Saturday Tennis a @Cadillac Escalade

The story so far: I picked up a 2010 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum from Crest Cadillac in Plano to test drive this weekend.

Saturday is often the day for my weekly trip to the large container store for excessive amounts of fresh beverages and other supplies.

2010 Escalade ESV storage

Man does not live on bread alone.  It takes a lot of diet coke and granola bars.  The joy of this ESV version of the Escalade is 3 rows of seats and room behind the 3rd row of seats.  The rear door opens and closes electrically, so after you press the button in the exterior handle it glides open, and a simple press of a button on the open door causes it to glide shut.  No muscles required, and a very user friendly setup once you are familiar with it.

The entertainment system offers this split view of the current music channel and navigation information, so one can have their cake and eat it too.

Later in the day my Son and I went out to practice tennis.   He is taking tennis at Richland Collegiate High School, so we headed over there for some games.  My tennis is, um, old school at best, but we had fun.  We enjoyed the Escalade’s cooled seats on the way.  The Escalade ESV has heated or cooled seats.  I feel cooled seats are an acquired taste, but I am interested to see how I like them after I spend more time with them.

Escalade makes a great tennis partner

After tennis we stopped by Sonic to support the Plano East football team, who were manning the Sonic today.

The Escalade ESV Platinum Mirrors fold in electrically

The Escalade ESV Platinum has cooled and heated cup holders, so no problem at all keeping our drinks cold.  A single button near the cup holder allows one to select from cooled or heated or off, and Son2 reports that by examination from sticking his hand in that yes, the cupholder gets to the appropriate temperature.

I was concerned that the Escalade ESV would seem big in traffic, but it has been just fine in my routine trips, and with all the luxury features it is fun to drive.  The L94 6.2L V8 engine has plenty of power to move the Escalade, and the ESV drives very well.  It smoothly shifts from V8 to V4 mode for fuel economy in a way that is perfectly seamless — an ideal economy solution.  One of the information settings allows one to monitor the instant MPG and the engine mode, which switches from V8 to V4; otherwise I would not know when it switched exactly.

I will be adding a number of articles about the Escalade ESV Platinum over the weekend, so stay tuned!

My Host for this test drive is Crest Cadillac of Plano, Texas.  They are located at 2701 North Central Expressway, Plano, Texas.  You can contact them by phone Toll-free at 1-866-697-9144 or locally at (972)578-7511, or on Twitter or Facebook

2010 Escalade ESV Platinum Test Drive – The Pickup

 

I popped over to Crest Cadillac in Plano, Texas this morning and picked up a new 2010 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum for a test drive.  The ESV is the extended version of the Escalade, and the Platinum Series is the ultra-luxury model.

2010 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum in the Crest Customer Delivery Center

2010 Cadillac Escalade ESV interior

The Platinum Escalade features TAHAMA leather seats, in a medium brown leather that look amazing and are very comfortable.  They have stitched Cadillac wreath and crests in the top of each seat.  The stitching is done with contrasting colors, and the perforated seating sections give the ideal combination of leather seat comfort and durability.  The seats in the Escalade are heated and ventilated.

TAHAMA Leather Seats

The test vehicle has a DVD touch-screen navigation system.  Entertainment or navigation info can be shown on the screen.

Escalade Navigation

Greg Vetrano, a Crest Cadillac vehicle delivery expert showed me the features of the Escalade ESV.  I would love to see some direct input from Delivery Coordinators at Cadillac Dealerships back to the Cadillac Development team on user interface issues.  Since experts like Greg hear all the Customer questions as they become familiar with their new Cadillac they would be a good source for the interface design team.

Greg Vetrano of Crest Cadillac

I will be adding a number of articles about the Escalade ESV Platinum over the weekend, so stay tuned!

My Host for this test drive is Crest Cadillac of Plano, Texas.  They are located at 2701 North Central Expressway, Plano, Texas.  You can contact them by phone Toll-free at 1-866-697-9144 or locally at (972)578-7511, or on Twitter or Facebook

Disclosure: Crest Cadillac provided a gift certificate to Chamberlain Restaurants so my Wife and I made reservations for dinner there tonight.  Perfect place to head with the Escalade ESV!