01
Substantial Defect
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering and persistent electrical faults qualify. A rattle generally does not.
By Manufacturer
CADILLAC LEMON LAW.
Cadillac runs General Motors' broadest electric range and its largest SUV, and recent campaigns hit both — a display that blanks while you drive, and a V8 whose recall repair NHTSA is now investigating.
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Bad VehicleCadillac claims.
EXPLORE ↓What Decides It
Four facts, in this order.
Cadillac built it, but Cadillac does not decide it. These four questions decide it, and the repair orders in your glovebox answer all four.
02
Repair Attempts
Florida looks for three attempts at the same defect. New York looks for four. Recall work and visits that found nothing both count.
03
Days Out of Service
Thirty cumulative days in Florida and in New York. Cumulative, not consecutive, and the days count whether or not anything was fixed.
04
Coverage Window
The defect has to be reported while the vehicle is inside the warranty or rights period. When it was reported matters more than today's date.
Cadillac is General Motors' luxury division, and NHTSA records every Cadillac recall under the manufacturer name General Motors, LLC. Search by the badge and you find almost nothing. Search by VIN and the picture changes.
The Escalade shares its body, its 6.2L L87 V8 and its brake modules with the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban and the GMC Yukon, which is why Cadillac's largest campaigns are GM-wide full-size truck recalls. The L87 action covered 597,571 vehicles, 125,940 of them Escalades and Escalade ESVs.
Recall repairs count as repair attempts. In August 2026 NHTSA opened Engineering Analysis EA26-005 covering 997,743 GM vehicles because the L87 engine repair may not resolve the defect. A repair that did not work is still an attempt, and it belongs in your count.
Jonathan D. Schwartz has +25 years of experience handling Lemon Law and warranty matters, including claims against General Motors. Bad Vehicle offers a free case evaluation, direct access to the attorney handling the claim, and no upfront legal fee to begin pursuing an eligible case.
Recall or Claim
A recall says GM knows. A claim says they were given the chance to fix it.
A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. It is a public admission of the fault pattern, which makes it useful evidence. What it is not is a Lemon Law claim.
The claim arises from what happened to your vehicle: the defect was reported, the dealership was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair it, and it is still there. A GM recall notice covering the fault on your model proves the manufacturer already knew.
Cadillac's EV range — Lyriq, Optiq, Vistiq, Escalade IQ — runs on the Ultium platform shared with Chevrolet and GMC, so battery, display and software campaigns frequently cross divisions. Owners report frozen screens, failed over-the-air updates and lost camera feeds well before any campaign is filed.
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Check before the next visit
Look your VIN up under General Motors, not under Cadillac.
A recall proves they knew. Your records prove they did not fix it.
Check My Case ↗Recurring Cadillac Faults
WHAT KEEPS COMING BACK.
These are the defect categories that generate the most Lemon Law and warranty claims against Cadillac. A vehicle showing one of these is not automatically a claim. A vehicle showing one of these repeatedly and unrepaired usually is.
6.2L V8 Engine Failure
79,673 Escalades and 46,267 Escalade ESVs were recalled under campaign 25V-274 for L87 rod and crankshaft defects, and the repair itself is now under NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA26-005.
Blank Driver Display
Campaign 25V-356 covered 41,376 2023-2024 Lyriqs whose driver video display can go blank while the vehicle is moving, taking the speedometer and warning indicators with it.
Control Valve Wear and Lock-Up
Campaign 25V-148 covered 90,081 vehicles including 27,097 CT5s, 10,602 CT6s and 2,235 CT4s, where valve-body wear caused harsh shifts and brief front-wheel lock-up on downshifts from eighth gear.
Brake Fluid Warning Failure
52,214 Escalades and Escalade ESVs sat inside the 449,671-vehicle campaign 24V-674, in which the brake warning lamp may not signal fluid loss before the pedal degrades.
Ultium High-Voltage Defects
Cadillac EVs show repeat high-voltage faults, including improperly secured battery modules with fire risk on the 2026 Escalade IQ and IQL, and Lyriq and Vistiq units with missing or loose battery floor bolts.
Infotainment and OTA Failures
Lyriq, Optiq and Vistiq owners report frozen screens, failed over-the-air updates and lost camera feeds. Campaign 26V-082 addressed 2024 Lyriqs whose rearview screen turns grey with no image.
Where It Ends Up
Four ways a Cadillac claim resolves.
Which one applies depends on the state, the facts and what gets negotiated with General Motors. All four start with the same free case review.
The models we see most
Recall record · NHTSA · September 2026
CADILLACTHE RECALL WAS DONE. NHTSA REOPENED IT.
01 / ESCALADE, 2021-2024
597,571
6.2L V8 engine failure — Escalade and Escalade ESV, plus Chevrolet and GMC equivalents. Cadillac share: 125,940 vehicles. Now under Engineering Analysis EA26-005.
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02 / CT4 CT5 CT6, 2019-2021
90,081
Harsh shifts, wheel lock-up — A transmission control valve wears and loses pressure, causing harsh shifting and momentary front-wheel lock-up on downshifts from eighth gear.
