Turns out everyone is confused by number scheme
More than 1,100 CT4s shipped with wrong badge
Think that Cadillac’s new numbering scheme, where they put torque figures in newton-metres on the trunk lid in place of displacement, is complicated? Well, apparently so did Cadillac employees, who are reported to have built and shipped more than 1,100 cars with a badge that shouldn’t even have existed.
The 2.7L turbo-four versions of the Cadillac CT4 were meant to wear a 500T badge on the boot lid, a reference to the 350 lb-ft of torque that engine makes. It’s 474 Nm, and that rounds to 500. If you’re rounding up, that is. It looks like someone may have followed normal rounding convention and taken it down to 450T instead. Other Cadillacs like the XT6 with 3.6L V6 make 373 Nm and wear a 400 badge (no T because it’s naturally aspirated) so it’s not entirely clear where the mistake was made.
Cadillac Society reported on the mistake, with a source that told them 1,155 CT4 models left the Michigan plant with the wrong badges. As they point out, zero of Cadillac’s current vehicles would wear a 450, so it’s not clear why the badges even existed, let alone were at the plant. Future model coming? The base 2.0T CT4 wears a 350T badge thanks to its 258 lb-ft (350 Nm).
The fix is a service bulletin where dealers will pop off the 450T badge and replace it with a 500T one. That’ll be a free service, though Cadillac Society says that it’s only free while you’re under warranty. Or if you’re an owner of one of the improperly badged cars, maybe you can keep it that way and make a mint at auction in 40 years?
