2016 Cadillac ATS-V Review - Baby Aston Martin

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be checking out the 2016 cadillac ats v and you know i have to apologize to all the people living in oregon because whenever i have an epic car in it always seems to rain the entire week and this car seriously delivers the goods under the hood is a 3.6 liter twin turbo v6 engine producing 464 horsepower and 445 pound-feet of torque you'll notice that's slightly higher than the base corvette there are two transmission options a six-speed manual with downshift rev matching and no lift shifting and i'll be testing the 8-speed automatic unit the same gearbox out of the stingray performance elements include high capacity cooling all around launch control brembo brakes magnetic ride suspension an electronic limited slip differential a carbon fiber hood with an air extractor reducing dragon lift quad exhaust tips and one of my favorite features the performance data recorder pdr is something that i'd be happy for every sports car to come with now the ats v comes with michelin super sport tires on it and so when it's cold and wet like it is right now what that means is anytime you put your foot down you simply have that happen it just spins um i've had it even in third gear at 40 miles an hour put my foot down kept it in third and it still spins so you know these tires aren't fantastic in the cold wet which i'll be testing them in so it is unfortunate uh but regardless this vehicle's performance is actually really really impressive same 0 to 63.8 seconds as a corvette yet this is 400 pounds heavier and on top of that it has another gear shift within that 60 miles per hour because although it has the same gear ratios as the corvette it has a slightly more aggressive final drive and so it's got another gear shift in there and so that kind of tells you a little bit about the gearbox how fast it is to change gears and regarding the transmission that is really the story if you're about five tenths or above uh anything above that where you know you're kind of going for it the transmission shifts really quickly if you're below that you know just kind of cruising around and you put it over into the manual mode like i did now uh and you do a downshift you know it takes a little bit for it to happen it's not the smoothest shifting and it's not the fastest shifting when you're just kind of puttering around in that case it's really not that necessary and i don't think it's that big of a critique the only reason i bring it up is because there are cars like the f-type with zf8 speed and it's very quick very smooth at pretty much any speed uh depending on you know if you're really going for it or even if you're just kind of putting around uh town or something like that it's very smooth and very fast whereas this is pretty much only fast if you're just kind of going for it now another vehicle which features that same zf8 speed is the aston martin vanquish and normally i wouldn't compare these two vehicles uh but it was the last vehicle i tested and there actually are some surprising parallels they're both a little bit over 3 800 pounds they both have a 5149 weight distribution the vanquish puts the transmission in the back this has a battery in the back so similar weight distributions they both have very similar 0 to 60s the vanquish at 3.6 seconds this at 3.8 seconds both eight-speed automatic transmissions as i've mentioned um and you know from a performance standpoint this really seems like it could hold its own against the vanquish which isn't you know an all-out sports car but that said it's impressive how much performance you get from this it's not to kind of you know downplay the vanquish it's more so to say that this is a very capable car and yet all the while it does have a nice amount of luxury features so this has the optional recaro seats which for the most part i really like they're really well bolstered um for me i don't have the greatest posture and they seem to have a significant amount of lumbar support even on the lowest setting and maybe my crooked spine is the reason why i don't like it but overall it doesn't seem to be super comfortable for long rides that's just personally for me and i think it's more so my own posture rather than the car itself they are comfortable seats a little bit firm but you know they've got a nice amount of bolstering to them so when you're kind of going for it they do feel nice visibility out the front is pretty good same story to the sides out the back not too bad a little bit narrow of a window back there but you also do have a rear view camera so i really haven't had any issues as far as visibility is concerned the mirrors are a little narrow on the outside and really long it seems like they could be a little bit shorter and taller but other than that i mean you know visibility the overall story is pretty good as far as the interior there are some things i don't really like and it comes down to the climate control settings mostly now this is something that i just don't get when there's a luxury vehicle and it has to do something different and by doing something different it highly over complicates something that could be very simple and so with the climate control settings here in order to change the temperature you have to you know select one at a time higher or lower one degree so you sit there and you're tapping with your finger to get it to the same point where you know most cars you're just gonna have a scroll or a wheel you just set it to the right temperature you're spending no time looking away from the road you know touching this uh touch interface here which is kind of uh strange to use and so i like systems which are quicker which don't you know make you take your eyes off the road for very long and you can just simply do it or maybe not even