Unfortunately, I have had a horrible experience with GM and Cadillac and I feel that people considering buying GM/Cadillac should know how they treat their customers and how they stand by their products. In the last four years I have bought a 2020 Chevrolet Corvette C8, a 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, a 2023 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Maverick Noir Frost edition from Sewell Cadillac in Dallas, TX, and a 2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. I had always purchased European brands such as Porsche, BMW and Audi, because I love performance cars. However, that changed in 2020, and I bragged that I liked my Blackwing better than my 2022 BMW M5 CS. Subsequently, I not only purchased GM performance vehicles, but have been an active member in their forums and as part of the Cadillac V-Club, attending many IMSA races as a member. I would think that I am the type of customer that GM would appreciate and would like to maintain as a customer.
Unfortunately, my 2023 Maverick Noir Frost CT5-V Blackwing has not provided the reliability that I would expect from Cadillac or GM. In December of 2023, I noticed that my car was running rough, like it was misfiring. I called my local dealership, Baker Cadillac in Charleston, SC to let them know and they took it in for service. It was ready to be picked up 6 days later and I was told that it was just a bad tank of gas, and to refill the tank and run a new tank of gas through it. I did that, but it did not improve. It became worse to the point that when I would accelerate harder, it would drop cylinders and severely misfire, making the car unusable. I brought the car back to Baker Cadillac and the technician rode with me and then looked in the cylinders with a scope and found that cylinders 2 and 6 had been scorched - later determined to likely be because cylinder sensors either did not work or were not installed/properly. The engine was exchanged under warranty, but I was without my vehicle for 50 days.
During this time, I called Sewell Cadillac, where I purchased the vehicle, and explained that I was very concerned that the resale value of this PERFORMANCE COLLECTOR vehicle would be severely diminished, because in my experience, a problem like this has always affected the value of a performance vehicle. I was told by Sewell that it would not affect my value, and so being skeptical, I asked for a trade-in value on a new 2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing that I had already requested and planned to purchase. I was given a value $30,000 less than MSRP for a vehicle only 5 months old with only 3,500 miles on it. Just 5 months prior, I had traded my 2022 Cadillac CT5V Blackwing with 10,000 miles on it to the same dealership for only $10,000 off MSRP - and it wasn’t even a special edition color. Auction sites like Bring-a-Trailer and Cars-and-Bids were showing that regular Blackwings with a similar year and mileage were selling for about $10,000 off sticker, and the Special Edition Frost colors (Emerald Green Frost and Maverick Noir Frost) were selling for about MSRP. I also asked at least five dealerships how replacing the engine would affect the value of the car, and they all told me that the failed engine would result in “diminished value” of my vehicle in the range of about $20,000-$30,000, especially since it is on my Carfax report. In fact, the Chevy store told me that they would not even accept it on trade-in with a replaced engine.
I contacted GM’s customer service repurchasing department and spoke with Jake and he explained that a representative from GM would contact me. I heard nothing from these representatives for over a month which was extremely poor customer service. I had to call Jake from GM, and the Sales Manager for Sewell Cadillac, over and over for a month until a representative from GM finally called me - I was planning on leaving the vehicle at the Baker Cadillac dealership since I did not want to deal with the vehicle and its problems any more. After weeks of trying to get information from regarding the repurchase, I was finally told that he would have a “big” meeting with the upper executives and that he would relay my very clearly stated intention for GM to stand behind their vehicles and their loyal customers and buyback my lemon. I even offered to contractually purchase a new 2025 Blackwing and remain a loyal customer. I do not blame GM for the engine failure as I understand these things happen, but I do blame and hold responsible the manufacturer for poor customer service and making the customer the one who suffers the “diminished value” consequences. The engine failure is none other than GM’s fault and of no fault of my own. GM has tremendously more resources and finances to correct this problem and make it right, than do I. However, I was shocked to find out that they were NOT going to buy it back for MSRP and let me purchase a new one this year, but instead offered a “Trade Repurchase” plan to purchase/trade it in at the then current values when the new 2025’s came out at the end of 2024. Furthermore…even better, any miles and time that would accrue as I drove it in the next 9 or so months (assuming it didn’t break again), would continue to decrease the value of my car - as a third party would determine the value at that time. This was a horrible deal as it continued to stick me the customer with the “diminished value” problem that GM created. This is not right. This is not fair. This is not how a company with GM’s stature and reputation should treat its customers.
After all of this, my “check engine light” came on again the day after I got my vehicle back from the Baker service department. I again dropped the car off and it was determined that it had a bad catalytic converter related to the engine failure. This was replaced and the car returned to me - another 7 days without my car. In total, my brand new Blackwing has been into the repair shop on 3 different occasions for a total of 63 days! All while I have been spending time going back and forth and Ubering to pick up and drop off the car, and that I have had to continue to make payments each month.
The most surprising thing to me, is that for a company like GM, this could have been an easy customer service win for GM. GM could have maintained a loyal customer who has spent a lot of money on GM performance products and planned to buy more. Now, due to how this event was handled, I will never buy a GM product again!
Since it appears that I am not the only one dealing with this problem, please let me know of others who have suffered engine failures. Especially with the poor customer service by GM, maybe this warrants a class action cause.