2014 Cadillac ATS Premium 3.6 AWD - Mostmint #47

[MostMint]

Well the black ATS ran into a roadblock with the dirt drags, and I eventually figured out the V6 version makes 50 more horsepower, so I bought one. I looked at regular retail vehicles but the V6 has a decent premium over the 4 cylinder, so I went looking at wrecks.

This one is from North Carolina, has some damage from an accident, and had a rebuilt title before that.

The auction came on Monday - all total I'm in for about $5600 including delivery to my house. By Wednesday it was here. Today it went to the BMV by trailer to get VIN inspection and get an Ohio salvage title

It has just over 121k miles, and the damage is pretty minor. Based on what I saw underneath, looks like the car slid backwards through wet grass. I speculate it slid backwards into whatever it hit.

Observations so far:
- the differential is leaking a little through the breather, and possibly through the rear diff cover. It also looks like it had been erased.
- the LR is a little toed out, but nothing looks bent and there looks to be plenty of adjustment left
- the car has 4 different brand tires on it - could be a factor in the crash?
- looks like the LR quarter panel was repaired before - it has some fade on the C pillar, and there is evidence of bodywork where the fender was damaged
- it had remarkably few items inside though there was a receipt for the tow

About the car:
- the infotainment system on the dash is a touch screen
- it has shift paddles on the steering wheel
- 18" wheels
- it will automatically sync with the phone and play music which is a big plus compared to the black car

[MostMint]

Differential:

* Replaced the stock breather with a low restriction breather just like I installed on the black Cadillac. I did spot check the breather on the black car and it was in place and looked good.
* The fluid level is up
* The fill/drain plugs on this car are 15/16" and those on the stock diff are torx which to me confirms this is a replacement diff

Bodywork:

* Removed the LR taillight, rear bumper cover and LR inner fender
* Put the port-a-power, hammer & dolly, and some welded nails to straighten the LR quarter panel. It's not quite the way I want it but I'm at diminishing returns so it's time to put body filler on it and see how it looks
* Ground off prior body filler in the damaged areas

Other:

* Purchased a replacement LR taillight.
* Turns out the paint is WA132X Obsession Red which is a tri-coat paint: foundation base, intermediate base and clear. It's one of the hardest colors to blend and will be expensive. Great!
* I don't see any obvious bends in the LR suspension parts, but the toe in setting looks to be off the factory spec. The LR wheel also looks to be straight
* Found the cause of the accident: There was a tow receipt in the glove box which had info I needed to look it up. On 6/4 at 6:04 PM the car was exiting I-40W to US-321N in Hickory NC when driver lost control and spun backwards into the inside barrier.

Getting started

Before look at LR quarter

Child's play

After some straightening

More evidence the LR quarter has already been replaced

[MostMint]

Updates:

Bodywork:

- LR quarter is taking shape. Still some work to get the shape better but it's taking shape. I was tempted to get paint and just put it on but its just not ready forthat. I'm not looking for show car but there's too many imperfections.
- Put primer on it
- Reassembly in progress

Mechanicals:
- Grass is in a lot of nooks and crannies underneath, in the wheel wells and brakes, on top of the underbody panels, on the exhaust. I have cleaned up several piles. Every time I think I'm done I find more, though I have inspected all around the exhaust to make sure I'm not going to have a fire once this thing gets completely up to temperature

- Adjusted rear toe in
- Adjusted front toe in, also had to align the steering wheel
- Battery does not seem healthy - discharged while it was disconnected
- The parking brake does not hold the car idling in drive. This is only relevant since this is part of the inspection

Other:
- Removed the tint from the front door window on driver and passenger side. Glue stuck to the window on passenger side so I had to remove that, but luckily the adhesive on the driver side tint stayed with the tint
- Car is going in for inspection on Friday so no time to get the bodywork right and get it painted. Too much real world creeping in here in the past couple weeks. I don't want to wait three more weeks

[MostMint]

Last Friday was a big day for this car.

I ran out of time before Friday to get the paint on so I only got primer on the LR quarter panel. It's decent but not smooth enough for paint yet. After that I had some work getting the front end aligned as well as the LR. Toe in and steering wheel alignment are good.

washed it for the first time

I ran through all the safety tests they did when I took in the Challenger for state inspection, and found the e-brake would not hold the car while idling in gear. I did multiple adjustments to the e-brake shoes on both sides to where it would just work. If you push the pedal past the 4 clicks it would hold, but then its just an ebrake and not parking brake. Also had to get it reassembled before Friday morning. I was also concerned about the tread on the left rear tire but didn't figure that out til Thursday so I had to go with it as is.

The day started with a trip up to the state highway patrol for inspection. It was the first time on the road for this car. It ran fine. The actual inspection was a breeze. The only new part on the car was the LR taillight and the inspector said he didn't need receipts for that.