look at it whereas this you know you've got to have your finger in the right spot it's just a smooth surface that you're touching and it does kind of have a little vibration when you touch it but overall i think it's kind of a slow system and i think it'd be better if there was something less complicated to use the sound system however is fantastic it's got a nice quiet interior in here um and you know you can really crank the volume it's got a lot of bass a good sound system really rich and so i have enjoyed that the steering wheel for the most part i have liked uh how it feels it's a pretty heavy system but it does seem to give decent feedback uh the one thing that i would note on it is on the highway when you're kind of just going in a straight line it seems to give you some artificial feedback uh very similar to the audi s4 which i tested where it kind of gives you a little electronic resistance um in a direction where you know you're just going in a straight line and suddenly the wheel kind of wants to turn on you and it changes back and forth and so you'll just be holding it straight and it kind of changes its mind as you're going straight and it feels very artificial other than that you know when you're kind of going for it when you're in a windy road you don't notice anything like that where it's kind of uncertain of what setting it should be doing and what resistance it should be providing so overall i have like the steering feel you also do have the ability to change a lot of the settings so you've got your touring your sport your track modes and your wet mode and for these different settings you know you're altering the transmission quickness you're altering the throttle mapping um the suspension settings it's a you know magnetic ride control and so there's a lot of things that will change as you go into the different modes as well as you know the traction control and stability control systems and you can put it into the track mode and that's where you can enable launch control and use some of the other features like that so coming into some corners here the weight of the steering builds nicely as you corner in not much body roll i've got it in sport mode and the magnetic ride takes care of that nice firm steering feel you know any moment though with the wrong throttle application the rear just kicks out so much power to be put down and these michelin super sport tires for summer don't like these conditions that said you know seems to be a nice neutrally handling vehicle really like the steering when you're in the corners there now this is a heavy vehicle and you certainly do feel the heft at just over 3 800 pounds but i wouldn't say it necessarily feels that heavy you know it does feel a little bit lighter than that still bulky but you know it feels pretty nimble considering how much it weighs and because it has so much power you know you don't really notice it from an acceleration standpoint because it pulls extremely hard you've got something like 13 psi of boost is what i've read on the gauge with my foot planted so it's pretty impressive how much power it can put down and it's got a nice smooth delivery to that power you know there are some turbocharged engines out there which kind of you wait and you wait and then it builds and you get into the boost this one has a nice progressive build into the boost and so it doesn't kind of just slam you with power unless you know you step down a couple gears then it will but you know if you're just you know getting into the power what happens is it kind of just slowly builds the boost it's a nice linear fashion and it's very controllable in that sense that you get an ease into the boost and it kind of feels like a naturally aspirated engine from that standpoint but with just an absurd amount of torque now one of the downsides to weight of course is going to be the fuel economy it's actually not that bad of a story 16 in the city 24 on the highway considering how much it weighs and considering how much power it has also in my own testing i did a little over 27 miles per gallon which is pretty good so you know if you aren't really going for it if you could consistently get in the upper 20s not too bad of a story yeah there's probably some cars out there that do better and then you know when you're actually going for it you're not going to get that fuel economy but that's you know given when you know you're putting your foot down now of course we will try and get a 0 to 60 in uh that said i already know it's going to be a bad time i did try using the launch control and i got 7.2 seconds uh so you know these tires just cannot hook up in these conditions it's too cold it's too wet for these summer tires so what i'm going to do is start in second kind of ease on to the throttle uh and then switching to third and go flat out and you know we'll see the best it can do given the conditions so foot on the brake in the second rev it up a little bit foot off the brake it's just not going to be good in these conditions it was spinning far too much there uh in second gear even from a start at very low rpm so you know it's unfortunate but uh that's that's the best i can do here now i was trying throughout the day to get a better time um you know kind of just trying different strategies to see how i could launch in these conditions i'm pretty sure none of them will be that great but i'll see you know if any of them are decently quick and show those numbers now it's a bit unfortunate that weather's been the way it has and i haven't really been able to put this car through its paces but i really have enjoyed driving it you know it's kind of like a luxury corvette and you know it has a lot of similarities with that vehicle very capable very fast nice interior overall it's a great package thank you guys for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them