AtWhatMileage
Adas · 7 owner reports

Other speed control problem on the 2004 Cadillac Cts

2 crashes 1 injury 3 of the 7 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.

Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 7
With an odometer reading 6
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 33%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 11th

When other speed control problem gets reported

There are 7 reports of other speed control problem on the 2004 Cadillac Cts, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 11th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 6 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 43,500 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Of these reports, 2 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.

Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2009, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 2006 at 85,000 miles.

By volume the 2003 carries the most reports, with 16; the 2004 has 7. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Vehicle has twice accelerated forward upon braking when coming to a stop. First time was in a parking lot. Vehicle was pulling into parking space, slowed to a crawl with the brakes applied, then suddenly lunged forward, hitting the car parked directly in front of vehicle. No damage occurred, but experience very frightening. Second time was returning from doctor appointment. A passenger in the vehicle at the time and experienced the defect. While coming to a stop behind a group of cars at the stop light, brakes applied to slow the car to a crawl, then suddenly the car surges forward. Upon slamming brake fully to the floor, the vehicle stopped, missing hitting the car ahead and stopped by only inches. Vehicle was taken to dealership, which kept the car over the weekend, supplying a loaner car. Called dealership monday afternoon. Told there was nothing wrong with the vehicle. It was driven a total of 80 miles over the weekend and the problem was not recreated. The trouble is, it was almost 450 miles between the first problem occurrence and the second one. They were almost one week apart. Now I am told by the dealership that since the…

22,700 miles NHTSA complaint 527101 filed 2005-03-21

Dt*: the contact stated at various speeds without warning, the vehicle lost power and would not accelerate above 20 MPH. Also, without warning, the vehicle stalled on several occasions, and would not restart. The vehicle was towed to the dealership, who replaced the throttle twice and the throttle body assembly harness, but the problem persisted. *ak updated 10/25/2006 - *nm

37,000 miles NHTSA complaint 597967 filed 2006-09-29

Come to stop sign put foot on brake pedal to stop. Instead of stopping car started to accelerate and would not stop with brake pedal applied until it with through neighbors barn. Totalled vehicle. Passenger verifies brake was being applied during this incident. *jb

23,353 miles NHTSA complaint 616586 filed 2007-03-14

Also reported on the 2004 Cadillac Cts

Other body or interior problem

23 reports median 48k

Other electrical problem

20 reports median 67k

Other brake problem

19 reports median 77k

Radiator or coolant leak

15 reports median 93k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 7 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 7 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does other speed control problem happen on the 2004 Cadillac Cts?

Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 45,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other speed control problem on the 2004 Cadillac Cts?

7 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed