The Cadillac XT6 is Better Value Than The Escalade

I'm Yuri. I'm Jacob. And we're going for a drive. 2020 Cadillac XT6. Sport. Let's start with the horsepower and torque. 310 horsepower, 271 pound-feet of torque from a 3.6 liter naturally aspirated V6. So why does it say 400 on the trunk lid? I have a special stat today. That is apparently the torque figure in Newton meters. But that's not the torque figure in Newton meters. No, it's not. So apparently they have a different number for the torque and they round it up in Newton meters, which we don't use in North America. And made a badge for that on the back. So let me say what the actual number is. 367 Newton meters of torque. So they rounded up to the nearest 50th to get 400. Did you know that I'm actually six feet tall? Yeah, you are if you round up to the nearest next foot. That's weird. You're not allowed to do that Cadillac. Don't do stuff like that. Okay, so now let's get into what this is. Okay, so this is all new three row SUV. It's not body on frame like the Escalade. This slots in just below the Escalade and above the XT5. And then there's also an XT4 as well. That's right. And this one looks like that concept car from the Detroit Auto Show that we went to a couple years ago. Yeah, I think it was called the Escala or something. The one that we said looks like Iron Man. Yeah, and this looks like it and it actually looks really good. Yeah, I'm actually stoked that they came out with like a concept-y style. So do you want to start with the looks now? Well, this is actually the Sport Package and there's also a Premium Luxury Package. Yeah, so the difference with the Sport and the Premium Luxury is basically in the front end and in the taillights. So in the front of this one, we've got a blacked out grill, which looks super awesome. And it's a mesh grill as opposed to like a metal kind of interweaved grill. With more chrome and we've got like more chrome delete on this as well. And we also have different headlights on this one, which I actually prefer to the luxury trim. I think out of all the new Cadillac SUVs, this is the best looking one. Yeah, and I also like how the bumper kind of wraps over itself at the bottom. It kind of looks like someone biting over their under lip. Yeah, I can see that. And then we also do have some fake grills up there, but it's a luxury car, not really a sporty car. So it doesn't really matter. Yeah, pretty much every car has fake grills. So there you go. And if we look at the side view, the overall profile looks all right. Nothing too crazy. Yeah, it's not like big and menacing like the Escalade. It looks kind of just run of the mill. Yeah, but since this is a sport model, it's all blacked out. So all the chrome around the window trim is just black. Yeah, and I definitely think it looks better this way. And the wheels also look much better on the sport trim. So I really like these wheels. To be honest, none of these wheels across the packages do anything for me. I do think that they could have done better. And what is the Continental recommended tire for the XT6? The Cross Contact UHP. So now let's move on to the back end. I like it, but, again, it doesn't stand out too much. You know what grinds my gears? Oh, I know. The taillights don't go all the way up. Just like the Escalade. Like, even the XT4, the taillights go all the way up. Yeah, that's true. That's a Cadillac thing. They should not stop that of all the things they change. I agree with that. Overall, though, it does look all right. We do have the fake exhaust, typical of basically every manufacturer right now. Yeah, not too much stands out. It's, I think, also pretty run of the mill back end. Yeah. I think the front end is the money in this car. Exactly. But, you know, we also have in the back an illuminated logo. Okay, so we asked about that because you guys complained when we complained about it in the Escalade because it's useless most of the time. So it projects to the right or the left. I think in this one it's to the left. In the Escalade, it's to the right. And the reason it's not centered is because that's where they want you to kick to open it. But you can't see it during the day. Yeah, so it's a feature that works less than half the time. And it doesn't say kick. Like if they projected the word kick here. Kick me or kick here. That would be way better. Anyways. So you do have an illuminated logo. It's still not centered. So now that we're done with the looks, we should also probably tell people where we are. So Cadillac invited us to this little island outside of PEI, but it's actually Quebec. Yeah, so it's called Île de la Madeleine, and it's actually a beautiful place. Yeah, this place is like, it feels like I'm in a different world. It's like French PEI. That's what it feels like. So next I want to talk about the interior because it's a lot different than the Escalade we drove, which we weren't too fond about. Yeah, they've actually upgraded a lot, and I really