The Cadillac CTS Had A Ridiculous Motorized Feature That Owners Kept Breaking

Cadillac Motorized Cupholders Ts
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Luxury cars and ridiculous motorized gizmos go together like hot honey and prosciutto, as we’ve seen in the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL’s power-adjustable interior mirror, the 30-way seats available in many new Lincolns, and the motorized doors on the new BMW 7 Series. However, none of the automakers have ever plumbed quite the same depths as Cadillac.

For 2014, the Cadillac CTS was ready to go upmarket. Thanks to the presence of the ATS compact luxury sedan, the CTS no longer had to sit in between the size and amenities of a Mercedes-Benz C-Class and E-Class, and was instead free to spread its wings and join the midsize executive sedan segment for good. Hot off of a government bailout, GM had something to prove, so it pulled out all the stops.

We’re talking turbo-four, naturally-aspirated V6, or twin-turbo V6 power, an available electronically-variable limited-slip rear differential, center stack switchgear unique to Cadillac, and what might be the most unnecessary motorized feature ever installed in a production car: a motorized cup-holder cover.

Yep, instead of a roller blind or solid panel on damped tracks one simply pushed into the dashboard, Cadillac went the extra mile and motorized the cover in both directions. A light forward press would send the lid whirring into the dashboard, and once open, a flick towards you would excite the electronics and bring the cover back to the closed position. The power function works whenever the start button is pressed, whether the CTS is in accessory mode, running, or even within ten minutes of shutting the engine down.

Cadillac Cts Motorized Cup Holder Owners Manual

This is an incredibly cool system when it works and is used as intended, but not every motorized cup holder lid works flawlessly forever. A quick perusal of owners’ forums brings up reported issues with the cup holder lid getting stuck in the open position. Not the end of the world since it still allows the cup holders to be used, but still an annoying issue.

Cadillac Cts Motorized Cup Holder Lid Complaint

Because the system relies on a stop to set end travel, forcing the lid open can push the lid over the stop, rendering the system inoperable. Thankfully, there’s a relatively easy fix, as outlined by a technical service bulletin titled “Diagnostic Tip – Center Console Electric Cup Holder Lid Inoperative.” Sure, there’s the general warning that this TSB isn’t meant for amateur repair, but I don’t see why it isn’t worth a try on an out-of-warranty car. Here’s what to do:

Gently pull up and towards the rear of the vehicle at the same time on the front of the door/lid, use a trim stick to gently pry up the rear portion of the door to lift the rear edge up and over the stop. This procedure should reposition the door to the correct side of the stop and should now operate correctly.

Please advise customer not to use excessive force while operating the door.

Yep, that makes perfect sense, and should be easy enough to do with one of those cheap nylon non-marring trim tools. [Ed note: I just bought these. Nothing but the best for this guy –PV] If you’re looking to buy a third-generation Cadillac CTS, now you know how to work the cup holder lid, and what to do if it’s stuck. Cadillac certainly didn’t need to motorize a freaking cup holder cover, but the motoring world is slightly weirder and slightly better because it did.

(Photo credits: Cadillac, Cadillac Forums)

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99 thoughts on “The Cadillac CTS Had A Ridiculous Motorized Feature That Owners Kept Breaking

  1. “The motoring world is slightly better”. Only for the world that the motor company lives in that supplies the motor for repeat breakage. The rest of us are not pleased with this silly, worse-then-manual lid.

  2. An interesting thing I’m learning from the comments is that there are people in the world who actually close their cup holder covers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one closed in a car. (Mine or anyone else’s…)
    I buy the car, I open the cup holder lid, and it stays open until I no longer have the car. I guess it’s possible the next owner might close it, but until today, it never occurred to me that they might.

  3. As a loaner for a month , I had a 2016 ATS (some kind of special one with a mesh grill). After about 3 weeks, I swept my hand over the dash and suddenly, the secret motorized compartment behind the HVAC controls opened up. I did not know that was there. I thought that was cool. (until it breaks with your wallet/etc in there). This cup holder cover though? Who even uses those? I opened mine in ~2017 and I think they’ve been open since aside from cleaning.

