2005 STS

[eric safire]

I recently bought a new STS...I love the car,  It has the V8 engine and the Luxury option package

However, while entering a freeway,  on a wet ramp, while circling to the right, the rearend went into a skid, and the car spun 180 degrees and went completely out of control...

Has anyone had a similar experience??

The dealor claims that I must have been driving too fast...Im 51 years old and a very conservative driver.This is my first car with a V8 engine...

I really do love the car, but I want to be safe..

Has anyone heard of a similar complaint???

Please respond and/or tell me where to further research my problem

Thanks,

Eric Safire
eric@safirelaw.com

[Randall McGrew CLC # 17963]

Hello Eric,

I do not have any experience with the STS as such, but being a driver through love of the activity and racing/precision driving in particular, I can tell you that a car that has a lot of torque and a light rear end will cut loose on you on wet or slippery surfaces, even at low speeds.  Case in point was my fathers 1966 Baracuda.  It had the sport package and went like a striped ape, but...on wet pavement it was a hazard, an accident waiting to happen, because it was so light in the rear that it would break loose with the slightest provocation.

I am surprised that this 2005 STS would do that because of the engineering that went into it, however, in an attempt to capture the BMW like handling and gas consumption, they may have erred a bit on weight.  Also the suspension may be geared more for ride than true precision driving.  Extra heavy sway bars might help, or adding weight in the trunk may be enough.  You could lower the suspension to give it a wider, lower track. Better tires might also help...I never cared for the tires that come with the cars.  One such tire I have had excellent performance from is the Goodyear Regatta IIs; excellent profile and tread give a wonderful grip, even at high speeds.

I find it ludicris that the Cadillac dealership should tell you that it was because you were driving too fast, when they advertise the car as a fast, performance automobile!  Typical hypocracy to foist the blame on the consumer.  
I, too, drive conservatively at posted speeds, even though I can handle the machine at much higher speeds with percision.  I would press the issue, and if not satisfied, call Cadillac division.  

I hope this helps.  Perhaps someone else will have better advice for you.  Good luck!

[Johnny]

Hopefully there was no damage done to driver or car, in that incident.  When you went into the skid, did you apply the brakes?  If so did the ABS kick in?  Is it possible that maybe you hit a puddle and went into "hydroplaning", which from I understand, causes a driver to lose "all control"?

[Tim Pawl CLC#4383]

Sounds to me like when you started to skid you pulled steering wheel into the skid instead of opposite to rear skid direction . 2005 STS is rear wheel drive, they act different than front wheel drive.  Pulling wheel in wrong direction would cause you to do a 180 degree spin.   Do you live in a southern or warm climate state?  Us snow dogs know how to kick out a rear skid , by turning into the direction of the rear end skid and accelerating. EeeHah!

[Rusty Shepherd CLC 6397]

Apparently the Stabilitrak (R) system did not kick in and that would be the issue Id take up with the dealer and if I didnt receive satisfaction at that level, Id arrange to meet with the Cadillac zone rep. You would have gotten a traction system active message on the DIC and probably a warning tone had the system engaged, although you might not have noticed it due to concentrating on not getting killed. Stabilitrak and other electronic stability controls/programs are designed to eliminate spin-out like you experienced. When ESPs determine that you are not headed in the direction youre steering, they activate the brakes on one or more wheels to get you back on your desired track. If theyre working properly, you dont have to worry about which way to steer in a skid as the system does that for you immediately upon detecting the car is beginning to skid. All cars with ESP/ESC have a switch to turn off the system when you are using chains or are really stuck in the mud or snow and some (and I think the STS is one of them) also allows you to raise the threshold of system intervention for extremely spirited driving. I would suspect that they would revert back to the normal setting the next time the car is started (the same way all systems do after being turned off), but check the manual on that. After your experience, Id want to be sure Stabilitrak was in its normal (early intervention) mode.

[Jim Skelly, CLC #15958]

Years ago I had the same situation occur while driving on a right-hand 90 degree turn entering a local freeway.  It was a 73 Caprice with rear wheel drive.  The pavement was wet and I was going  probably 35 mph.  The car swung around on me and I was fortunate to eventually get it under control before narrowly missing a concrete abutment.  The tires were good, but the gas tank was almost empty.  The weight distribution on the car was 50-50.  Ironically, I was going to fill up the tank at the next exit since I lived nearby.  Now I dont let the tank on any of my cars get that low if Im going to be doing any freeway driving.

