with the exception of the first-generation Cadillac SRX which was
really more of a station wagon than an SUV the smallest Cadillac SUV has been
the second-generation SRX which is now known as the XT 5 but for 2019 the XT 4
is the new small fry similar to the xt 5 the ext4 straddles a couple of size
classes the 5 is between compact and midsize the xt 4 is sort of at the high
end of subcompact luxury suvs and into the compact size and in its base trim
level which is simply called luxury it's priced on the bottom end closer to
subcompact set just under $36,000 including destination
now the two higher trim levels the ones that are going to be more popular are
the premium luxury and what we have here which is called the sport a few things
distinguish the Sport trim level from the outside starting with a blacked-out
grille where the premium luxury has chrome facets on the front the door
handles also are strictly body-colored where the premium has an additional trim
inlay and the taillights are white on the sport as opposed to red there are
not that many mechanical differences but one of them is best understood when
you're on the road so let's get behind the wheel there's actually only one
potential mechanical difference between the trim levels the sport that I'm
driving is eligible for the active sport suspension option which is $1,200 I like
this type of feature but I have to say even if you have the regular suspension
it's quite nicely done very well controlled comfortable it's not overly
firm too no great effects like some SUVs are it's a nice balance of kind of
controlled and a medium form very comfortable even with the 20 inch wheels
that come with the sport and the premium luxury so even if you don't get the
active sport suspension it's I think one of the higher points of
the XG for the actual option however may increase comfort a little bit it's not a
tremendous amount the real advantage to a system like this is that it
automatically monitors conditions and makes adjustments automatically on the
fly and I emphasize that because if you are going from a touring mode to sport
mode you're not going to feel a real big difference in the ride quality when
you're going in a straight line and this is a pretty common approach nowadays
there's really no reason to make the car ride more firmly in sport mode just
because you can in a straight line it's less important now when you start to
turn that's where the firmness plays a part in controlling body motions and
such and it does that it is a good system but I'm pretty impressed with the
standard suspension as it is the xt 4 is powered exclusively by a new 2-liter
turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for 237 horsepower 258 pound-feet of
torque with a very nice broad torque band really nice delivery it's a bit
noisy I find it a little bit noisy even at idle and at higher revs you'll hear
it founding a little bit unrefined
you're hearing it more than you want in a luxury vehicle i was concerned to see
that the xt4 had a 9 speed automatic transmission and that's partly because
transmissions with high gear counts tend to take too long choosing which one
which gear this is a GM transmission and it's pretty well calibrated I think in
normal driving people would be fine with it I'm not gonna say it's a favorite
because sometimes it's a little bit slow if you downshift using the paddles on
the steering wheel it kind of free wheels a little bit too much between
shifts but by and large the transmission is not a problem and I'm thankful for
that one of the more interesting aspects of the XT 4 is that if you get the
optional all-wheel drive your modes art or all-wheel drive and sport in Tour
mode only the front wheels are driven and that is under all circumstances even
if you come to a stop on ice or snow or something and stand on the accelerator
the front wheels may spin the traction control will kick in but the rear wheels
are not even connected to the system to activate it you have to go to all-wheel
drive mode or sport and what that does is it can improve your mileage when
you're in the two-wheel drive mode the engineer say with rounding you can lose
up to 1 mpg if you drive with all-wheel drive on when you don't need it so what
this does is it gives you the opportunity to save a little bit now if
you look at the numbers for the front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive
versions of the XT 4 you're gonna see front-wheel drive is 26 miles per gallon
combined and all-wheel drive is 24 miles per gallon combined you can't make up
for one mile per gallon because of the added weight of the system it's always
there by disconnecting or decoupling the drive shaft that leads to the rear you
can save as much as 1 mile per gallon by staying in
two wheel drive mode by and large I think the car handles a little bit
better when the all-wheel drive is engaged if you're taking it around
corners you're gonna find that it has a better balance that the rear wheels are
kind of pushing the vehicle into the curve when you have it in
all-wheel-drive or sport mode now there is a downside to the xt4 and that is the
brakes specifically it's the brake pedal feel and your ability to modulate the
braking finally and there's actually something to this this is a new advanced
braking system that doesn't use vacuum for power assist like almost all brakes
do this is an electro-hydraulic system that's technically a by wire system the
problem is it doesn't feel like they're there yet it reminds me a lot of
electric power steering assist no reason that that can't be as good as or better
than the old way of doing things and in fact nowadays it finally is but there
was a period when it was first introduced where it was not up to
standards I feel like that is the case with the brakes in the XT4 another
feature highlight here is the use of a full time rear view camera that's
integrated into the mirror so I can see you right there hello this is the
regular mirror but flip the lever where you would usually just go to the darker
version of the mirror and instead you get a camera system unlike some vehicles
that have this I find that I'm sitting just far enough away from it that it's
clear to me something to think about if you need reading glasses or don't have
great near vision sometimes the rear view mirror is too close to show you an
image as opposed to reflecting something that's distance vision way behind you in
the mirror itself the other thing I like about this particular one is how