  4. Not just the CTS, my ELR had the same console. Never broke the cover as I probably only closed it a half dozen times in my 4+ years with the car. Stupidly pointless feature, impressed anyone used it enough to break it!

  5. Oh, thank you. I am on record both on this site and the old site railing against this exact feature on the CTS. I remember I got a CTS as a rental and having a complete WTF moment as I realized the lid was motorized.

    I mean, a cover is fine but in no universe does it ever need to be motorized.

  6. If there’s anything I’ve learned from my car ownership, it’s that the cupholder lid while aesthetically pleasing serves no actual purpose. Sure your center console looks great with the lid closed, but the chances of it ever being closed are pretty slim since it’ll always be filled with

    1. Your phone
    2. Your keys(if keyless start)
    3. Your girlfriend/boyfriends phone
    4. A bottle of watter
    5. Emotional support burrito
    1. Or hiding something under it in a sketchy neighborhood, which of course, will only pique the curiosity of miscreants when they see it closed and wonder what it’s hiding.

  7. Please excuse me. I have very particular feelings about the center console.

    Let me get this out of the way so I can think more clearly. Unless it is a manual get the freekin shifter OUT OF THERE. It’s a waste of useful space. Period.

    Now that is out of the way… rather than motorizing the cover which I think my comrades below have sufficiently excoriated let’s talk about removeable cupholder inserts. The cupholders themselves should be removable from the bin in which they sit. How great would it be if you could remove them and use it for storage? Why do they assume everyone is guzzling a big-gulp 24/7? I mostly use my cupholders to hold my phone and other stuff.
    What if I have a hottle of coffee instead? Won’t fit, your screwed. Too bad I can’t remove the factory inserts and put in something for a larger container.

    Or, how about in 3 years when there is so much shit spilled and collected in there? Can I just pull them out and rinse them off? Nope, it’s time for a bucket, rag, and freekin toothbrush.

    In summary get that damn shifter out of the way, put it on the column like it was for 60 years and stop it with all of this stupid shit. I need some Advil.

    1. My Kia Niro EV has an almost rectangular bin with a manual sliding lid, and two little semicircular arms that can be hidden or slid out to provide for holding 0, 1, or 2 beverages. Oddly, most of the bottom is flat, except for one of the potential cup holders, which has a half inch circular recess at the bottom. It also has a passthrough from the front for power or CarPlay etc(it really should have been from the back to the armrest cubby where there is also power but I guess they didn’t feel like routing the infotainment usb back there I guess). Then, there is another lower open cubby in front of the switchgear. Lots of options!
      https://i2.wp.com/drivenwomenmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Kia-Niro-EV-S-cup-holder.jpg?ssl=1

    2. My BRZ has removable cup holders, and you can even move them into two pre-defined fore-aft positions as well. Very convenient to clean in my dozen years of owning one as you mention. Plus the cup holder itself looks like a cute robot face! Fun!

      Always wanted more accessories for this system, like maybe a little armrest insert, but never found anything I liked.

      https://www.subaru.ca/Content/7907/Media/General/webimage/2015/brz/BRZ_2015_Int_BottleHolder_L.jpg

    3. A lot of vehicles (though not enough) have removable liners for cleaning, but I’ve also wondered why the whole cup-shaped partition isn’t removable to use as a storage box instead.

    4. My VW Eos has a little metal separator that slots into rails in the central cubby to create a support for 2 cups in an otherwise rectangular pit (which, oddly has 2 different floor levels).

      Bonus points (I guess) to VW for including a bottle opener on that little removable separator.

    5. As a minivan owner, removable cup holder inserts are amazing for cleaning out the kid/swmbo sludge that inevitably builds up. As a person who drinks and insane amount of water I have had only said minivan (Sienna) and an E150 ever have cup holders that can hold my normal large water bottles. Over the years my bottles have fit between bucket seats as an armrest (Saturn SL2) or between the driver door and seat (BMW and Subaru). I’ve been able to 3D print an adaptor for my Tesla that can hold my big bottles in the little cupholders and it’s amazing!

