolt chassis if it wants me back in the showroom....and it has to perform and price out as well Tesla 3 with AWD...

The bar has been set as far as I'm concerned....and since I am a happy Cadillac owner I think I'm not alone in these thoughts for Cadillac.

Jaguars sedan market is reeling ....Infiniti, Acura, with BMW, Audi and Mercedes moving quickly to adapt to the changing environment....and it has nothing to do with green power.
 
#46 ·
1. Take away the number, and give it a name. (Secret Agent Man advice.)
2. Design a clamp-on PUT-type bed cover device, that when fitted will make the car look like an SUV.
3. Put AWD or 4WD tags on the deck lid.
4. Twin whip antennae.
5. Wide whitewalls.

OK, we're done here. :drive:
 
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