adjustable it is there you can adjust the brightness you
can zoom in and zoom out you can move it up and down it really addresses some of
the early complaints that people had about this technology which is that it
was a fixed perspective now you can adjust it to your liking the advantages
to this are many primarily if you have people in the back seat or you have
cargo especially if it's piled up high it doesn't matter because the camera is
in back at the top of the lift gate where it has a great view unobstructed
by those things another feature that's well executed is the regular back up
camera and optional 360-degree view it gives you many different views there's
the bird's eye view overhead this is the forward view that's a wide forward view
straight down from the front and here's one of kind of the vehicle as if from
behind it from the surroundings kind of neat there are the front wheels one
thing we're positive about in the xt4 is the multimedia and control system
Cadillac has a history of some not-so-great approaches with touch
sensitive sliders and all that other nonsense bad menus here we have a very
simple layout with regular old buttons yeah there you know quite a few of them
but why is that scary and there's an eight-inch touchscreen which is nicely
laid out it also supports apple carplay and
android auto if you prefer using those as most of us at cars.com do all pretty
good one objection I have though unfortunately is the screen is tilted
back and as a result it reflects light especially if the moon roof is open I
prefer if the screen is facing you but some people think that looks added after
the fact it looks stuck on as opposed to integrated I have seen vehicles that
have it tilted back like this where it doesn't reflect so much and they seem to
have kind of a matte fin to them and that might be the solution
the Cadillac needs here to address that aspect of the problem but by-and-large
really nicely executed multimedia you don't even have to think about it
in case you're concerned that there's no knobs up here specifically no volume
knobs which most of us like there is one it's just down here
here's your volume knob it also has a couple of tracks skip buttons on either
side and some buttons that are redundant with the touch screen menus down here
you've got your little audio icon navigation back and phone and then a
knob to select among things on the touch screen this is the most useless device
I've seen in a vehicle not because it doesn't work well but because the
touchscreen is so close and so usable there's really no point to it but there
is a volume knob so if you're hardcore on that at least it's here for this
class we find the interior quality to be quite good the base trim and the base
port come with leatherette seats that's imitation leather this one happens to be
equipped with real leather which is an option across the board pretty good
materials all around there are a few things we're not quite as crazy about
the cup holders here are actually quite small and the door pockets don't have
integrated bottle holders to hold those bottles one thing I like is that even
though it has this panoramic moonroof which is great gives it a much more open
feel especially in the backseat it has a sliding sunshade powered sunshade but
it's not a thin mesh that allows light to get through it's opaque and it's also
thick enough that it actually does a decent job of helping to block sound
which you might not realize is a thing it's definitely a thing when it's
raining this helps damp some of that noise one of my favorite features is the
wireless charging pad for smartphones this is a feature that's gotten pretty
widespread among new cars but the location for these pads isn't always
good sometimes they're too small for a large phone here's what I like about
this one it's a good location to begin with because it's reachable
in the xt4 and it's big but it also has this adjustable shelf which I know some
people will say you're gonna lose it maybe you'll lose it maybe you won't you
set it to whatever height you need and then you drop your phone in there and as
soon as if it starts charging you see a little lightning bolt on the phone icon
on the touch screen but what I like about it is that you can still use it
not while you're driving but think about it you come to a stop stoplight for
example you flip it up you can just reach down here use it real quick light
turns green you had you head off again many people are surprised by how much
room there is in the backseat just based on the exterior dimensions of the xt4 I
have the driver's seat almost all the way back where I Drive and my knees are
just clearing it my knees are raised a bit but the floor isn't as high as it is
in some vehicles overall it's pretty impressive there are a couple of things
that people have called to our attention though one is if you're six feet tall
it's very close here Headroom wise if you have the optional moonroof which
tends to decrease your Headroom by lowering the height of the ceiling
essentially and what doesn't help is that the backrest is relatively vertical
some people actually said it might be a little bit more vertical than they'd
like it for comfort and even though it does fold forward to extend the cargo
area it doesn't recline but overall for the size of the vehicle on the outside
the backseat works out pretty nicely now here's a real neat feature you may have
seen cars out there that project logos on the ground from say their side
mirrors it's a luxury thing and some non luxury cars very showy
Cadillacs approach was to put it here and if that seems weird it's actually
for a purpose because this shows you this little Cadillac crust bat-signal
shows you where you need to kick to operate the optional power hands-free
power liftgate neat use of the technology as you can
see the cargo area is pretty generous again for the size of XT4 in general
one of the things that really impresses about this is its packaging as we call
it the amount of space you get on the inside for the amount of space that
takes up on the outside it's one of the strongest aspects of the xt4 overall
the Cadillac XT4 makes a very good impression it doesn't do anything extraordinarily
well but it also doesn't do anything really poorly with the possible
exception of that brake pedal feel so if you test drive it make sure that that is
not objectionable to you and if it's not then the XT four should be to your
liking I suspect Cadillacs gonna sell an awful
lot of these little boogers