like it. We've got this cool carbon fiber inlay on the dash. And the best part is it's glossy, and it's got a fade from the bottom off in black. And it's real woven carbon fiber. I think this looks so cool for a luxury car. I think it's kind of out of place in a car like this, but they've done such a good job that I really like it. And then the rest of the materials look pretty fancy, but, like, this is like hard plastic, not actually leather wrapped. Well, it's like, yeah, some kind of simulated leather wrap type thing. But then, like, the metal materials and, like, the dash, everything is very nice. The steering wheel is nice. And it looks really good, too. The seats. The seats are really comfortable. I've had no issues with them. Yeah, except for there is no massage. Yeah, that is a bit of a miss. I feel like they need to add more features to beat other manufacturers than just kind of match them. Yeah, I think that's kind of the theme of this whole car. It's like they just caught up. Yeah, exactly. And since it's a three-row, we need to see if we can fit in all three. Yeah, so if I were to sit in all three rows behind myself in my most comfortable positions, I don't really fit in the second or third row, especially not the third row. However, if I were to move those seats up just a little bit, I'm actually really comfortable. And I'm actually more comfortable in the third row than I am in the Escalade because the floor is lower. And since you're 7 feet tall and I'm 6 feet tall. We've rounded up. Yeah, we're 400. Perfectly fine. That's right. And in the second row, we actually have heated seats as well, which is pretty nice. And we do have the captain's chairs option in this one. And from the trunk, there's a button so we can drop the middle seats, but we can't raise them. But we can drop and raise the very back row from the trunk. But then we won't have too much room when the back seats are up. Right, yeah. The trunk space is pretty lacking in terms of like the trunk with all the seats up. And then I noticed if you've got the middle row up and you try to lift the back row, it usually sticks on the middle row. So you need to drop the middle row, then raise the back row, and then open up the door, get in there and lift the seat. So it's all kind of useless. Yeah, because the headrests hit. Yeah, it's all just a little too long on each end. Yeah, just a little bit. And there's also an issue with getting into the third row. That's right. So there's actually a little bit of a lip at the door. So I end up kicking it every time I try and get in or out. Yeah, even when you slide the seat forward, there's not enough room. It's just enough for the width of one shoe. Yeah, if they shave that down just a little bit, it'd be fine. I think, personally, if you're getting a three row, you should just get a minivan. But you're not the market for this. No. And, okay, marketing. Yeah, let's talk about that. They've got a new commercial called, like, they're not targeting this towards families. They're targeting it towards your crew. Your crew, your boys. All the people you're hanging out with. Yeah. And it's like, all right. Honestly, if my crew picked me up and told me to sit in the back row, I'd be like, I think I need a new crew. Yeah, like shot not. Because it's hard to fit that many adults in here, right? Yeah, exactly. You know when you call an Uber and you get an Uber XL, you're like, I'm going to get a minivan. We're all going to fit in there. And then they show up with, like, a Santa Fe XL. And you're like, oh, no. Yeah. That's what this feels like if the crew is picking you up. This is much more luxurious. But, yeah, I understand. Just because a third row space for adults. Plus, adults don't really, like, pile into an SUV like that. They just drive multiple vehicles. Yeah. Especially if they're dressing as nice as they do in that commercial. Okay. With all that interior stuff, your turn to get behind the wheel, talk about the driving, and we'll talk about all the cool tech. Because they've made a lot of improvements. Launch control. Doesn't have it. It's actually not too bad. It's the amount of speed that I would have wanted in the Palisade IntelliRide. Exactly. So those are felt underpowered. This feels, like, just right. Well, because they have 400 newton meters of torque. