2011 Cadillac SRX AWD Premium Review

The 2011 Cadillac SRX in its natural habitat. A winding road.

The picture above is a good illustration of the kind of use a Cadillac driver might have for the all-wheel, rather than the front-wheel-drive version of the Cadillac SRX. Not rock climbing or stream fording, but road holding...in wet, cold weather on twisty roads.

Crossovers of this size generally don't inspire enthusiastic driving (with the exception of the Mazda CX-9), but the Cadillac SRX definitely does.

Our most recent week in one was courtesy Lund Cadillac in Phoenix, Arizona. And it reminded us just what a strong contender the SRX is. It's a CTS with more space. A sport sedan you can fold the back seats down in and carry stuff home from the big box store. And it's simply a ball to drive.

The 2011 Cadillac SRX has a 3-position power hatch.

Start with the SRX AWD Premium. Immediately you're at $49,370. But look at what that gets you: a 3.0-liter V6 making 265 horsepower and a six-speed automatic transmission, an electronic limited-slip differential, sport suspension, continuously variable real-time chassis damping (which includes the FE3 sport suspension),  speed-sensitive, variable effort rack and pinion power steering, and a dual stainless-steel exhaust with chrome tips. Plus 20 inch aluminum wheels, a tire inflation kit, a double-sized glass sunroof, chrome roof rails, Xenon HID headlamps with adaptive forward lighting, washers and leveling, fog lamps, heated, power-adjustable, power-folding outside mirrors (the driver's side dims automatically when headlamps approach) rain-sensing wipers and a liftgate that you can set to open to different degrees.

Like the CTS, the 2011 Cadillac SRX has one of the best interiors in the automotive biz.

And then, you've got one of the nicest interiors in the biz in which to do your biz. And the standard features keep piling up: Memory seats and outside mirrors, real wood trim on the door, center stack, steering wheel and shift knob, a 10-speaker 5.1 Bose surround audio system with navigation, AM/FM/CD/DVD/mp3/SiriusXM, a 40gb hard drive for music storage, iPod connectivity, Bluetooth, and a rear-view camera.

Not done. There's also rear seat audio controls, 8-way adjustable power front seats (with ventilation as well as heat), heated rear seats, a three-zone climate control and more. You could stop right there and have a killer ride for $49.370 plus destination.

And we nearly did. In fact, the one we had on loan from Lund had only three options: The color (Platinum Ice Tricoat) for $995, the rear-seat entertainment system (a dual-screen DVD setup with wireless headphones and remote control) for $1,295 and 20" chrome tech aluminum wheels for $450.

So the total tab is $52,935. And worth it. The SRX may be a crossover, a term that implies compromise and part-this/part-that, but it's all Cadillac.

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Cadillac Kills The SRX Turbo

Fun is fun, but if nobody's showing up for the party, well.....

GM Inside News says it's confirmed that Cadillac is dropping the Turbo model of its SRX crossover. Goodbye, 300 horsepower. But also goodbye, 15 miles per gallon city. Which might have a lot to do with it. As might the publicity garnered last spring when more than one of those turbo engines did its impression of a grenade after suffering the indignity of being fed regular fuel rather than premium.

Full story here.

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Mercury Dies So That Lincoln May Live

We pretty much did our post-mortem of Mercury five days early...running down the cause(s) of the impending death.

So what happens now? Well, Ford says they're going to devote their energies into revitalizing their Lincoln brand.

On paper, this makes a bunch of sense. The successful model for car sales is one mainstream brand, one luxury (think Toyota/Lexus)...with no definable space for a "middle" brand (GM is bucking that wisdom by keeping Buick).

But where exactly is Ford taking Lincoln? Part of the problem is that for all the talk of how Mercury was done in by being nothing more than some re-badged Fords, it's hard to say Lincoln's in much better shape (the MKZ is a Fusion, the MKX an Edge, the MKS a last-gen Taurus and the MKT a Flex...though those last two are pretty well disguised).

Unique products? Well, there's the Town Car...but that's a dinosaur headed to extinction with no plans for a replacement. Oh, yeah...and they still sell the Navigator. Just not many of them.

Ford says a small car (based on the next Focus) that was supposed to be a Mercury will now be a Lincoln.

Depends on how they do that...but it sounds a little down-market for where Lincoln needs to be.

The TireKicker take? Lincoln needs to take serious aim at Cadillac. They need one car at least as good as the CTS. A CTS-V competitor would have to follow. And, you may have noticed, the CTS is not a re-badged Chevrolet. They need a larger sedan to do battle with the DTS/STS replacement that's coming. They need a crossover to compete with the SRX.  And, if there's a market for a premium sedan below the CTS in the U.S., Lincoln needs to play there, too.

Until and unless the Ford Expedition becomes as good as or better than the Chevy Suburban, Lincoln doesn't need to go chasing the Escalade (especially not the pickup version).

All this means engines, materials, and enthusiasm well beyond what we've seen from Lincoln before...plus a promotion budget to get the message across to buyers (it's been 10 years since Cadillac claimed "Breakthrough" with Led Zeppelin and they're just starting to see the results). And that's going to be way more than combining the money devoted to Lincoln now with what they would have spent on Mercury.

The situation calls for a world-class luxury brand. And until and unless Ford gets that, Lincoln's in danger of being a more expensive Mercury.

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GM To Re-Calibrate Cadillac SRX Turbo Engine After Press Fleet Vehicle Dies On Regular Gas

We've all been there...the owner's manual says 91 octane minimum, but accidentally or to save a few bucks, we pump in some regular gas.

What's the worst that could happen?

Gunnar Heinrich of Automobiles De Luxe found out first-hand, shares it with us and prompts Cadillac to fix all its 2010 SRX Turbos.

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