2026 Cadillac Escalade Sport -- Did 7 Days PROVE This BEATS Navigator??

What's going on YouTube? So the Escalade has long been the gold standard when it comes to flagship luxury SUVs, but rivals are fighting harder than ever. And we just spent a week with the latest Escalade to see if it's still king or if it's been passed up with big rivals like the Lincoln Navigator. Let's go ahead and find out. Let's jump right in with a quick spec dump. So under the hood of all the Escalades besides for the V model, we have the 6.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 engine. It makes 420 horsepower. It's paired to a 10 speed automatic transmission. And with the four wheel drive system, it gets 16 miles per gallon combined. Now the base price of the Escalade this year is $91,000. And if you're looking to buy one or any vehicle, we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash new car quotes to get the best price. Now, of course, we'll take it out for a spin to show you the performance, but first we need to go ahead and shut up the hood and take a look at the very bold and flashy exterior and fancy inside. Now, when it comes to flagship luxury SUVs, you really want to have a lot of presence and a bold design. I think the Escalade certainly still delivers on that. It's not the newest thing on the block, but it has at least as much presence, if not more still than the main competition. And everybody we showed this to this week thought it looked incredibly good and incredibly expensive. Now you can get a few different versions of the Escalade. Of course, we have one of these Sport trims, the Sport Platinum. And what that's going to give you is the full blacked out grille. It's very aggressive. It looks very similar to the full V model. And then you can get all the chrome elements if you prefer that as well. Now moving over here to the headlights, we have a very premium arrangement. You have a stacked crystal LED headlight arrangement. Of course, as you'd expect, it is certainly very, very bright at night. And as we take a look at the back, it really just has that signature Escalade look. Yeah. And I really like the fact that the Sport kind of blacks out some of the elements like this piece through the center. We also have a spoiler right here with a wiper integrated underneath. And let's take a look at our taillights because it wouldn't be an Escalade without those full length, very recognizable taillights. We have the clear lens on board and they're super fancy as you might expect. So we have an LED brake light, LED turn signal and LED reverse light. We also have animations in these taillights. Like I said, they look really special. Now, as we drop down to the lower fascia body color, piano black finish, we also have exposed exhaust outlets with the trapezoidal look and it can tow 8,100 pounds for wheel choices. You have 22 or 24 inch options. We have the 24 inch gloss black alloy. I think it looks really nice here on this sport model. And even though 24 is absolutely massive, honestly, it's hard to picture this with anything smaller. These really look nice on this vehicle. Cadillac logo right there. Mirrors are of course fully loaded as you expect for a flagship, including power folding and auto-dimming. Now at the side of the Escalade, you can really see just how big it is. 211 inches to be exact. And you can also get the ESV for those that need more space and that's around 227 inches. Although I would expect it probably wouldn't fit in your garage at that point. Now we do have a blacked out window surrounds for this sport model. We also have blacked out roof rails at the top. There's a new paint color for 2026 called vibrant white. And when it comes to your safety systems, you'd expect all of those to be standard. And indeed they are. That will include things like adaptive cruise control and additionally standard on the Escalade is super cruise, which is free for three years. That's still the gold standard when it comes to hands-free driving in our books. And like I said, you get it free for three years. But guys, let's go ahead and check out the very fancy cabin. First, if you're new here, we're brothers and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young. And since then we've reviewed over 2000 cars at every price point. No matter what you're looking for from our long-term vehicle videos to our side-by-side comparisons, we'd love for you to subscribe to be a part of our car confections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the latest cars. Now onto the inside. Here is our Cadillac key fob, typical brand key fob. Of course, you have a smart entry system and remote start. Now getting inside the vehicle, you have a little touch sensitive panel here, which will unlock the door. Also, we have the full power door. So these can actually sense areas around you. So they open up at different amounts. And then when you get inside, they'll just automatically close up when you put your foot on the brake. Now let's check out this interior and we'll start with the seats. So the standard Escalade comes with a faux leather. Then you move up to real leather. And