Cadillac is a luxury brand that many Americans love to own and drive, but while customers are paying a lot of money for a luxury Cadillac, sometimes, the car just isn’t worth its price tag. The jury is still out on the latest Escalade models, but owners say that the past model years of the Escalade have some really inconvenient issues.

The worst problem on the Cadillac Escalade

According to Car Complaints, the worst issue for the Cadillac Escalade overall happened in the 2014 model year of the car. This problem was a rare problem as few people reported it. However, those who’ve reported it said that it was a very inconvenient issue. This problem was that for some reason, the 2014 Escalade would give its owner a very uncomfortable ride. 

This obviously isn’t ideal, as a luxury car should be comfortable in every way possible. This doesn’t mean just giving it fancy seats, it also means giving it a smooth ride quality among other things. That’s not what happened to some owners of the 2014 Escalade. 

One user on Car Complaints who had this issue said that they had paid $80,000 for their 2014 Escalade, and it didn’t provide nearly as much comfort as it should. They said that the car felt fine on highways, but on any other road that isn’t perfectly smooth, they described it as “being thrown around in a cage.”

Fixing this issue

The issue, according to their mechanic, was that the struts on the 2014 Escalade were in need of repairs. The only problem with that is that their 2014 Escalade barely had any miles on it. Indeed, on average, Car Complaints said that the average mileage for the 2014 Escalades with this issue was just 35,000 miles. Fixing this was a costly thing, too. On average, it cost owners about $1,700 to fix this uncomfortable ride issue. 

This problem was so severe that Car Complaints rated it as a 10 out of 10 for severity. That said, it is a rare issue that few owners experienced. Indeed, despite this problem, Car Complaints doesn’t go so far as to say that the 2014 Escalade is a bad car. That said, the Escalade, in general, has another common problem throughout the years.

A history of transmission problems in the Cadillac Escalade

Two of the other worst issues that the Cadillac Escalade has had, according to Car Complaints, are the same problem. Escalade owners throughout the years, whether it’s a 2006 Escalade or a 2016 Escalade, said that their car’s transmission simply failed. 

Transmission problems like that aren’t uncommon in cars, but they are very severe problems nonetheless. Many times, when a transmission fails, the only way to fix it is to replace the whole transmission. Obviously, that can be extremely expensive. That’s exactly what some users on Car Complaints said about their Escalade models. 

For example, the 2006 Escalade’s most severe problem was transmission failure. The average mileage for these failures, according to Car Complaints, was 77,000 miles. That mileage makes them moderately used SUVs but not heavily used cars. And, as expected, it’s very expensive to fix this transmission issue. Car Complaints says that the average repair price was $2,800.

It’s possible that many 2006 Escalades on the market with this issue are used cars, so when new owners encounter this problem, they may have to decide on either paying for the repair or just buying a new car. On top of that, the 2016 Escalade arguably had a worse issue with its transmission. It’s a newer model year – so there’s less data – but Car Complaints said that the average mileage for its transmission failure was just 2,000 miles. That’s a practically new car that’s experiencing transmission problems. 

That’s not great. Be wary if you’re shopping for an older Cadillac Escalade model.