2012 Cadillac Srx Performance Collection on 2040-cars

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Cadillac rushing update for laggy CUE infotainment system

BMW's innovative iDrive was introduced in 2001, and a dozen years later, automakers are still learning hard lessons about what consumers want in their infotainment systems. In response to owner feedback - and a few media drubbings - about the delayed and occasionally fickle responses of its CUE (short for Cadillac User Experience) system, Cadillac has told Wired that it's going to issue an update this year.
Coming for the XTS and ATS, the new software will mean quicker haptic feedback to driver inputs on the touchscreen and the buttons, and snappier responses on screen. Down the road, Cadillac's VP of marketing says that a different mix of screen controls and hard buttons is "something you'll be seeing in the future" - the system is presently a mix of touchscreen-based controls and capacitive-touch switchgear - there are no knobs or physical pushbuttons to speak of, and the omission of both has proven to be a divisive issue among consumers and industry pundits.
Cadillac hasn't provided a date for when the CUE update will be issued, but it has indicated that the service will be performed by dealers, not sent wirelessly.

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

2014 Cadillac XTS gets 410-hp twin-turbo V6

General Motors told us so back in March, but it is now official: The twin-turbocharged 3.6-liter V6 announced for the 2014 Cadillac CTS will also join the options list for the 2014 Cadillac XTS. The LF3 engine puts out 410 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque in the XTS, however, which is 10 hp and 61 lb-ft down from its application in the CTS. It will be identifiable from the outside by a specific grille treatment and a badge on the decklid. The 3.6-liter V6 with 304 hp and 264 lb-ft holds steady as the standard engine, and both will be yoked to a six-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters.
Also new for the front-wheel drive model for 2014 are updates that include electric power steering and optional Automatic Parking Assist that can maneuver the sedan into parallel parking spots. The three trims above standard - Luxury, Premium and Platinum - get Intellibeam headlights that automatically switch between high- and low-beam,
The four current trim levels remain but the list of optional extras for the higher specs grows with a rear-seat entertainment system equipped with DVD screens in the front seatbacks, memory settings for the front passenger seat and an armrest in the back seat fitted with radio and sunshade controls. The press release below has more info on all of the changes.