I then took the title and the inspection certificate to get a new title and a temporary tag.

That evening the car made its debut at the dirt drags. Rachel also made her debut with the Charger. The red Caddy runs pretty consistent low 4.50's. It lacks the high RPM stall converter but it's easy to hold the car at 1500. Overall very happy with the performance of the car, and thinking there is a lot more potential with a tune up, better tires and basic performance modifications.

The car has heads up display on the windshield, and I was able to change the display to show the tach.

Since that day I've driven it a few times. I really like this car. The user interface is just a bit clunky but its a ton better than the black car. The application of power is so much smoother than the turbo. You can actually hear the intake under power.

After that I put a little more time into the LR quarter panel. It's not ready for paint yet but hopefully will be in a few more sessions.

back to work on the finer bodywork

I also made a trip to pull a part to get a rim and maybe a couple tires to help sell the black car and I came across a wrecked ATS that had an aftermarket K&N filter on it and some floor mats - for $33 they are mine.

donor car

K&N took a little damage in the crash but the metal can be straightened and the plastic is intact

[GMJohnny]

I seem to remember that turning off the traction control on my
2016 Regal changed the stall speed. It works the same on my Terrain.
Did you try that?

GM

[MostMint]

All the passes were done with T/C and Stabilitrak off. I will try checking the stall speed with those off though to see if it changes anything. Can't recall if my original test was with it on or off. Based on the amount of pull on the brakes at 1500 (with T/C off) I'd say it's not going to change anything. The turbo had a much higher stall speed - best guess is less torque so they gave it a higher stall.

[MostMint]

Updates:

Finished up the bodywork and painted the LR quarter panel.

Took the buffer to the scuffed up areas on the bumper cover, and applied touch up to them and a few other nicks on the car - base, mid coat and clear. Also did a little straightening on the LF fender.

Cleaned up some of the overspray on the car. I covered every inch of the car I was not painting with paper or plastic but there were some gaps where it still got in. So confusing. Anyway the buffing compound I had to clean up imperfections took it off with relative ease. Still some spots to go but I have the technique.

Obtained a set of Firehawk Indy 500's on sale and had them mounted and balanced.

Driving uncovered a failing LF hub, which I have subsequently replaced.

Additional observations:
- The hood has definitely been repainted, and is slightly out of alignment
- The heater vent control on the driver side is stuck open so warm air comes out even with A/C on. I can close the vent at the dash but this means all the cold air is coming out the passenger side.
- The mechanism that helps the door stay open makes a snap sound when opening/closing the door. Looking closer I can see part of it is broken. Pretty sure I'll need a replacement

The blend came out good

The taillight required a hole to be drilled to fit. Must have changed the alignment pin location between model years

Trunk does not line up right with the quarter. I think the trunk needs adjusted down

[MostMint]

Here’s a little better after pic - compare to the pic in the first post

[MostMint]

A few updates:

Made two trips to the dragstrip. The first night I laid down baseline numbers and the car ran 14.13. This was a little short of my expectations as the specs say this car is good for 13.8 stock. Pretty sure its a flex fuel engine and might need E85 to get that number. Anyway the car was consistent and I was able to make the final in stock class - pretty happy with that for first time out.

In between trips to the track I took the car on a nearly two hour trip to PA. It ran fine - only issue I had is the A/C would not bring any cold air on the first half of the trip home. I tried it again about half way and it worked - though still only on the passenger side.

Installed my K&N before the second trip to the track. This required some straightening and the PCV vent hose needed some customization since the adapter that came with the kit was broken in the crash from the donor car. Immediately I noticed a slight shudder under light part throttle lower RPM conditions. I tried swapping the MAF with the black car but the effect was the same, and the MAF from this car behaved fine in the black car. I'm going to put the stock air filter back in and see if the problem persists.

For good measure I also looked at a plug. They are NGK plugs and a premium cost part so I decided not to change them.

The second trip to the dragstrip the first pass was 14.04 at just over 100. The car was quite consistent as there was only .12 variance between the fastest and slowest time. As the drivetrain got warm and the air got cooler my last pass was 13.94. I was able to make the final again in stock class, but I couldn't close it out so I ended up runner up. This will be a good bracket racing car once the driver gets dialed in.

Learned how to recalibrate the actuators for HVAC though it did not fix the problem on the driver side. I'll have to order parts and change it out. I've seen a video so I have an idea what's involved.

In driving this car I'm learning more about the alert system. It will put a little green or yellow car symbol on the dash depending on your distance to car in front, and will flash a red rectangle with a crash symbol and vibrate the seats if it thinks you're about to hit something. It gets confused by tree shadows though so I get the flashing red a lot more than when a crash is actually imminent.