then finally, with your top end examples like what we have today, you get a quilted semi-aniline leather. So that's some of the nicest leather in the entire auto industry. It feels very soft and supple. I like the color contrast stitching details and piping throughout. The seats are going to be 12 way power adjusting. So not an incredible number of adjustments for a vehicle at this price point, but you do get massaging on the platinum trim levels and all of course we'll have memory seats. Let's climb inside. And now let's go ahead and look around at the rest of the cabin materials. We'll start over here on the door trim. We have the full leather covering. You have the real metal door handle, real wood trim through there, and then leather all across the upper part of the door trim. Up at the top of the dashboard, we have leather covering, more of the wood trim going through the center section. We have kind of the high gloss finish. You can get other types of wood if you prefer. Leather through there, more wood through here, and nicely padded along the center console. Overall, it's a very nice interior. Has tons of luxury, especially when you're choosing a platinum, including a suede headliner. One thing we would complain about though after a week with it is this panel right here really shows a lot of dust and fingerprints. So just keep that in mind. Let's fire it up with the push-button start. Now we need to look at some individual details of the interior. We'll start with the gauge cluster, but I might as well go ahead and mention, of course, the gigantic display system. 55 inches of displays from basically pillar to pillar, and a large part of that is right here focused in front of the driver. We have a very high resolution display. You can customize it with a lot of things, including Google Maps, but you can also get things like this AR camera. This will project things while you're navigating as well to help that situation. You have a night vision as well as an available option. Up top, we have a large head-up display with plenty of information. And as we move back to the steering wheel, a very premium two-spoke design on board. Soft and supple leather and nice leather covered airbag cover. It is heated and power adjusting with rain sensing wipers, of course, all standard features. Now, let's take a look at interior storage. Checking out the center console. First of all, we've got it loaded down with donuts. Actually, all of them, because if it's 24 donuts, that is the maximum we even carry around with us. So two dozen donuts excels in our test. Now, in front of that, you have a little storage cubby right there, two cup holders, one wireless phone charging pad. So the IQ Escalade does come with two charging pads, but this one's just one. And then you have a little bit of storage on both sides of the console. There's also some storage behind the screen. And then the shifters up here on the column, pull down for drive, you have metal paddle shifters behind the steering wheel. Heading into reverse, here's our standard 360-degree camera system. As you can see, it's a decent resolution. For whatever reason, though, it does not support the 3D spin that some of the other models have. Just press the P there for park. Now, as we move down into this region, I'll take a look at the volume knob next. So you're going to have some AKG audio systems on all Escalade models. We have the top version, though. It's got 38 speakers here on this Platinum. Let's hear a sample. Yeah, so overall, sound quality is phenomenal. It's one of our favorite things about living with the Escalade is the fact that you can listen to all different types of music. They all sound fantastic. You hear little details that you don't even hear in most other vehicles, thanks to the speakers being in the back of the headrest right above you. Really, just everywhere you look, there's some speakers. All right, let's take a look now at one of our other displays. So even outside of the 55-inch display, we have this dedicated display down here for climate controls mostly, but it also has some other vehicle controls as well. So with the climate controls, you have three-zone automatic climate. There could definitely be some more zones for a vehicle at this price point, and you do get more zones in the Escalade IQ, but you can still make your adjustments to front and rear from here. Of course, you have heated and ventilated seats, and I already mentioned the massaging earlier. Now, in terms of some other things, like I was mentioning, you have various controls inside of the vehicle. So here's where you can actually pop in, do things with your seats. You also have things like your headlights and different types of adjustments right there. Now, moving out to the main display, this is, again, a very large display. It's got the latest Cadillac software on board. I want to point out you have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Since this is a gas product, you still keep those features. Inside of the display itself, you have built-in features such as Google Maps and all the other Google applications. You can also have some