The Hurtful Cadillac Break Up

As the 4.5 of you who know me and read this blog know, I have always loved the Cadillac brand of car. Of course, as a younger man, I couldn’t afford one but when I got my first job as an assistant professor, I finally had enough money to buy myself one. It wasn’t a new model, but it was a Cadillac. In fact, I’ve never owned a new car. 

Unfortunately, my loyalty to Cadillac came to an end and I won’t ever buy another. I won’t recommend another. I won’t have anything else to do with the brand. So what happened? Back in November of 2025, I was heading to the airport in New Orleans to catch a flight. I was in my 2006 Cadillac XLR. If you know me, then you know how I loved that car. It was a hybrid car because it was a two-door coupe sitting on a Cadillac chassis with a Corvette engine. It was made to compete with the fine cars from BMW and Mercedes. Unfortunately, the competition beat General Motors into the ground and only 15,000 units of this car were ever made.

When I pulled into parking garage at the airport, the arm raised to let me in but all of a sudden, I couldn’t put the car in gear to drive forward. In fact, the gear shifter just slid back and forth and wouldn’t engage any of the gears. Like I said, the parking arm had raised, and no one was behind me so I got out and pushed the car over to the side. It seemed that the transmission had blown so I was in bad shape. I waited a bit then called for a tow truck. Tow trucks are always expensive so I knew I’d be paying a pretty penny. The “good” thing was that this all happened on the first floor right at the entrance to the parking structure. Had I been up on the second floor or higher, I would have been in real trouble because the ceilings are slow low that there would have been no way to get the car up on the truck bed in the back. Because of the very low profile of the car, you can’t use one of those tow trucks that just snatches the front of the car up and wheels away.

I had the tow truck guy take me directly to the only Cadillac dealership in New Orleans. It’s the place I’d gone to exclusively for all of my repairs and oil changes since I had moved to New Orleans. That had been over 5 years of loyal business. We got there and I went in to ask the service tech where they wanted the car dropped and what had happened. They paused a moment then went to talk to a manager. They came back and said that there was nothing that they could do to help me. They said that my car was 19 years old at the time and they didn’t service cars that were older than 10 years old. To say the least, I was amazed. I had just had the oil changed and some other stuff done to the car 4 months earlier. I asked them to check their records but they wrote down the names of a few local garages in the city and told me that’s all that they would do. 

I was in a pretty awkward situation because the tow truck guy wanted to get going to his next job and despite all of my pleas, it was clear that Cadillac was not going to fix the car. I had to pay almost twice as much as I had to get from the airport to get the tow truck guy to take the car to my house, which was on the other side of the city. I felt really bad. I had already missed my flight and leaving the car pushed over to the side in that parking garage for 3 days wasn’t an option, so I had to take it home.

I later called the dealership to talk to the general manager. He was polite but, in the end, told me to go “fly” off. He did try to sell me a new car. Like I’d ever buy a Cadillac after what they just did to me. I then contacted the corporate office using the chat feature on the website of Cadillac. That very RUDE exchange is below. I put this entire exchange on Twitter and pinged Cadillac. Nothing. It just did not get better. Cadillac seems to know how to make good cars. They don’t seem to know how to service them or offer anything approaching good customer service. I’m done with them.

After the car sat in front of my house for a week, I was able to have it towed (at a very high price) to a local garage pretty close to the airport. Ugh! It was there for almost 2 months. The problem was that the car was so old that the manufacturer had stopped making replacement parts. It was such a unique car that parts from another General Motors car wouldn’t work. The repairmen had to try to recreate or just rig up things to make it run again. It ran well after but if anything ever broke again, there was going to be no way to fix it. The parts just didn’t exist. 

I never will go back to a Cadillac dealer nor will I ever recommend their cars.

• Hello! Thank you for reaching out to Cadillac Customer Care. My name is Alicia. How can I assist you today?

Alicia • 11:55 AM

• I would like to say how disappointed with how Cadillac treated me after years of faithful service.

Read • 11:56 AM

• A

We apologize that that was your experience

Alicia • 11:57 AM

• Here is what happened again: I am disappointed with the service that I received (didn't receive) from your establishment on 11/6/2025. I own a 2006 Cadillac XLR. I have been a loyal Cadillac man for over 3 decades and have always taken my car to the dealer when I lived in Alabama, Oklahoma, and now Louisiana. My car died at the MSY airport, so I had a tow truck come and take me directly to your dealership. Upon arrival, I was told to not unload the car. I suggested that there might be a transmission problem or maybe a coolant leak. However, given its age, I was told that new parts were not available. That was not the issue. All I wanted done was a diagnostic to know what the problem was. I was denied that service which I was willing to pay for. Maybe the problem was something other than what I suggested since I am not a mechanic. Maybe parts were not needed. The key was to examine the vehicle and let me know. I was told to take the car to some random repair shop. I told them that I had never taken my car to any other place but a Cadillac dealership since 1999. The car maybe totaled or require expensive repairs done at a different shop. However, I do not know. If the car is totaled and I need to buy a new one, it is clear that I should not buy a Cadillac since I will be denied the courtesy of service should if it needs repairs. I also own a 2012 Escalade which I have always brought to you for service. I suspect that I should find a new shop for it also. This is not the quality of service that I have come to expect from Cadillac.

Read • 11:57 AM

• A

what was the name of the dealership and did they mention why they were not able to work on the vehicle

Alicia • 11:59 AM

• Cadillac of New Orleans.

• They said that it was too old. Like I wrote, they said that they couldn't find parts for whatever was broken without ever bothering to find out what was broken.

• Oddly, I took it to a local garage and they are fixing the car now. There wasn't one part needed that wasn't available.

Read • 12:01 PM

• Well we do apologize for the inconvenience. The dealerships are all independently owned and operated and reserve the right to refuse service. I just reached out to the dealer Cadillac of new Orleans and was advised that it is their rule that they don't take vehicles older then 10 years at that dealership that are not regularly serviced there. Which is why you were told that also parts are not easily available on older vehicles which most after 10 years sometimes are not at all available so some dealers don't do work on them

• A

Im glad that you were able to get the concern resolved even if not with us

Alicia • 12:07 PM

• I have been a loyal customer for of that dealership for the last 5 years since I arrived in New Orleans. They do and have regularly serviced it. In fact, I have only had the oil changed at the dealership. In addition, they did 4,000 work of work on the car not more than 2 years ago.

Read • 12:08 PM

• Again we apologize for the inconvenience but the dealer does have the right to refuse service and that was their rule at that dealership.

• A

Thank you for choosing Cadillac and have a good day

Alicia • 12:10 PM

• A

Alicia left • 12:10 PM

• Agent ended the chat at 12:10 PM