New STS not for those under 5'6"

[LDB]

My wife had every expectation of buying a new STS, but when she drove it, she could barely see over the steering wheel with the seat full up and the tilt steering wheel full down. She is 5'3", so not unusually short. After seeing my wife try to drive it, I can assure you that very few will be sold to people under 5'6". Nothing like cutting yourself out of a large segment of the market right from the get go. How could Cadillac make such a fundamental design error, particularly on a car that should presumably appeal to women, many of whom will be too short to drive it? If you can believe it, she can see much better out of my C6 Vette than she could out of the new STS.

[LDB]

May be a bit of both. The cowl does seem higher than most, possibly due to the head up display, but the up/down seat travel seems small too. It's possible that the problem is the lower section of the dash, which seems to hang down pretty far, and thus may limit upward seat movement due to the need for crush zone knee room in a crash.

[ness5575]

[quote=LDB]I can assure you that very few will be sold to people under 5'6". Nothing like cutting yourself out of a large segment of the market right from the get go. [/Q

they have been doing the same thing to those of us over 6' for years!

[BigAls87Z28]

Odd....I had a harder time seeing over the XLR hood then the STS's hood. I thought the STS's seats were too high. Im 6ft, but my head came close to the roof...
Hrm...oh well. If I had 60k and wanted a luxury sedan, STS would be the clear choice.

[mgescuro]

Originally Posted by ness5575

they have been doing the same thing to those of us over 6' for years!

Yeaaaah... 6'3" here!!! STS is actually very comfortable for me.

[mgescuro]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

Odd....I had a harder time seeing over the XLR hood then the STS's hood. I thought the STS's seats were too high. Im 6ft, but my head came close to the roof...
Hrm...oh well. If I had 60k and wanted a luxury sedan, STS would be the clear choice.

On teh XLR?? Really?? Being 6'3", i had acceptable headroom. And you can see the hood quite clearly, as the wheel flares mark the corners of the hood. I was actually pretty surprised, since I expected to see none of the hood at all!

[AMcA]

Originally Posted by LDB

May be a bit of both. The cowl does seem higher than most, possibly due to the head up display, but the up/down seat travel seems small too.

This is a great way for the domestics to differentiate themselves over the imports. I've always noticed that the imports, both Japanese and German seem to limit the extent of seat adjustment travel, while the Americans gave us tremendous adjustability. As a guy who likes his lower seat cushion tilted pretty far up while still set relatively low, I appreciated that in domestic cars. It was always a part of what made a Caddy a Caddy for me.

After all, what's more American than giving folks a serious lot of choice in everything, including seat sdjustments? Meanwhile, the Germans know that their engineers have selected the correct seating position, and no one ought to be allowed to mess with that. OK, you're Americans, so we'll grudgingly let you adjust your seat. A little bit. And the Japanese, they just copy the Germans.

If Cadillac is now limiting that adjustability, I can point to the culprit: the insidious practice of "benchmarking". BMW does it this way, and it's the market leader, so if we do it this way, that plenty good enough. It's a sure-fire way to make yourself number 2 in the market, while pissing away any distinctiveness in your product.

Come to think of it, on the CTS I rented earlier this year (and really liked - the equal of my old 540i in many ways) the lower cushion adjustment ran out of adjustment before I wanted it to. This is not a good sign.