advanced ambient lighting settings right there. Up top, we have an auto-dimming mirror with HomeLink universal remotes. And then, of course, as you'd expect, we find a panoramic sunroof on board. This is included on the luxury trim and above, and the front panel still opens up. Now, the rear seats of the Escalade are, of course, very important because you're going to have a lot of family trips in this vehicle. And let's start by talking about the space first and foremost. So we're looking at 41.7 inches of legroom, 38.9 inches of headroom. That is going to be a very good space figure for this segment of vehicle. And, of course, I'm 5'9", and the seat is adjusted to Drew, who's 5'8". I brought along the official Car Confections ruler. And the reason I do that is so you can get a realistic knee room figure. And we're still sitting at around 10 inches of knee space. Those are really good numbers for this segment and right on par with things like the Navigator. My feet can slide up underneath of the seats. And speaking of the seats, they do have the ability to slide forward and back as you would expect, as well as recline a good distance. Now, Captain's chairs are actually standard on the Escalade, and they're also going to be standard heated on all models. You can also get an executive rear seating package for $7,500. It's expensive, but that's going to include things like seat ventilation, rear seat massage, all the bougie stuff, even like a tray table here in the back. Now, as far as other features, we have our own climate. I already mentioned the standard heated back seats. You have these pop out cup holders. All of this is nicely leather wrapped here on the Platinum. We also have HDMI ports, as well as two USB-Cs and a household style outlet. Now, you'll notice why we have the HDMIs. That's because the rear seat entertainment system is actually standard on the Platinum grade. That's going to give you both of these screens, and it does have quite a lot of functionality inside. It's definitely upgraded over what you might expect out of some rear seat entertainment systems. We have the vents up here in the ceiling, and let's take a look at the door trim. The door trim is going to be nicely done, besides for not having rear window sunshades. I've complained about that a lot. I really wish they'd add that, but the leather is absolutely everywhere. You have wood all throughout, and you also have storage down in the very bottom. Let's check out the third row as well. In order to get back here, you just press this lever once. That's going to fold the seat down once more, and that's going to tilt the seat up and out of the way. Do be aware, if you're a parent, you would have to fully remove a child's seat. There are better ways of folding the seat. That's for sure to get into the third row. I've complained about that a little bit, but it does make for a really wide opening getting into the third row if you're not going to have a car seat installed. What about the overall legroom back here in the third row? We're sitting at 34.9 inches of legroom. If you get the ESV, it goes up to around 36 inches of legroom. The headroom is 38.2 inches. Overall, those are very good figures. This is a very comfortable third row. The Lincoln Navigator is also very comfortable if you're comparing them. I brought along the official car confections ruler back here as well. We're looking at around two inches of knee space with the seat slid all the way back. My feet can slide up underneath of the seat, and the thigh support is absolutely fantastic back here. You have the same very premium leather seat here in the third row. Although you are missing the center headrest, we have a padded armrest right here, a cup holder, a USB port, and you have vents out of the ceiling. Although I am a little disappointed that you don't have things like third row seat heating. Overall, how this rates on our third row rating scale, I'm going to say this is absolutely fit for adults. Walking up to the tailgate, you continue to be able to pop the glass independently. Of course, you have a standard hands-free tailgate that is power. Let's go ahead and talk about overall cargo capacity. 25 cubic feet behind the third row of seats. If you want to fold them down, power folding third row is standard on every Escalade. You just press these buttons right here. That's going to go ahead and fold those down. That gives you 72 cubic feet. Then if you fold all the seats down, that's going to give you a maximum of around 120 cubic feet. Now, if you want the ESV, the extended wheelbase version, that goes up to around 140 cubic feet of space, so even more than this one. Now, compared to the Navigator, those are going to be similar specs. Speaking of all the rivals you could be looking at, we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings. We've gone through all the full-size flagship SUVs on the market and ranked them in individual categories, things like cargo space, third row, interior technology, luxury features, powertrain choices, so you can really make an informed decision. It's very competitive, of course, and there's a lot of cool