Road Trip!

[JohnnyG]

Went to Orlando on vacation over Thanksgiving week (i know, I'm slow) and had a pretty good trip in the new Cad. This is the '08 DTS lux III that I picked up last March. 2160.4 miles actually, running 92.4 gallons of mostly premium ($1.99 avg.) through the engine for about 23.38 MPG overall. Pretty pleased with that considering the snow delays in the mountains of WV going down, two trucks jacknifed, some snow coming back too, but no accidents to creep through. Also upon reaching Columbia and taking RT 26 to 95S the cruise was set on 82 - 85 at least until hitting Jacksonville, then again below Jacksonville until well beyond Daytona beach (I4).

The car was loaded to the max, particulary coming back.

Total oil usage, absolutely "0"! this on new 5W-30 mobil 1 (has anyone else had trouble finding this stuff?)

One bad thing happened. On the way back from Tampa (Fort Desoto Park) heading across I4 at about 70, some young lady ran over an alligator (well, not the REAL kind, the rubber kind that come from tractor trailer trucks) which was thrown up and wrapped around the front bumper, grill, and hood of the caddy! About $1600.00 in damage! She was on a cell phone and prob. never knew it happened.

Engine ran perfectly, plenty of power for the mountains and for passing. lots of torque and great engine response, good fuel economy. Comfort FAIR.

I have to stay with Texas Jim on this suspension, too soft and never still. Why in the world did GM NOT put magnaride shocks and a dial on this car to let the driver decide how stiff the suspension needs to be? This has to be the biggest dissapointment for me, coming from a '99 STS which rode extremely firm at speed and soft when slow. This suspension, especially when heavily loaded, needs to be firmer and selectable. I must say though that on return, when checking my GPS, it indicated Maximum speed reached at 117 mph...i don't remember that happening, never noticed.

[Texas Jim]

Glad you had a good trip.

Thats pretty good mileage for running at that speed.

Sorry you don't like the suspension.

In town and up to about 65/70 it is ok... but in my humble opinion, anything ABOVE 70... it is too BUSY. (At least for ME) And I usually drive ABOVE 70. For me it was tiring to drive it a long distance.

With the MAG RIDE... you can run ALL DAY (at high speed) and not be tired. The car stays so much more STABLE and it is not jiggling around all the time. That is the ONLY thing I didn't like about the LUX ll and LUX lll. I liked everything else...but the suspension.

Coming back from the last trip, there was one day where we ran from upper Nevada, across to Salt lake City, then down to I-70 and over to the east side of Denver. Thats a little over 950 miles...in about 11 hours. That included several pit stops and a good lunch in Salt Lake City. I wasn't killing any time that day. And I wasn't beat up and give out when we stopped.

I love my car.... in case you can't tell.