          1. No worries. Personally I don’t have a need for a cup holder cover myself. Personally I’d rather be without one less thing to break, get loose and rattle, etc.

  8. At least the worst that could happen when this inevitably breaks is the loss of a cup holder. The rising shifter knob in Jaguars has to be the stupidest feature I have ever encountered. I have owned 3 Jaguars and they have all been great cars, but I could never buy another one once that rising shift knob appeared.

    It served no actual purpose, added cost, was located where anything spilled on the center console could damage it, and thanks to its needless complexity, was absolutely guaranteed to eventually fail making it impossible for you to put your car in gear.

  9. I have never understood why you would want to cover the cupholder. If you want something to be hidden, use any of the other storage spaces in the vehicle. If you don’t like the look of cupholders, get over it or don’t buy a car with them located somewhere that offends your sensibilit. (Audi has a good history of making their cupholders particularly hidden and useless, for instance)

    1. So I don’t use my center cup holders, mostly I find that position awkward for actual cups. I 3D printed holders for the door pockets. So for me, I would prefer a cover (that I don’t have) to keep dirt from getting in there. Now I have to clean something I don’t need.

      1. But the rest of the car still gets dirty at the same rate, regardless of covered cupholders, so you’d have to clean it anyway, so how’s it saving you any time/effort?

        1. It’s literally a pocket.. Ever notice you get lint in your pockets but not the thighs of your jeans? Horizontal surfaces collect dirt and pockets best of all. And to stay with the jeans analogy you can brush lint off the thighs but you need extra effort to clean the pockets.

    2. While I do think motorizing the cover is dumb, I completely understand wanting to keep dirt and dust out of them. And for some people, I’d say that if you don’t have drinks in them, it’s certainly more aesthetically pleasing when closed. And why wouldn’t you care about aesthetics if you got a luxury car anyway?

      1. No argument that it looks cleaner, but I don’t buy that it saves any time. Instead of cleaning the cupholder, now you’re cleaning a cover AND any time the cupholder gets messy. That’s just extra work. My point was more don’t buy a car with prominent cupholders if they bother you so much

    1. ….are the fold-away shifters breaking?

      If the general industry trend is away from column shifters, I don’t see why they’d stick with them if more people would be off-put by them than not.

      1. Why would anyone be put off by them? The point is to get the shifter out of the way so the center console can be a work surface, the simplest and cheapest solution that does that should be the right one. Anything more is complexity for the sake of complexity. And, yes, there have been a decent number of issues with the folding shifter, mainly that it gets stuck and won’t fold down at all or not all the way, or that the bushings get loose and cause it to jiggle around

        1. If I didn’t grow up in a family with E-series vans, I’d have never used a column shifter. I imagine they might be a little wacky to use for someone who never had before. They don’t say which way to pull them or have an obvious “toggle” or track like dash or console shifters.

          Fair enough on if they’re problematic, though. I’m speaking mostly from a UI/UX perspective.

          1. It’s the 2nd most common basic shifter design of the past 90 years, and has been the most common at different points during that period. At this point, I’d say everyone with a licensehas driven something with it, likely owned at least one car with it, and with an automatic, you’ve got the indicator sitting right there in front of your face. I’m pretty sure I’ve owned more cars with column shifters than anything else at this point, and 4 of them have been Fords. Right now, only 1 in 3 cars in my driveway has one on the console.

            And I’ve never owned a truck or a van, pickup trucks are work vehicles, the kinds of people buying F-150s are probably shifting back and forth between them and the E-Series cutaway vans or Chevy Expresses in their work fleets, they’re going to be even more familiar than the general population, if that’s even possible

            1. That makes some sense, but I haven’t even been around for 30 years yet.
              A list of every car I’ve driven for more than a few hours besides my van is a 2005 Ford Focus, a 2000 Buick LeSabre, a 2010 Ford Flex, a 2012 Prius v, and a 2014 Sienna. None of those have column shifters.