features that you won't want to miss out on, so go to carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings to make that informed decision. Now, let's go ahead and get our cargo length, width, and height figures. As far as cargo length, we're sitting at 89 inches behind your seating position. From behind the second row with it slid all the way back, about 53 inches of length, and from behind the third row, about 20 inches. The opening, really impressive, 50 inches wide. The height, also very impressive, 33 inches tall. Let's get our load-in height as well, about 34 inches. We do have an air suspension, so that allows you to lower the vehicle a little bit or raise it up depending on what you need. There's a little bit of underfloor storage. You also have a spare tire. However, I do want to point out, compared to a Navigator, the third row is a 60-40 split fold. The Navigator has a 40-20-40 split folding third row, so that allows you to have long objects while still having more seating capacity. It's also going to have the split gate, which allows for you to have some really good tailgating stuff that's missing here on the Escalade. Well, guys, here we are behind the wheel of the 2026 Cadillac Escalade. This test drive, we'll be discussing quite a lot, as you can see on the screen right now. First and foremost, we need to go ahead and start with a hard acceleration. That's 60 miles an hour with the Escalade. I don't know. It went flying, but shows you it's decently quick, I guess. Yeah, so of course, as we talked about at the beginning, the Escalade continues in 2026 with its 6.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 engine, 420 horsepower, 460 pound-feet of torque. Now, like we were demonstrating, it is pretty quick. Obviously, this is a big SUV, but I will say it's not as quick as the competition. That's one place where the rivals are catching up. They have generally more power than this Escalade, unless you get the V, of course. That's a whole different level. Yeah, but I will say a lot of the rivals that have more power are twin-turbo V6s, so it just depends on what you desire more, but I have to say the V8 growl of this Escalade is very intoxicating. I do love a V8 in this flagship segment just because it does feel really like you're the king of the road when you press the accelerator down, get that V8 growl. That is something that's missing from a lot of the competition. They've kind of tried to do fake sounds or whatever, but nothing replaces the real deal. No replacement for displacement. Now, in some of our big GM SUV videos this year, we've had a lot of comments about the reliability of this 6.2 liter V8. I do want to point out this was recalled 2024 model year and before. GM says that they fixed whatever issue it has on the 2026 model, but just keep that in mind. It did have that reliability thing. There is also the upcoming new generation of their V8 family. So we've just seen the new family of 5.7 and 6.6 liter V8s, which we do expect to come to the Escalade at some point, and that should also bump that power figure up supposedly to about 500 horsepower, which would be a nice thing in addition to the competition. For now, you're sitting at 420 horsepower, 460 pound-feet of torque, unless you choose the V, which comes in at a whopping 682 horsepower and 653 pound-feet of torque. As far as the zero to 60 on both of those, the standard engine option is sitting around six seconds to 60 miles per hour and the V comes in at 4.3 seconds. All right, but let's go ahead and talk about ride quality with the Escalade. Now, this is something that, you know, living with it for a full week gives you a lot of chances to experience just how good it is and the ride quality on this model, I have to say, is really very impressive. Even with the 24-inch wheels on the outside, we have, you know, I think 24s are the largest factory tire size or wheel size that you can get in the entire auto industry and it still does not feel like it at all. You hit a bump in the road, it does a fantastic job of just soaking things up. Really, GM has done an incredible job with this. I leave impressed every single time that I'm experiencing it. You have magnetic ride control, which is standard on the luxury trims and above, and then if you get the platinum level models, that's where you get this air suspension, which really just further increases the ride on this, isolates out all the road imperfections, no vibrations at all, and compared to a lot of the main competitions, such as the Lincoln Navigator, that cannot get an air suspension, so that's a pretty standout feature on this. It's got a 10-speed automatic transmission, as we mentioned earlier, and it is nice and smooth. Certainly can give you access to the power quickly as well by downshifting multiple gears at once. And let's go ahead and get things like our sound level reading so we can see how quiet this flagship SUV is. We'll go 55 miles per hour. We have it on fan speed one with the rear climate off. 53.1 decibels is our sound level reading in the Escalade. We don't have to sit here and guess how it compares to other flagships