(From AutoNews.com)
March 5, 2002
GM won't bring CTS to Germany

Wolfgang Eschment
Automobilwoche

General Motors has canceled plans to export the Cadillac CTS to Germany because of poor quality, said Vice President Bob Lutz.

Lutz said the quality of interior elements from external suppliers - such as the seats, instrument panel and steering wheel - was not good enough for the German luxury segment.
-(snip)-

This is the car Cadillac is hoping will turn it's marque around?!?

 

News flash: Domestic quality sucks!

 

thats obvious

 

That's Pathetic !

 

wow Lutz is a f'n moron. If that is true, what he said, and any prespective buyer hears it, the car will not sell. Not too mention it is overpriced. Keep up the good work GM.

 

Quality is too poor for the German market, but poor quality is OK for the American market????? WTF????????? We should be exporting all the poor quality cars and keeping the cream of the crop cars for us!!!!!!!!!!!

ANOTHER reason I will never buy a Ford, GM, or Chysler product!!!

 

I would buy GM, they make Vettes and Camaros.

 

typical idiotic comment from a GM exec. Moron shot himself in the foot. Please post the link you found this article on...I'm having trouble believing *anyone* could be that stupid.

 

Well, as the saying goes, "A person is promoted everyday until he reaches his level of incompetence". Quite true in corporate America

 

Before we bash a domestic, your car is designed and assembled in the good ol USA and because of it's domestic content, considered a DOMESTIC, so ease off.

2nd Lutz would have killed the CTS if he had arrived earlier, he HATES it. The styling, quality, image , just about EVERYTHING.

The new STS was to be out this year but Lutz KILLED that . He also thought compared to the Leaders, it was awful.

THis guy needs some clones.

 

But its done by a Japanese company. Its a different corporate culture. Big 3 domestics = get it out the door at the lowest cost and who cares if it calls apart. Just blame the putz who bought it. Japanese = improve, improve, improve.

 

All I know is......Lutz better not can the XLR

God I love this car, can't wait to drive it

 

Hahaha you are funny as hell man. Let's just spend our money on Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Subaru, Nissan, Honda, and Toyota. The rest are junk cars.

 

same thing happened to ford with the cougar. Initial quality was way too low and they redid the interior with higher quality stuff before sending them to europe. This is one of the main reasons you will never find me driving ford/gm/chrysler . Everything falls apart after 36 thousand miles.

 

Newsflash, CTS is fugly.

 

Yea, and our cars are perfect. Oh wait, the one major component which is manufactered in Japan keeps breaking There's that Japanese quality transaxle which never has issues...

Hrmmm, or the AC compressor on the '88 - '91 Preludes which never made it past 50k....

People just like to make statements without any true value in them. GM does make some stout powertrains, the interior features are just laking and in some cases the exterior paint. But what motivates the vehicle does work and works for years without any complaint...

 

Americans mfgs are really building much better cars these days,
I wouldn't say they are 15 years behind but perhaps more like 5.

And gosh there are still awful quality products being put out too
though..

I'm surprised that they said it was poor quality, the CTS, I wasn't overly impressed with the styling, but the thing seemed to be built really well. The fit and finish was really nice, especially the paint. The paint reminded me of Lexus.

Outside of U.S. pickup trucks, the resell value really keeps me from
buying from U.S. manufactuers.

 

I agree the paint I saw reminded me of a Lex. I checked em out at the dealer, while the styling is unorthodox, the outside panels seemed well put together.

BUt that interior DOES NOT belong in a Luxury car. , PERIOD.

 

Well thats the problem with Caddy at this point....the way they are keeping their costs down has been reduced to their interiors, while not completely horrid (they aren't great by any stretch). This why the Escalade bases at $49k and change, the seats are nice and the rest of the interior is basically out of a Tahoe with fake wood. Jeez, base the truck at $52k and put a nicer interior in the thing. They will definitely learn soon if they want to steal business away from other makes (answer....RWD, more power, better interiors).

Caddy is on the right track and just needs to improve on it.

 

America is great! Their cars suck!

 

Lets not forget the German market..Porsche/BMW/MB/Audi

 

I agree. I would consider GM made cars a little more if their interior was nicer.

 

Here's the link, it's under March 5th's Geneva coverage -

http://www.autonewseurope.com/2002geneva/index.html

As 1SICKLEX mentioned, Lutz has been very vocal on his dislike of the CTS in the past... and like AztecRol, I'm just suprised that these quality issues are "ok" for North America but a problem for Europe.

 

Well Europe is no joke. Hell Lexus is barely like their. They are just comfy cruisers to the Euro mags. But they love the quality and service and features. Caddy would not stand a chance there. They hardly sell any Corvettes as is it.

The small cars do well there, Puma, Focus but that is Ford.

 

i saw the cts at the auto show, what a joke. inside and out it was a cheap looking piece of sheeit. wavy body panels, ugly plastic galore. i was disappointed.

 

Actually Corvettes are popular in europe, just expensive. Europeans like the deep sound of a V8, not as high pitched and winy as the ferrari engines(plus it's an exotic to them). I THINK IN A FEW YEARS WE WILL ALL WANT A CADILLAC... they are trying to regenerate sales with younger buyers after seeing what has happened with Buick(aka old people rides) they are coming out with new concepts like the XLR ,EVOQ, etc . They even designed a supercar which they showed at the LA auto show BUILT on a CORVETTE chassis and has 700hp. They have come under new direction (LUTZ) who is looking to be more aggressive(like Nissan's strategy)