One of the best things about being a car reviewer is that it introduces me to a wide variety of vehicles that I would normally never even notice. The 2023 Cadillac CT4 is a perfect example of this.
It’s a fantastic car. Nothing like the poorly built Cadillacs of old. It’s quiet and luxurious, yet nimble and fun.
Now that I’ve had the opportunity to drive one around for a full week, it’s kind of exciting to notice them on the road now. It happens all the time. They’re everywhere. I had no idea.
My full review of the 2023 Cadillac CT4
The CT4 you’ll see in the following pictures was my rental car for the week on a recent trip to Florida to visit family. Not a bad score for simply reserving a midsize sedan, eh?
First impressions
Yes, I do consider the 2023 CT4 to be a very good looking car. Not good looking enough for me to ever notice prior to this experience, but it’s certainly not ugly. My feelings as I was walking up to it for the very first time? Indifference. I had no idea what I was about to get myself into.
It’s the way that this thing drove that made me a believer. Not only is it incredibly comfortable for long distance highway cruising, it can actually get around corners like a proper sports sedan.
Styling and design
It’s true. Prior to driving this thing, I had never once noticed a Cadillac CT4 on the street. It’s not a bad looking car from most angles, but there are parts of it *cough*rear end*cough* that are questionable.
To me, the only thing truly Cadillac about the CT4 is the front end. The Cadillac design language oozes proudly from every crevice. So much that I’d instantly recognize it as a Caddy, even if I had no idea what it was.
The rest of the car is fairly well styled IMHO. The lines are clean and classy when viewed from the side, but I just can’t get over how it all falls apart around the tail lights. They’re weird.
Driving impressions
I found the CT4 to be nimble, and somewhat twitchy (in a good way). Never at any point during my week with it did I feel like I was driving a geriatric land yacht. It feels light on its feet, and ready to move in any direction at the flick of the wrist.
My only complaint is the brakes. The brakes are horrible in the 2023 CT4 – to the point where I was starting to think that they were malfunctioning. Brake pedal feel is vague. Even worse, pressing on the pedal harder didn’t make the car stop any faster. I learned real quick to keep some distance between myself and the car in front of me.
The engine
I said it before in my review of the 2023 Cadillac XT5, but I’m going to say it again: it feels straight up sacrilegious to put a 2.0 L inline 4-cylinder engine in a Cadillac. Even a turbocharged one producing 237 horsepower at 258 lb feet of torque.
I hate the fact that I found this four-cylinder to be more than powerful enough for nearly any situation. It’s really quick from a dig, and t’ll even accelerate with a surprising amount of umph – without hesitation – at 80 mph. GM claims 0-60 times of 4.8 seconds, btw.
Why is this a problem? I don’t want a 4-cylinder Cadillac. At least I didn’t think I did. This impressed me far more than I thought it would – to the point where I’d have to think real hard about spending more money for the hot rod version of this car (the CT4-V featuring a twin turbo V6).
The interior
To me, the best part of the interior of the CT4 is the cooled seats. Maybe it was because I was in Florida (and I was wearing three long sleeve shirts on the day I drove it the furthest), but it was the thing I was excited to mention most in this review. They’re so good.
By the end of my drive, I was referring to the cool the seat function as “anti-swamp ass mode.” It’s the ultimate term of endearment IMHO.
The rest of the interior is typical “2000’s era” Cadillac. Everything is angular, squared off, and sharp. Nay, pointy. At least it’s not as aggressive as what you saw in my 2016 Cadillac SRX review.
Something I didn’t like all that much was the responsiveness of the infotainment screen. It was extremely laggy (which made it difficult to use while driving).
Gas mileage
I put 170 miles on the car you see in these pictures. Most of that was highway driving, consisting of a 5-hour romp up I-95 from Miami to Orlando. Even with some stop and go city driving mixed in, I averaged a respectable 23 miles per gallon. Again, the polar opposite of what your grandpa experienced.
Pros and cons of the 2023 Cadillac CT4
I liked the CT4 a lot more than I thought I would. It’s probably the most comfortable sports sedan that I’ve ever driven (even better than the 2018 Jaguar XF). It’s far from perfect though:
Pros
- Handling is surprisingly sharp and precise for a car of this size.
- Build quality is surprisingly good. The one I drove was a rental car with nearly 40,000 hard miles on it – it was beat and scratched to hell, but it still felt solid.
- OMG those cooled seats. Those mofos are best I’ve ever experienced in any car.
Cons
- I’m not a fan of how buzzy the 4-cylinder sounds.
- The brakes are very weak (to the point where I felt nervous driving it in heavy traffic).
- The infotainment screen was far too laggy (and sometimes unresponsive) to be in a car of this caliber.