belowhello everyone and welcome in this video we're going to be checking out the 2016 cadillac ats v and you know i have to apologize to all the people living in oregon because whenever i have an epic car in it always seems to rain the entire week and this car seriously delivers the goods under the hood is a 3.6 liter twin turbo v6 engine producing 464 horsepower and 445 pound-feet of torque you'll notice that's slightly higher than the base corvette there are two transmission options a six-speed manual with downshift rev matching and no lift shifting and i'll be testing the 8-speed automatic unit the same gearbox out of the stingray performance elements include high capacity cooling all around launch control brembo brakes magnetic ride suspension an electronic limited slip differential a carbon fiber hood with an air extractor reducing dragon lift quad exhaust tips and one of my favorite features the performance data recorder pdr is something that i'd be happy for every sports car to come with now the ats v comes with michelin super sport tires on it and so when it's cold and wet like it is right now what that means is anytime you put your foot down you simply have that happen it just spins um i've had it even in third gear at 40 miles an hour put my foot down kept it in third and it still spins so you know these tires aren't fantastic in the cold wet which i'll be testing them in so it is unfortunate uh but regardless this vehicle's performance is actually really really impressive same 0 to 63.8 seconds as a corvette yet this is 400 pounds heavier and on top of that it has another gear shift within that 60 miles per hour because although it has the same gear ratios as the corvette it has a slightly more aggressive final drive and so it's got another gear shift in there and so that kind of tells you a little bit about the gearbox how fast it is to change gears and regarding the transmission that is really the story if you're about five tenths or above uh anything above that where you know you're kind of going for it the transmission shifts really quickly if you're below that you know just kind of cruising around and you put it over into the manual mode like i did now uh and you do a downshift you know it takes a little bit for it to happen it's not the smoothest shifting and it's not the fastest shifting when you're just kind of puttering around in that case it's really not that necessary and i don't think it's that big of a critique the only reason i bring it up is because there are cars like the f-type with zf8 speed and it's very quick very smooth at pretty much any speed uh depending on you know if you're really going for it or even if you're just kind of putting around uh town or something like that it's very smooth and very fast whereas this is pretty much only fast if you're just kind of going for it now another vehicle which features that same zf8 speed is the aston martin vanquish and normally i wouldn't compare these two vehicles uh but it was the last vehicle i tested and there actually are some surprising parallels they're both a little bit over 3 800 pounds they both have a 5149 weight distribution the vanquish puts the transmission in the back this has a battery in the back so similar weight distributions they both have very similar 0 to 60s the vanquish at 3.6 seconds this at 3.8 seconds both eight-speed automatic transmissions as i've mentioned um and you know from a performance standpoint this really seems like it could hold its own against the vanquish which isn't you know an all-out sports car but that said it's impressive how much performance you get from this it's not to kind of you know downplay the vanquish it's more so to say that this is a very capable car and yet all the while it does have a nice amount of luxury features so this has the optional recaro seats which for the most part i really like they're really well bolstered um for me i don't have the greatest posture and they seem to have a significant amount of lumbar support even on the lowest setting and maybe my crooked spine is the reason why i don't like it but overall it doesn't seem to be super comfortable for long rides that's just personally for me and i think it's more so my own posture rather than the car itself they are comfortable seats a little bit firm but you know they've got a nice amount of bolstering to them so when you're kind of going for it they do feel nice visibility out the front is pretty good same story to the sides out the back not too bad a little bit narrow of a window back there but you also do have a rear view camera so i really haven't had any issues as far as visibility is concerned the mirrors are a little narrow on the outside and really long it seems like they could be a little bit shorter and taller but other than that i mean you know visibility the overall story is pretty good as far as the interior there are some things i don't really like and it comes down to the climate control settings mostly now this is something that i just don't get when there's a luxury vehicle and it has to do something different and by doing something different it highly over complicates something that could be very simple and so with the climate control settings here in order to change the temperature you have to you know select one at a time higher or lower one degree so you sit there and you're tapping with your finger to get it to the same point where you know most cars you're just gonna have a scroll or a wheel you just set it to the right temperature you're spending no time looking away from the road you know touching this uh touch interface here which is kind of uh strange to use and so i like systems which are quicker which don't you know make you take your eyes off the road for very long and you can just simply do it or maybe not even look at it whereas this