              Yes, the indicator shows what gear you’re in, but I just mean, it might not be obvious that you have to pull it toward you and then down. If I were new to driving right now and you threw me into that van with no direction, I might try holding in the “overdrive” button, thinking it some kind of toggle (like a console shifter), and then try pulling it straight down. There’s no arrow on the lever pointing toward you to indicate the motion.

              So if someone has been in mostly “family” cars like wagons, sedans, minivans, etc. and now is going to an F-150 (aka, the market’s new “family” vehicle), they’d probably appreciate the shifter being “where they expect it to be.”

              1. I think that’s maybe an issue the first time you use it and not after? It’s an automatic, not a 3 on the tree, you touch it once to get moving and then not again until you get to where you’re going. I think I have maybe a decade on you in age, or a bit less, but across two Lincoln sedans, 1 Ford sedan, 1 Mercury sedan, and 1 Cadillac sedan, they were all on the column, and I’ve got a Chevy coupe right now that has a little lever on the dashboard

                  1. I wanted a 4 on the tree at one time. When I was a kid, a shirttail relative came back from Germany w/ a Mercedes sedan that had a 4 on the tree. I thought it was neat.

              2. Most of the vehicles I’ve driven with column shift had traditional mechanical linkages. The first time I drove one when I was 16, it took a second to figure out, but after that it was second nature. I don’t even remember what kind of car it was, I detailed a lot of cars at that time so it could have been anything. I’m a little bit older than you it seems, but when I turned 16 in 2009 column shifters like that were common, primarily in domestic cars, trucks and vans. I’d say close to half of my friends’ cars had them then, keeping in mind most of those were late 90s/early 2000s cars.

                But since many cars now have electronic shifters, it’s a lot easier. In a couple Mercedes I’ve driven, it’s just a click down for drive, a click up for reverse, and park is a button on the end of the stalk you push. Imagine it’s similar across makes and models that have electric column shifters.

    2. dude even my bottom-of-the-line F150 has that, it’s so dumb. I don’t have the work surface console, and it’s not something you can easily retrofit, so the shifter folds for no reason.

  10. Herein lies the reason why luxury cars depreciate off a cliff once the warrantee expires. “Complicate, then add in motorized stuff.” ~ Every Luxury Automaker Exec Ever.

    1. There’s a very good reason why the only difference between luxury cars and economy cars is boondoggles.

      Once upon a time, in the 20s, economy cars could go 40mph, barely had suspension, were clattery, mostly kept the rain out, and were uncomfortable. Then there were Dusenbergs and Cadillacs and Bentleys and Rolls Royces that were comfortable, smooth, quiet, powerful, and could cruise at an easy 100mph. That difference is what you got when you paid for a luxury brand.

      Nowadays, a 2017 Altima is quite and smooth and can cruise at illegal speeds, and it gets good gas mileage too. There’s nothing about the fundamental experience of driving that luxury brands can practically and legally improve on. So they add boondoggles like powered cupholder lids.

      1. It also used to be about materials – high quality leather, fine wools, exotic woods, inlay work, glass smooth paint finishes, etc. Now, luxury cars mostly have the same plastic and plastichrome as anything else, and orange peel is coming back with a vengeance, so they cover it up by shoving more screens into every available area and expect you to thank them for that

    2. I think it all started to change when the Japanese car makers, trying to prove they weren’t making junk, started including things like carpeting and air conditioning as standard on base models. Everyone else needed to step up their game. As the bottom tier crept upward in nice stuff it left was less room for the top tier to impress/improve.

      1. A big reason the fanciness of Japanese cars picked up in the mid 80s was the voluntary import limit implemented by Reagan. The Japanese manufacturers had 3 choices: take a big revenue hit, make their cars in the US, or increase the revenue per car. Honda and Toyota at least picked the latter two, and they had to make the cars nicer/fancier to justify the higher revenue per car.

            1. Oh sure, I’m not claiming we’re at equilibrium yet by any means (I’m a frequent traveler, so it’s personal with me no less).

