Tag Archives: cts-v

Eliminating Wheel-hop — 1st Gen Cadillac CTS-V

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The 2004-2007 Cadillac CTS-V is an excellent performance luxury sedan.  With a 400 hp LS Series V8, Brembo brakes, sport suspension, and Cadillac appointments, the first Generation CTS-V is an intriguing automobile, and a terrific used Sports Sedan value.

One weakness frequently discussed for the 1st Generation CTS-V is wheel hop.  Wheel hop happens when instead of a tire/wheel transmitting power smooth to the car, or spinning, instead literally ‘hops’ in an up and down vertical motion.  This can lead to parts destruction in rapid fashion.

For the 2nd generation CTS-V Cadillac found a solution — by making the left and right rear axles different diameters, wheel-hop was solved.  Under load, both axles have torsional spring rates; this asymmetry decouples any resonance between them, reducing axle hop.

GForce and Hendrix Engineering have come out with retro-fit kits for the 1st Generation CTS-V’s that take a similar approach:

GForce CTS-V Kit

Here is how GForce describes their kit:

04-07 CTS-V ANTI-WHEEL HOP DRIVER AND PASSENGER SIDE AXLE KIT

The GForce $549 kit includes:

Driver side 300m Axle
Passenger side big diameter 300m axle
CV Boots
CV Clamps
CV Grease

The best solution to eliminating wheel hop is to replace both the drivers side and passenger side axles with our big and little axle kit. We designed our axle kit to provide a properly sized set of axles that will eliminate most all wheel hop in most all conditions. The trick is to have a staggered axle diameter from side to side that will break up the harmonics associated with wheel hop. Several things come into play with our design such as material, heat treating procedures, weight and twisting properties

We make our axles from billet 300m steel, the strongest material available for making drivetrain products, much stronger then chromoly. We only use certified aircraft grade 300m material for our axles.

These axles will work on all 04-07 CTS-V’s.

The best thing about our 300m axles is the fact they are compatible with either the OEM inner and outer stubs or our line of inner and outer billet stubs for the CTS-V. If you ever want to up-grade to billet stubs down the road, you just buy the stubs, swap them in and your good to go for 1000 hp. A totally modular design! This kit is for the auto enthusiast that doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Once the half shafts are removed from the car, it is about a one hour job per side to swap the axles out with the OEM axles.

Alternate approach: For 04-05 gets the big passenger side axle; For 06-07 gets the smaller drivers side axle. I recommend you get both as above.

The Hendrix Engineering offer includes the bar and parts for the swap and one can have it swapped locally, or one can send an axle and Hendrix Engineering will  swap it out and shoot it back.  The kit costs $329 plus S&H.  If you have them install the axle it is $379. All of the Hendrix Econo Axles are driver side and they work on all years.  Unfortunately I could not find any information about their system on their website, but they appear to be responsive if contacted directly.

For more information see:

Planning for a new (used) Cadillac

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Thunder Gray Chromaflair (TGC)  is the color I am thinking of for my next vehicle.  I spent some time around a TGC car at the Cars & Coffee Dallas recently.  I am still an advocate of selecting a Cadillac in a color that contrasts nicely with the chrome  accents.  The TGC is dark enough to contrast with the chrome, but not so dark as to be too hot in the Texas summer or as hard to keep clean as a black car.

This is the photo image from the order book, but in person it is a more striking color.

Now that I have THAT settled, I just need to determine which Cadillac (09 CTS-V or 08 STS-V) and how to pay for it.

One of my favorite features of the Edmund’s site is the true cost to own.  In this feature Edmund’s attempts to show the total cost of ownership of a vehicle, including fuel, insurance, and depreciation.  Here is a sample table for a 2010 Cadillac CTS-V:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 5-yr Total
Depreciation $11,453 $7,846 $6,905 $6,119 $5,492 $37,815
Taxes & Fees $4,983 $62 $64 $64 $54 $5,227
Fuel $2,364 $2,435 $2,508 $2,583 $2,660 $12,550
Maintenance $178 $517 $824 $2,211 $1,312 $5,042
Repairs $0 $0 $0 $707 $1,081 $1,788
Tax Credit $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0
Financing $3,951 $3,180 $2,357 $1,476 $534 $11,498

Insurance $1,974 $2,043 $2,115 $2,189 $2,265 $10,586
Yearly Totals $24,903 $16,083 $14,773 $15,349 $13,398 $84,506

Depreciation is the reduction in value of a vehicle due to its current marketable price versus its purchase price.
For example, once you buy a car and drive it home, you frequently could not sell it for the same price you bought it for the next week. Occasionally with rare models you can — but usually you can’t, and the difference between what you could sell it for and the Dealer purchase price can be striking.

Now, depreciation is our friend when buying lightly used Cadillacs. What I am looking for is a 2 year old model with under 20K miles as an affordable super car.

So instead of paying $60K say, after year 1 you could hope to pay $48.5K;  after year 2, $40.7K;  after year 3, $33.8K etc.  This is where the pricing for the CTS-V gets really interesting to me, because one would be able to purchase absolute super car performance at a much discounted price, still in warranty and still a truly terrific car good for many miles of exciting service.  You can already see this working on 09 models now — the least expensive ones I have seen are $47K-50K.  So another year or 18 months of ‘curing’ and this batch could be aged well enough to enjoy!

Re: Cars & Coffee Dallas 2010 Feb 6 #tejascrew

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My friend Richard Gossman came out this morning and we drove over to Classic BMW of Plano for Cars & Coffee.  Unfortunately Texas Jim had other engagements, but he can join us when it is warmer lol.  I grabbed this slide show of shots including shots of my CTS before we left & shots from the Cars & Coffee:

Cars & Coffee is an organized, unorganized car show.  In other words, the time, locale, and coffee are organized, but everything else is left to the enjoyment of the participant.  So you come, you look at cars, you meet and visit with other car guys.  We ran into Charlie of burnoutradio.com and Amber of Classic Chevrolet and  burnoutradio.com and Barry Lowman of Team Hall & Nass

It was a bit brisk in Plano today, but we made a couple or few circuits and looked at all the cars we had an interest in, and visited.

There were still new cars arriving when we left, so it definitely is not something you have to be there right at 8 am to attend.

There were half a dozen or so CTS-Vs, with both Gen 1 and Gen 2 represented.  I got more pics of those than the ‘exotic’ cars, which I suppose reflects my love of Cadillacs.

The close-ups on the front scoop of the CTS-V is because one car at the show had a wrap or carbon fiber treatment on the spoiler extension and around the exhaust that was interesting.

This was a fun morning, and I highly recommend that you find out where and when you local Cars & Coffee happens & attend.

This shot is to show that on the 2009 CTS-V the V emblem was on the left and the CTS on the right side of the trunk, and on the 2010 model they flipped sides:
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