Good to be here

[timewarped]

Hello all -
My car is an '05 XLR, black with tan upholstery. I've put on 9000 or so miles and I'm still in love with the car.
I live in Southern Maine, spend a couple of months in Florida in the winter, so the car doesn't get much winter driving.
I'd love to get together with other XLR owners and compare notes. How about a New England meet at, say, Lime Rock next year? I've only seen about 6 or 7 XLRs on the road around here in last couple of years, my car draws many admiring glances.
Is the car perfect? Nah. But it's many virtues sure outweigh the few faults.
Will I buy another one? Probably not buy, buy maybe lease an '08.
Anyway, it's good to be here.

Ed

 

[Rob]

Ed,

Welcome to the XLR Net.

I'm kind of curious, what are some of the faults you've found with your XLR?

 

[XLR Nut]

Hi Ed!

Welcome aboard from another XLR owner!

 

[timewarped]

Hi Rob -


If I had to complain about my XLR (and I don't very often), I'd start with the lack of extra interior room in the cockpit. With two people aboard, there's zero room in the cabin for anything-like a purse, a briefcase, any sort of package or a small cooler for long drives. My Jag XJS-12 had space behind the seats. I realise it's a styling thing and the hardtop convertible mechanism takes up a lot of available space but it's just inconvenient.

The heated cupholder syndrome is another minor annoyance. It's really only a problem on longer drives but my water bottle will heat up after a while.

I'd like to be able to switch off the adaptive feature of the cruise control. Sometimes it's good to use, sometimes I prefer a standard setting.

Like almost every car I've owned in the last ten years, the AM radio is pretty useless. I didn't continue with the XM radio because we prefer the CD player on trips.

Maybe I'm just cheap, but why not OnStar for the life of the warrantee?

A generic Cadillac issue, not specific to the XLR, is the premium cost of non-XLR specific parts. A reservoir cap for the brake fluid costs $28 from my local Corvette dealer, $38 for the same GM part number from the Caddy dealer.

Now, none of these gripes is a deal-breaker. I love this car, it's the best looking American car of the last ten years. Performance is outstanding (I can only imagine what the V would be like), and the attention it draws is a real ego-tickler. The service I get at my dealer is excellent. Both the writer and the tech seem committed and the tech (even though he only sees 3 or 4 XLRs a year) is very up on the car. I think he scans the XLR forums.

This car is worthy of the Flagship designation for Cadillac. I'm not sure how long this body cycle will last. I'm not even sure how long Cadillac can sustain it, given the miniscule production numbers. I'll probably look to lease my next one (maybe an '08 V) and look forward to enjoying this great car.

Ed

 

[Rob]

Ed,

You've made some excellent points about the XLR.

It's good to hear that your experiences with service at your local dealer have been good. I was wondering what the quality of service would be like.

It's kind of like a Corvette. Unlike most of GM's other platforms, you pay a premium price for a low production, high quality, product and you shouldn't have to bring it to your local dealer and expect to receive the same level of service if you had brought in your Chevy Malibu.

I also agree with your observation of the limited amount of space in the cabin, but it is one of those inherent characteristics that comes along with the design of the car.

I noticed you're from York Harbor, Maine. I love that area. I usually drive out to the coast of NH and Maine every other weekend and head up to the Cliff House. It's one of my favorite drives. I usually head right out to North Hampton beach and then take Route 1 up through Rye and into Portsmouth, then shoot out on to I-95 and up to the Cliff House. I headed up there last weekend, but they're tearing up some of the back roads that lead up there. I was a little annoyed, when I didn't see any construction signs and all of a sudden the road disappeared (a good 2 1/2 inch drop) into sand and gravel). It wasn't pretty.