you know you've got to have your finger in the right spot it's just a smooth surface that you're touching and it does kind of have a little vibration when you touch it but overall i think it's kind of a slow system and i think it'd be better if there was something less complicated to use the sound system however is fantastic it's got a nice quiet interior in here um and you know you can really crank the volume it's got a lot of bass a good sound system really rich and so i have enjoyed that the steering wheel for the most part i have liked uh how it feels it's a pretty heavy system but it does seem to give decent feedback uh the one thing that i would note on it is on the highway when you're kind of just going in a straight line it seems to give you some artificial feedback uh very similar to the audi s4 which i tested where it kind of gives you a little electronic resistance um in a direction where you know you're just going in a straight line and suddenly the wheel kind of wants to turn on you and it changes back and forth and so you'll just be holding it straight and it kind of changes its mind as you're going straight and it feels very artificial other than that you know when you're kind of going for it when you're in a windy road you don't notice anything like that where it's kind of uncertain of what setting it should be doing and what resistance it should be providing so overall i have like the steering feel you also do have the ability to change a lot of the settings so you've got your touring your sport your track modes and your wet mode and for these different settings you know you're altering the transmission quickness you're altering the throttle mapping um the suspension settings it's a you know magnetic ride control and so there's a lot of things that will change as you go into the different modes as well as you know the traction control and stability control systems and you can put it into the track mode and that's where you can enable launch control and use some of the other features like that so coming into some corners here the weight of the steering builds nicely as you corner in not much body roll i've got it in sport mode and the magnetic ride takes care of that nice firm steering feel you know any moment though with the wrong throttle application the rear just kicks out so much power to be put down and these michelin super sport tires for summer don't like these conditions that said you know seems to be a nice neutrally handling vehicle really like the steering when you're in the corners there now this is a heavy vehicle and you certainly do feel the heft at just over 3 800 pounds but i wouldn't say it necessarily feels that heavy you know it does feel a little bit lighter than that still bulky but you know it feels pretty nimble considering how much it weighs and because it has so much power you know you don't really notice it from an acceleration standpoint because it pulls extremely hard you've got something like 13 psi of boost is what i've read on the gauge with my foot planted so it's pretty impressive how much power it can put down and it's got a nice smooth delivery to that power you know there are some turbocharged engines out there which kind of you wait and you wait and then it builds and you get into the boost this one has a nice progressive build into the boost and so it doesn't kind of just slam you with power unless you know you step down a couple gears then it will but you know if you're just you know getting into the power what happens is it kind of just slowly builds the boost it's a nice linear fashion and it's very controllable in that sense that you get an ease into the boost and it kind of feels like a naturally aspirated engine from that standpoint but with just an absurd amount of torque now one of the downsides to weight of course is going to be the fuel economy it's actually not that bad of a story 16 in the city 24 on the highway considering how much it weighs and considering how much power it has also in my own testing i did a little over 27 miles per gallon which is pretty good so you know if you aren't really going for it if you could consistently get in the upper 20s not too bad of a story yeah there's probably some cars out there that do better and then you know when you're actually going for it you're not going to get that fuel economy but that's you know given when you know you're putting your foot down now of course we will try and get a 0 to 60 in uh that said i already know it's going to be a bad time i did try using the launch control and i got 7.2 seconds uh so you know these tires just cannot hook up in these conditions it's too cold it's too wet for these summer tires so what i'm going to do is start in second kind of ease on to the throttle uh and then switching to third and go flat out and you know we'll see the best it can do given the conditions so foot on the brake in the second rev it up a little bit foot off the brake it's just not going to be good in these conditions it was spinning far too much there uh in second gear even from a start at very low rpm so you know it's unfortunate but uh that's that's the best i can do here now i was trying throughout the day to get a better time um you know kind of just trying different strategies to see how i could launch in these conditions i'm pretty sure none of them will be that great but i'll see you know if any of them are decently quick and show those numbers now it's a bit unfortunate that weather's been the way it has and i haven't really been able to put this car through its paces but i really have enjoyed driving it you know it's kind of like a luxury corvette and you know it has a lot of similarities with that vehicle very capable very fast nice interior overall it's a great package thank you guys for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below\n"