              Just that when the Civil Aeronautics Board managed competition, airlines couldn’t compete on price (or destinations for that matter) so airlines had to do it by offering all manner of amenities that strictly speaking, people didn’t really value as much as other things.

              So apropos Rust Bucket’s comment, similar to how we got to the place we are now with all questionable automotive gadgets and such.

  11. I always have to chuckle at the usually tiny intersection between designer intent and usual consumer use on stuff like this.

    Designer: “luxury touch, everything all streamlined and clean and in a proper place.

    Consumer: “charging cords, glasses, pens, food products both consumed and not jammed wherever, air freshener hanging from mirror”

  12. I hate unnecessarily motorized things with a burning passion. Not even power seats for me, and power windows and locks are kinda iffy.

    Some of you really like having power seats and cupholder covers(why does that even exist, much less powered) and gloveboxes and tailgates, and I’m just letting you know that you’re wrong and those things shouldn’t be powered.

    1. I’m with you – my Focus has manual seats, and I’ve always been able to come up with a decent seating position just fine. And I know no matter how old it gets, that feature will at least still work fine.

      1. Power seats are a godsend if you have to move your seat frequently….. and you like your seat-moving to be unnecessarily slow, difficult, and possible a limited number of times before it breaks itself.

        I’ve always been fine with manual seats, as were your parents.

        You can’t convince me power seats are an improvement.

        1. Yup. This. I am 8 inches taller than my wife. We share a car quite a bit. After she drives, I have to adjust all mirrors and the seat. Never ONCE have I wished that it had those ridiculous auto saves with power features. I just slide the seat back a few inches, adjust the mirrors and off I go. I takes all of an extra 9 seconds sitting in my garage.

          1. My wife and I seem to have very similar seating positions, so it has never been an issue, but when my kids started driving, I started loving memory positions for everything. They manage to pick the most uncomfortable seating settings for some reason. Now all my cars except one have memory settings based on the fob used, so everything except the rear view mirror is set as soon as I unlock the car and before I get in.

          2. You don’t have to adjust it up or down? I have a Prius v and I dread the thought of sharing it with someone else, because I’ll have to pump it a dozen times to switch.

        2. If you’ve ever had back problems, you’d realize power seats are a godsend. Being able to make minute adjustments in 12 different ways has allowed me to drive longer than 10 minutes before becoming miserable.

    2. Power seats truly do unlock new levels of adjustability, so I have to disagree with you there. The rest of that stuff I totally get. I’ve been getting pissed off at the motion sensing faucets and especially paper towel dispensers for a long time now. It’s just so heinously wasteful and unnecessary

      1. I never have issues getting exactly the right position with manual seats, and in my experience comparable electric seats are no more adjustable. Obviously an 18-way power adjustable seat has more adjustment possibilities than a 4-way adjustable manual seat.

        1. Yeah that’s really where my comparison in – it’s like the 18 ways etc. Mechanical vs Electric seat without any added ways of adjustment? Mechanical all day!

        2. I completely understand the hatred of things being unnecessarily complicated, but the point that you’re missing is that most power seats offer a memory function.

          I’ve never seen anybody claim that manual seats are less comfortable, it’s just that you have to play around for ages to find your position every time they’re moved.

          My wife and I share all of our cars, and those with memory seats & mirrors are much easier to switch between.
          I avoid her driving my car that doesn’t have memory seats/mirrors where possible, because I can never get the adjustments right again.

          1. Memory electric seats are great. Why VW decontented the top spec GTI and removed the memory seats and mirrors for the American market is a mystery to me. It was quite expensive for its class when new. My BMW and my F-150 (neither one in top spec) both have at least 2 position memory seats.