[MostMint]

Three small projects:

1) daytime running lamp inside the passenger side headlight was out

This is a long light that runs vertically inside the headlight. It's run by a single LED attached to a heat sync.
Removing it requires detaching the front half of the inner fender.

At first I thought the entire DRL assembly was required which was north of $200. After removing the unit I saw the LED itself had a separate part number, and that led me to a similar assembly for a Cadillac XTS. This part was about $25.

2) HVAC driver side door actuator was not working

This required some under dash disassembly, but with the help of YouTube it was pretty straightforward. The old actuator broke on the way out but I was able to extract the parts.

3) transmission fluid and filter change

Based on other owner experiences I'm fairly certain the shudder at low RPM low throttle conditions is caused by transmission fluid that needs changed. The maintenance interval on the transmission fluid is 100k, and this car has 120k.

The only big hassle in this process is the ATS has no dipstick, and the fill hole is on the driveshaft side of the transmission and there is very little room to access it. Filling this thing through that opening requires some kind of pump to push the fluid uphill into the transmission. In the process of draining I disconnected the transmission line from the top of the radiator, inserted a tube into the cooler and had the transmission pump out the first five quarts of fluid. The disconnected line is the return line to the transmission and this is what I used to put the fluid in. I used a big syringe and a tube connected to the return line to put almost 10 quarts of fluid into the transmission - would have been faster if I'd had a small pump. It took two sessions - about halfway in I stopped and ran the car to use the new fluid to push more of the old fluid out. To check fluid level the car has to be level (used a level on the bottom of the pan) and there is a bolt in the pan to remove while the car is running and trans fluid is 85-122 degrees.

Also - more evidence of damage from prior accident. It has part of an exhaust pipe replaced, dents in the oil pan and pieces of the transmission crossmember are broken off.

[MostMint]

The transmission fluid change did not help the shudder that I think is from the transmission. More work to do to resolve this.

The vent actuator I changed on the driver side was the wrong one. The other one is showing signs of moving but the gears may be stripped out or I suppose it's possible someone changed it but didn't get it installed correctly. I have a replacement I just need time to install it.

[MostMint]

The other HVAC controller motor has been installed, but it did not fix the problem. Changing the second one was a pain in the neck since it was on the inside of the main HVAC box. Luckily there is a side panel you can remove to access it, but then there are like 5 control points that need to be lined up to get these to work properly. It only took two tries.

I diagnosed this so poorly. Since the problem persisted after replacing both of these I had to go back to the drawing board. Well I tried put the temp up to "HI" instead of 75 or any specific temp and magically the driver side would produce heat like the passenger side. Turns out there is a temperature sensor (actually two of them I could see - one for floor and one for dash vents) that it uses to meter the amount of heat coming in. When it fails it must think the temp is max high so it puts out cold air. I'm still a bit confused as to when the A/C is on it was putting out warm air so maybe one of those controllers was bad after all. Anyway this part was like $6 and quite easy to change. Wish I had started there.

Also I took a look at the V6 and it has two VVT solenoids for intake and two for exhaust. I do wonder if one or more of these are the cause of the shudder. since this started when I changed the CAI I'll double check the wiring connections on the driver side to make sure noe of that was disturbed when I made that change.

[MostMint]

Started driving the red car regular and it rewarded me with a stumble and a flashing check engine light.

After some research on the P0300 (engine misfire) I started pulling spark plugs. The very first one had serious cracks in the porcelain. I swapped in a used leftover from the 2.0.

When I started work on the plugs I noticed the PCV line to the air cleaner was separated in the back. When I put in the K&N I am sure I knocked this hose off. The fit of the tube in the hose is not very snug - but the test drive confirmed that this fixed the shudder during shifting. Also the misfire seems to be resolved.

I also took the time to get the TPMS sensors in the snow tires calibrated to the car. I used my scan tool and a sensor activator I had acquired for this purpose. The activator has to be placed correctly next to the sensor in the tire to get it to activate, but it worked.

[MostMint]

One thing I noticed recently is that the average MPG on the Challenger is 21.9 and average mileage on this car is 20.2. The average speed on this car is 21.7 mph. I noticed this a few weeks back and the numbers are not changing. Admittedly I don't drive that much, but my average speed in the Corolla was mid 30's mph. My guess is the ATS has a long memory and this car did a lot of city driving or sitting and idling with its prior owner so it's going to be a while before those numbers increase. I've put 1500 miles on this car but can't recall what the numbers were when it showed up. I had disconnected the battery during repairs so that does not reset these counters.

Also the one 2018 rim I have did not have a center cap, so I improvised.

[Basement Paul]

I would be pretty certain that buried in one of those menus is a reset for these things. I don't have a Cadillac, but every other car I've had with it had it with relatively easy access with only one or two buttons to get to that function.
I kinda like the Mopar hashes more than the Crest.

-BP