More from the Field

By Ed

Here’s a few more shots from the wrap-up of our winter tests. While we’re not shooting for the type of traction of an AWD car, we do want the V-Series to be capable across a range of conditions a bit wider than your typical high-performance car. These are important tests for dialing in our chassis controls (e.g. Stabilitrak.) And, by our fairly low amateur photography standards, this was very nicely shot by one of our chassis engineers (Thank you, Chuck!)

Field Work

By Ed

We’ve shared a lot of videos and stories about track testing the CTS-V, for obvious reasons. But this isn’t a race car. It’s a luxury sedan (albeit a REALLY high-performing one!) That means we’re striving to make it very capable and confidence-inspiring in a wide range of environments. If you’ve been to this blog in the past, you may have seen some of the coverage done regarding extreme winter traction testing.

A lot of that work, of course, involved the AWD system on the “regular” CTS. Even though this is the V-Series, we still went “up North” to do some of the same sorts of tests recently. These shots are from the “snow field” at our test facility in Kinross in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. While it’s still cold up there even in April, these shots were actually taken a couple of months ago when they were still in the middle of winter.

Answers!

By Liz

You may recall that last week we created a post to collect questions or suggestions on other topics you’d like to see us address here. Keep them coming, of course. And almost all of the topics mentioned will be answered or addressed in some form or another on this site. With that said, this week I’m going to start answering those questions. Here goes!

AWD:

Yes, AWD will be available on the 2008 CTS right away, as soon as the car goes on sale. We expect to begin shipping cars to dealers in late-summer or early-fall, meaning an August or September timeframe.

The Taming of the Snow

By Rob

The snow handling course is great for testing tires, StabiliTrak, AWD and Traction Control — all at the same time. This test confirmed that we’ve got the AWD torque transfer right where we want it. The key in designing the torque transfer is to get just the right amount of power to the front axle to keep the car on course.

These challenging conditions for cornering provide a good test for how robust the system is.

Kicking the (Snow) Tires

By Rob

We don’t just test our cars. We even test accessories and parts for them. During our recent Kinross trip, we did a lot of testing and subjective evaluation of various snow tires. We folded these into our ongoing testing and confirmation of our AWD system in these extreme winter conditions.

I’ll post a few of the images of what that sort of testing consisted of. Come back in a couple of days for some of those.

The Kinross Slide

By Rob

This was taken just a few days ago here in Kinross in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s a measurement instrument attached to the nose of the car that we use for traction and stability control tests.

The instrument measures the position of the car’s body as it relates to the position of the wheels and steering input. It is connected to a laptop and other sensors inside the car.

Sliding around on the ice and snow provides us with a very severe and detailed look at how to establish AWD calibrations – particularly how to determine what exact conditions should tell the system to intervene and send power to the front axle.

Checking and Re-Checking

By Rob

As if it weren’t cold enough at home, we’re going back and forth to Kinross for winter and traction testing now. This is a key point in time – we’re checking and re-checking the AWD system and chassis controls in the car, as it’s the first time we’ve put AWD into the CTS. We snapped a lot of photos – this is a rare one in which you can actually see the car clearly amidst the snow that’s constantly falling and the snow being kicked up by the wind and tires.

We’ll have some other shots and stories from Kinross shortly. Also coming soon are some interesting pictures and video from some of the other winter-traction tests we’ve already done – including some from driving we’ve done in other near-Arctic areas in Sweden.