  13. A few other unnecessarily motorized things that come to my mind.

    • The first few years of the Volt had a motorized charge door with a dedicated button on the fob to open and close it. It would break when the car iced over or at other times. Later models of the Gen 1 changed to a standard style push in to release fuel door, and the Fob button was re-purposed to a very handy button that would override your programmed charge time (if you have varying electrical rates) and have charging begin immediately.
    • Our 2008 STS has a motorized tilt for the navigation screen that amazingly still works. It wouldn’t really be that annoying, except it resets the tilt every time you shut off the car, and the tilt is programmed as one of the memory settings along with the mirrors, seat, and steering wheel. It just bothers me when the default programming is to use the motor more than needed by having it change position every time the car starts or shuts off.
    1. The motorized charge/fuel door idea has always struck me as being fairly like the eject button on a disc player remote – you’re going to physically be there anyway, so what’s the point?

      1. Yep, the only time it would be useful is when you forget to shut it and get into the car. It happens to me from time to time and it’s always annoying to get in, buckle up, and then try to start the car and get a message that the charge door is open.

    2. That’s really odd – our 2007 Escalade has basically the same navigation unit, and the screen has literally never tilted without me pressing the button.
      Can’t you set the memory with it in the correct position?

  14. TBH I hate shit like this it inevitably breaks or doesn’t work as you expect. What I been more impressed if it had a spring loaded catch like some of the german cupholders – which admittedly would probably still break at some point but it would be cheaper to replace. Or you know just make it manual

    1. The worst thing I’ve ever had to deal with on a spring-loaded catch is it getting gummed up over time from dirt and gunk from stuff put in the cupholders, and a good cleaning never failed to fix it.

      But, GM gotta GM.

      1. Sounds about right. One of my prime GM experience is my dad leased a series of their ’00s gen pickups for work a ’99, ’02, and an ’05 and they had that terrible tailgate release that was so rough to use and the tailgate itself was prone to falling off the hinges (I think it was supposed to be removable but was way too easy to have fall off when opening it)- which like come on it’s a pickup this should be one of the best built parts of the truck besides the drivetrain. And then hilariously the cupholders instead of having spring-loaded tensioners had little foam ears to make them accommodate various drink sizes but they slowly wore down over time until they no longer worked.

    1. Or the dash vents.
      Or the fuel/charge door.
      What’s next, auto sun-tracking visors? Motorized giant-center-screen dust cover?
      How about a sensor and logic circuit to determine the exact diameter of the beverage container so motorized claws grip it with the most optimized pressure? With other sensors and circuits that release the claws when your hand reaches for the beverage container?

      My dad woulda said something about the car wiping his ass.

      1. I believe new Escalade is since there is no physical latch and just the touch screen icon to open it. Maybe the same on other models, but yeah, its certainly one of the ideas of all time.

  15. I actually mentioned it in a comment on that article. I loved that stupid feature in my 14 V Sport. Such a silly thing but it would put a smile on my face every time.

    Don’t forget the motorized CUE screens in that era of Cadillac either. At least the ones that slid mostly into the dash leaving a portion of the screen showing with necessary info, and the ones that flipped open to reveal a storage compartment, were actually useful.

    1. Dang, beat me to it. The motorized screens that Cadillac had that were both nifty and completely unnecessary always made me chuckle and grimace. I will admit that I do actually appreciate the flip-open screens that GM used all over the place, as it seemed like a better use of dead space and actually retained stuff you put inside better than a cup holder.

      1. I’ve always liked those flip-up ones with the storage compartment. Like the modern version of older cars that had a little basket like storage area at the bottom of the center console – seemingly minor, but actually so useful in everyday situations.

        1. Yeah honestly it’s pretty nice. It’s somewhere easy to store my wallet and other pocket things while I’m on a long drive. I get a surprising amount of use from them!

        2. Absolutely. Super useful. My parents bought a Chevy crossover (I cant remember now if it was an Equinox or Traverse) when GM first started putting the flip-up screens. My mom drove the car for probably two years without any idea it was there until she came to visit and I showed it to her. Her mind was blown, and she absolutely loved the feature to the point that it was almost a dealbreaker for her next car purchase.

  16. Expeditions and f150’s with the center console have something similar over the wireless charger. Electronically closed manually opened. Super annoying in general

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