on the market. We can find that on our website, actually, at carconfections.com slash soundlevelreadings. And indeed, that is a good sound level reading. It's not going to be the quietest options. You know, if you look at some of the not body-on-frame, the unibody crossover-based competition, like the BMW X7, Mercedes GLS, those will have quieter cabins as expected, but overall it's going to be really quiet, which is a good thing because you probably just want to hear that lovely audio system. And now, what about fuel economy? So, like Drew said at the beginning, we come in at 16 miles per gallon combined with the four-wheel drive version. If you get two-wheel drive, it does increase just a little bit. But overall, not fantastic fuel economy. Most of the V6 rivals will get better fuel economy, not by a huge margin, but it will be better than this. And we lived with this model for a full week. We drove 151 miles and what we were sitting at was 15.3 miles per gallon as our real-world experienced fuel economy this week. That's pretty much on par. We were doing mixed city and highway driving to get the 15.3 is on par with that 16 figure. Not fantastic fuel economy. I'm sure you probably didn't expect that though. Coming into an Escalade review, you can get the electric IQ if you're really concerned about efficiency. Let's get into today's slam dunk and airball. I'll start with the slam dunk. That's going to be how well-rounded this Escalade continues to be. As a flagship luxury SUV, there's just certain expectations that people have in their high expectations and Escalade really continues to meet those when it comes to those big areas of having like a bold luxury style, tons of luxury on the interior, a lot of technology, and things that just generally, you know, stand out from regular vehicles. Yeah, it has a lot of wow factor, that's for sure. Now, on the flip side, our airball is going to be the second, third row, and cargo features. Especially when we're talking about compared to the Navigator, it does definitely have it beat in those respects. You know, you do have the available executive seating package, but you have to pay $7,500 for it and, you know, the Navigator is going to be including that in the black label as well as things like a heated third row, the split gate, the 40-20-40 split third row as well. So, all of those are very big advantages, I feel like, if those features matter to you that the Navigator delivers for less money. And what about pricing? So, we start at $91,000, so this isn't a cheap vehicle and you can see the full trim lineup on the screen right now. We have the Platinum Sport, which starts at $120,000. Now, we also have quite a few options, including the four-wheel drive system. So, all told, after Destination, what we're sitting at is $131,370. Destination is a pretty steep $2,600. And if you're curious as to where it's manufactured, it is manufactured in the U.S. in Texas. Now, if you're looking to buy a Cadillac Escalade or any vehicle, we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash new car quotes. The reason you should do that is because we have a tool on our website that'll connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price. It's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information, which is a great tool to use if you plan on doing dealership negotiation. You can find a link to that in our video description, as well as a pinned comment at the top of this video. And there's even things like a monthly payment calculator on there as well. But what about Cadillac's resale reliability and warranty? First up, let's talk about resale value. Cadillac, as a brand, is rated at an estimated 40.73% of retained value after five years and 60,000 miles. And after 10 years and 120,000 miles, 14.65%. Now, it's worth noting that is below industry average for all vehicle brands. However, it is very much on par with most of the main rivals that you'd be looking at with an Escalade, things like BMW, Mercedes, Benz, and Audi. Now, we also have reliability data with our combined reliability index. When we feed into it the latest information, Cadillac is rated above the overall industry average compared to all other vehicle makes. Now, if you'd like to learn more about our resale value, reliability data, or our methodology, you can find all of that on our website, carconfections.com. When it comes to your warranty, you have a four-year, 50,000-mile basic warranty, a six-year, 70,000-mile powertrain warranty. You do also get one complimentary service visit. And guys, that's all for our week-long review of the 2026 Cadillac Escalade Sport Platinum. If you enjoyed hearing about this vehicle and our impressions after living with it for a week, and compared to the Navigator, we'd really appreciate you hitting that subscribe button down below and becoming a part of our CarConfections family. We have a lot of fun on this channel, and I promise you won't want to miss out. If you're already a part of our family, thank you so much for your continued support. You make this all possible, and we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies.