2004 Cadillac CTS from North America - Comments

The tires that are on the car have lost all their tread. This initially began at approximately 18,000 miles and as of today, the front tires are completely bald, and will be replaced.

There is no problem with the car, just the tires; however, I do not know if that problem is initially due to poor car design.

Funny...all the other CTS reviews are atleast satisfactory. If you don't like a car because the tires are bad, get new tires. If you can afford a Cadillac, you can afford a good set of tires. There's apparently nothing wrong with the car or it would shake or vibrate, it's just the low price tires that GM uses to keep the costs down on their cars, so the money you spend goes into the quality of the car instead.

Sadly, the CTS base models do come with some very poorly sized and under-engineered tires. As the previous comment states, it is a very sound and wise investment to upgrade to some high-end performance tires. I found out the hard way about cheap tires. I wanted to save money on one of our vehicles and opted for some rather inexpensive off-brand tires with very poor road-holding ability. One week after installing the tires another driver pulled out in front of me on a rain-slicked road and I might as well have been on ice. The tires had no grip at all and I skidded into the other car, totalling both vehicles. My vehicle DID have anti-lock brakes, incidentally. The cheap tires skidded anyway. Not long after that, I was driving my wife's luxury SUV and an identical incident occurred. It was raining and a careless driver pulled directly out in front of us. Her car, equipped with 17" Michelin all-weather radials, stopped so quickly I couldn't believe it!! It felt as if we were on dry pavement rather than in the middle of a downpour. Do yourself and your passengers a big favor and invest in some high-end tires.

Shouldn't a high end car, come with high end tires? just wondering. Where else did they cheap out in?

"What else did they cheap out in?"

Interiors, quality, chassis components, etc.

One automobile pub had a CTS-V, the top of the line, for a long term test and it had endless quality problems during its tenure with them.

Disliking a car because of it's tires is like disliking a person because of their hair.

With regard to comment 10:08, a top automotive magazine (possibly the same one referred to by the commenter) was doing a test on a brand new and fabulously expensive European luxury car when it blew a tire and crashed. Gee, I wonder what else on THAT car was also "on the cheap"??

It's interesting that Mercedes now has the WORST reliability ratings of ANY car in Consumer Reports surveys. Fully EIGHT of the Mercedes line has "worse than average" reliability. In terms of reliability the CTS exceeds most BMW and Mercedes models easily.

Stock tires are notoriously lousy, especially on base models. Car makers primarily put on tires that a) maximize fuel economy (i.e. tires with less traction), and b) are cheap, because it's so easy to "hide" a subpar tire in a sales brochure. Most everybody understands things like horsepower and fuel economy, and can instantly judge whether an interior is nice or not, but unless you take your test drive on the track or in inclement weather, you'll have no idea whether the stock Michelin/Bridgestone/whatever is any good or not.

I was amazed at the improvement in grip when I replaced my stock Ford Contour tires with some Fuzion ZRIs (Firestone sub-brand). Even when brand new my stock tires were a little slippery in the rain and downright scary in snow. The Fuzions were a huge improvement, but at a price of $500.

I have a 2003 CTS and I love my car. I am not happy with having to get tires so often. Has anyone ever heard of a different alignment that would make the tires last longer? My husbands saw somewhere about not setting up the CTS as a sports car, but as a regular car and the tires would last longer. Anyone else ever heard that??

I don't own a Cadillac, but my Lexus es 330 2005 has 24000 miles on it and it needs a second set of tires already.

Sure it is a Cadillac and you hope the stock OEM tires would be better, but they are not. Rest assure the same happen with other manufacturers too. Those are usually the first thing I look forward to replace as some OEM tires aren't just cheap, but downright dangerous to drive on!

If you love the CTS, you would want to enhance that experience with better tires for a few hundred dollars. Your life worth at least that much I hope.