[Matt Harwood]

Im afraid I must respectfully disagree with Randalls post--with just the facts in evidence, this really does sound like a simple case of driver miscalculation. Cars, particularly cars as advanced and highly developed as a new STS, dont mysteriously spin out on their own. It probably wasnt a design flaw that caused this--this is not an unsafe car, even with a V8 engine.

I think Johnnys post about hydroplaning might be the most likely explanation, in which case it is neither the cars fault nor yours. It happens and Im glad nobody was injured.

I believe all the new STS models have traction control and stability control. This really shouldnt happen unless you were going Ludicrous Speed (which, I gather, you werent) or road conditions were especially slippery (perhaps unbeknownst to you). GMs version of stability control is quite good, and even trying to intentionally spin a Corvette in a wet parking lot was virtually impossible with it functioning properly.

So there are only a few conclusions that one can draw:

1) The cars stability management system was malfunctioning and you were possibly going too fast for conditions (even without the system, the car should not be inherently treacherous to drive).

2) You were going WAAAAY too fast for conditions and even the electronics couldnt save you when you hit a slippery patch.

3) A part of the cars suspension was damaged in such a way as to make the car hazardous to drive (but you probably would have noticed such damage long before spinning out on a turn).

4) (most likely) It was just an accident that could happen to anybody--live and learn.

Now, I certainly dont mean to impugn your driving, and thats not what Im trying to say. What I am saying is that some cars are so good that it is quite easy to be traveling faster than you think you are, and possibly faster than conditions warrant. New cars with stability control and traction control can feel like theyre immune to the laws of physics (my wifes Audi TT quattro with snow tires, traction control and stability control certainly feels like a superhero in the snow!) Add some unfamiliar pavement, some rain/slush/snow/low temperatures/standing water and an off-camber turn, and, well, its easy to see how you could quickly get in over your head. I suspect this may have happened in your case.

I do not believe it was a flaw in the vehicle (if there was a system malfunction, there would be a record of it in the systems computer or the techs at the dealership would have found something amiss in the suspension), and again, I dont believe the vehicle is inherently dangerous as it is designed. This is probably not a product defect but simply a brief miscalculation on a slippery, off-camber exit ramp. It happens to the best of us (I dont drive other peoples high-performance cars any more for this very reason--and I have an SCCA competition license! Stuff happens.).

Chalk it up to experience and spend some time acclimating yourself to your new cars (fairly broad) performance envelope. A lot of guys buy their first powerful car and quickly find out theres a BIG difference between 150-200 and 300+ horsepower. When I was working for a Corvette tuner, we repaired A LOT of 500+ horsepower Corvettes owned by guys with years of experience driving stock 300+ horsepower Corvettes, so youre definitely not alone.

Glad you werent hurt, but Im sure youre wiser from the experience. Enjoy your new car.
--
Matt Harwood
Cleveland, OH
My 1941 Buick Restoration:
http://www.harwoodperformance.bizland.com/1941buick/index.html TARGET=_blank>http://www.harwoodperformance.bizland.com/1941buick/index.html

[Rusty Shepherd CLC 6397]

If everything is operating properly, any electronic malfunction should log an error in the computer, but I dont think theres any guarantee it will (if the system can malfunction, its certainly possible that the logging system could, too). Every month or so, the ESP light on my Jetta will come on and stay on just until the car is started again. I had the dealer check that at the 20,000 mile service when, of course, the light was not on; it did not show any error codes. Im left wondering whether the ESP will actually engage if I ever need it.  The thing thats somewhat problematic about invisible systems like ESP/ESC/Stabilitrak and ABS is that you can drive the car tens of thousands of miles (or very possibly the entire time you own it) and never have the systems activated, so youre relying on the error codes and lights to indicate if theres a problem. You could, away from traffic, test the ABS by stomping on the brakes on wet pavement, but I wouldnt want to and I sure wouldnt want to try to make the car skid out of control to test the stability system. When power windows, AC, and many other devices that are frequently used on a car fail, you will know right away if theres a problem.

[Lars Kneller 8246]

I have a new STS, V-8, though with all wheel drive.  I would agree that his stability system was probably not working.  The manual states that sometimes when first starting out, the computer needs to calibrate and the stability control will not be active for a short time.  However, as someone stated, the information center does state that it is inactive, and then tells you when it is active.  We had snow one day shortly after we got the car, so I decided to try out the AWD and Stabilitrack as we have a long driveway, and Id just end up in the cornfield if I "overdid" it.   So I goosed it around the corner (much faster than I should have been going).  The Stabilitrak kicked it (message center said so, plus I could hear all the little sensors, brakes, etc, going to work).  The car went around the corner like it was on rails!  No fishtailing, no nothing.