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 367, 400. Honestly, though, the drivetrain is good. It is naturally aspirated, so there's no turbo lag. There's no waiting for anything like that. It's a totally adequate amount of power. Now, this transmission is a nine-speed auto. Not the best. It's relatively smooth. But I have an issue with how it shifts with the paddles. So the paddles, first of all, are very high quality. I really like the paddles, the feel of the paddles. Everyone take notes. These are fantastic. These are amazing. But the problem is the clickiness of them kind of sucks. It's soft. Exactly. It's really soft. You don't get that click, click? No. And then when you use them, so I'm going to downshift, downshift, and send, and click. There, it shifted. Wow. Yeah, so there's a bit of a delay. So as nice as they are, I wouldn't bother using them. Yeah, but it's not that kind of vehicle anyways. Exactly. So other than that, the transmission is really good. And then as for drive modes, we've got touring, all-wheel drive touring, sport, and off-road. In Canada, though, everything comes in all-wheel drive. But in the States, you can get a couple front-wheel drive options. But let's explain how the front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive works in here because it's actually really cool. So if you have it in tour, this is only front-wheel drive. So we will only power the front wheels. When you go to tour all-wheel drive and all the modes above that, it is all-wheel drive, which is really cool because that's going to save you a lot of gas if you just drive in tour. And then the sport model actually has a lot of mechanical differences, which is pretty cool for a company to do that because it's not just visual changes. Yeah, like they've got like double clutches in the back to get you out of sticky situations and stuff like that. Yeah, so apparently this can send up to 100% of the torque to the back, and then it uses like a dual-plate clutch to send power to each individual wheel. But it does have an open diff in the front. So if your back wheels are slipping and then one of your front wheels is slipping, you're just going to be stuck anyways. But overall, like most storms and stuff, you'll probably be fine because it's a pretty advanced system. But don't think you're going to be having any fun with it. No, exactly. Just like a nice normal driving car. Yeah. And when you put it in sport mode, your throttle gets a lot more sensitive, the steering gets a little bit sharper, and the sport model actually has a quicker steering ratio, which we haven't driven the luxury model, but this is actually really good for the way it handles and the way that it just feels. Like there's nothing weird about the steering. Yeah, it's totally fine. And even putting it in sport mode, because this does have the adaptive dampers, it's still really comfortable. Like there's not that big of a difference between tour and sport. And it's like very quiet and comfortable in here in general. Yeah, like I could drive in sport all day, and yeah, like you said, it is quiet in here because this does have active noise cancellation. But this won't start in sport mode. It'll only start in either all-wheel drive touring or front-wheel drive touring. That's right. So unfortunately, we have not driven a Cadillac with Super Cruise yet, and it might be up until 2022 until we get Super Cruise in this. So I think only the CT6 currently has it, but they're expanding it to every model in the next two years. But this has normal lane departure assist, which does a pretty good job of pulling you out if you kind of forget where you're going. Yeah, if you bump the lane, it'll kind of pull you back in. And then I guess we should probably get into the infotainment and all the cool techie stuff this has. We probably should. But first, the small cup of coffee test. I don't have one right now. Here, insert video clip. It looks fine. Visor test. Oh, these visors feel cheap. 3, 2, 1. Yes! Good job, Cadillac. Although they kind of feel like they're covered in cardboard or vinyl. They're very thin, but they slide. Yeah, they slide, so that's a pass. And we couldn't bring our boxes for the box test on the plane. Sorry about that. Yeah, maybe next time we'll check them in. So let's get to the techie stuff. What do you want to talk about first? How this infotainment is different from the Escalade, because the Escalade had all those piano black buttons. And this has a scroll wheel. Yeah, so it does have gloss black, but it's very minimal compared to the old Escalade, so this is much, much better. And then we've got the scroll wheel, so they're finally on par with all the other luxury brands, like BMW, Mercedes. Audi had it for a while. Now it's gone. Whoa, whoa. What features does this have? Jog mode. They said the joystick has jog mode, but it's just a normal joystick. Yeah, so it just moves left and right. Is that what jog meant? That's what jog. So I can do this. That's jog. And then we also have our little shortcut buttons down there, so we can go to our music. Our navigation button will go to your Apple CarPlay, Google Maps, Apple Maps, whatever you're using, or your Android Auto Maps, which is super convenient. Yeah, so this does have all of those things. And then we also have satellite radio in here, and now it rewinds. There you go. I'm not exactly sure how many stations. I think it's at least 10. Yeah, you kept adding favorites, and it just kept rewinding. Because you can change your favorites to auto. I don't know, but it does do it now, and you can control from the scroll wheel, which is super nice. It definitely feels more luxurious than the Escalade did. Yeah, yeah, for sure it does. Just because of the scroll wheel and the features that it has and how the features work, and there's no lag in the infotainment. Yeah, it's very nice. Then let's get to our 360 cameras. Yeah, they're super high res. They're HD. They're amazing. Luxury car levels, finally. Good job. And then we've got the front wheel. We can look at the back wheel, all the angles. We've got the mode where we can see the car from the outside, from the front and the back. But you can't pan around like you can with the X7 and the Audi. Some of the stitching is kind of warpy, but it's very good for parking and everything. We also do have park assist in this car. And then we also have this video recorder feature, which is supposed to work like Tesla's Sentry mode, but we couldn't actually get it to work. Well, first of all, we couldn't find where the SD card slot was because we read the manual, and it says, take apart the whole dashboard we did. There was no slot there for the SD card, but I think they're making an amendment to that in the owner's manual. So the actual SD card slot is down here, but then once we put it in, it still didn't work. And we used the crappy old SD card like they usually ask. Yeah, exactly. Maybe we've got to use a faster one now. I don't know. Anyways, it doesn't work for us. Maybe this is because this is an early model, but just check if yours has it, because that's probably a pretty cool feature. And then another cool feature that Cadillacs have, we've got a camera in the rear view mirror. That is cool. And I noticed that you can change the zoom level, and then you notice that you can even change up or down where it is. Or the brightness, because I guess if you zoom in, you want to be able to see all the way back to the horizon. I do like having that option, but I would just always have it off until like I absolutely needed it. Like when it's dark or like raining or something because- Or even towing. You can rinse that off by holding your rear rinse setting. Yeah, exactly. But I really like this mirror. It's super high res. I just wouldn't use it all the time, because I find it a little bit distracting. Maybe you have to turn the brightness down to match the ambient. Yeah, maybe. Then this also does have a night vision camera. Yeah, so it's like the Porsche Cayenne and stuff, and the BMW X7, I believe, also has that. So it'll actually highlight people and deer and all that fun stuff. And we do have heated and cooled seats and a heated steering wheel as well. So let's talk about the steering wheel itself. I love the feel of it. The leather actually feels quite nice. I like the button layout, and I like seeing this carbon fiber in it. Let's finish off with these gauges. Analog on the sides, digital in the middle. I think they kind of blew it on that. I totally agree. It's not impressive enough for being a Cadillac, like a super luxury SUV. Maybe it needs some like better graphic design, some cooler graphics, but it's too similar to the Silverado gauges that I drove when I went on my PEI trip. Yeah, that's the problem. So Cadillac has now stepped up to compete directly with every manufacturer. They're no longer below, but nothing has blown me away that they're above any other manufacturer in terms of like super luxury or crazy features. Yeah. Isn't this kind of reminiscent of how like Genesis is like coming from Hyundai, but they still have a little too many elements of Hyundai in there. Exactly. So they're definitely on the right track, and this is a really good SUV. It just doesn't blow me away in any way. So I guess with all that out of the way, let's see if they screwed it up with the price. I don't think they did because let's start with the premium luxury trim, which starts at $60,998. Canadian. How about the sport? $63,798. And this one sitting at? $73,193, which I think is a good price because it undercuts BMW and Mercedes, but it's kind of on par with like Lincoln and stuff. If you don't want something as big as an Escalade or if you can't fit it in your driveway or something like that, I think this is a really good smaller version of an Escalade that handles better, drives better, and I think the front end kind of looks better. It looks more up to date. The thing is when I was driving the Escalade, no matter what all of our complaints were, I felt like 10 times better about myself in the Escalade than I do in this. This just doesn't like do it for me like the Escalade did. That is true, but I really do like what they did with this. I think they positioned it correctly for the price. So let us know where the Cadillac XT6 slots in with other three-row luxury SUVs like the Acura MDX, the BMW X7, Audi Q7. Yeah, let us know. Don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell. Patreon.com slash TheStraightFives and Teespring.com for cool shirts. Not like that, though. It's a cool shirt. We just don't have it.