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03 / ESCALADE, 2023-2024
449,671
Brake fluid warning failure — Escalade and Escalade ESV. Cadillac share: 52,214 vehicles. The low-brake-fluid lamp may not warn before the pedal degrades.
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04 / LYRIQ, 2023-2024
41,376
Driver display goes blank — The driver video display can blank while the vehicle is moving, removing the speedometer and warning indicators from view.
Check My Case ↗In August 2026 NHTSA opened Engineering Analysis EA26-005 covering 997,743 GM vehicles, because the 6.2L V8 recall repair may not resolve the defect. All Cadillac campaigns are filed under General Motors, LLC. Figures from NHTSA as of 23 September 2026.
Read the 15 Questions ↗Cadillac Lemon Law
15 questions Cadillac owners ask.
General information about Lemon Law and warranty claims, not legal advice. What applies to a particular vehicle depends on its records, its warranty and the state where it was bought.
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Because NHTSA does not file it under Cadillac. Every Cadillac campaign is recorded under the manufacturer name General Motors, LLC, so a search by badge returns almost nothing. Search by VIN instead — NHTSA's free VIN lookup reports open recalls on your specific vehicle whichever entity filed them. It is also why no reliable "Cadillac had X recalls" figure exists: NHTSA publishes group totals, not per-badge totals.
It is one of the strongest facts you can have. NHTSA opened Engineering Analysis EA26-005 in August 2026 covering 997,743 GM vehicles precisely because the 6.2L L87 recall remedy may not resolve the defect. A repair that did not work is a repair attempt, and repeated attempts on one unresolved fault are what the Lemon Law presumption is built on.
It is a documented defect. Campaign 25V-356 covered 41,376 2023-2024 Lyriqs whose driver video display can go blank in motion, taking the speedometer and warning telltales with it. Losing the speedometer while driving impairs the use and safety of the vehicle, which is the legal test. Whether it supports a claim depends on how many times it went back unrepaired.
Each of those visits is a repair attempt. Lyriq, Optiq and Vistiq owners report frozen screens, failed over-the-air updates and lost camera feeds, and GM has filed campaigns on several of them. A remedy delivered as software is still a remedy, and when the symptom returns after the update, the attempt count keeps building exactly as it would with a mechanical repair.
Not adversely. The Escalade shares its body, its 6.2L V8 and its brake modules with the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban and the GMC Yukon, which is why Cadillac's biggest campaigns are GM-wide truck recalls. A defect documented across 597,571 vehicles in three divisions is plainly a known pattern, which is useful evidence rather than a weakness.
No. A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. A Lemon Law claim arises from what happened to your specific vehicle: a substantial defect, reported inside the coverage period, that the manufacturer was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair and did not. The recall is useful evidence within that claim, not a substitute for it.
Yes, where the recall remedy addressed the defect at issue and the fault persisted afterward. Owners frequently leave recall visits out of their own count because the work was free and manufacturer-initiated, which weakens the record unnecessarily. If the vehicle went in for the fault and came back with the fault, it was an attempt.
Florida's presumption generally arises after three repair attempts for the same defect, or after the vehicle has been out of service for 30 or more cumulative days during the Lemon Law rights period. A separate and earlier trigger applies at 15 cumulative days, when written notice goes to the manufacturer. It is a presumption rather than a fixed requirement — a defect serious enough to be dangerous can qualify with fewer attempts, and the presumption is one route to the remedy rather than the only one.
New York generally looks for four repair attempts for the same defect, or 30 or more days out of service, within the first two years or 18,000 miles. The framework is close to Florida's but the thresholds and the arbitration process differ, and a vehicle bought in one state and serviced in another needs the applicable law identified early.
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering faults and persistent electrical problems clearly qualify. A rattle or a trim complaint generally does not. Between those extremes the answer depends on how the fault affects the vehicle in normal use, and on what the repair orders actually say about it.
State Lemon Law is primarily directed at qualifying new and demonstrator vehicles. A used Cadillac can still carry rights where a manufacturer or dealer warranty was active when the defect was reported, generally under federal warranty law including the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which does not carry the same new-vehicle limitation.
A leased vehicle can be covered where it meets the same substantive requirements that apply to a purchase. The calculation of any refund is tied to the amounts actually paid into the lease rather than the full vehicle price, and the leasing company is dealt with as part of the resolution rather than left to be sorted out afterward.
That visit still counts as a repair attempt. Intermittent faults are extremely common in software, camera and electrical systems, and a growing share of manufacturer campaigns are software-related. A record of repeated visits where the fault was reported and not resolved is precisely the pattern the law addresses. Ask for the complaint to be written down in your words, and keep the copy that says it could not be verified.
Three, in practice. A repurchase, where the manufacturer buys the vehicle back and refunds what was paid, less a statutory offset for the miles driven before the first report of the defect. A replacement with a comparable vehicle. Or a cash settlement where the vehicle stays with you and the manufacturer pays for the diminished value. Which applies depends on the state, the facts and what is negotiated.
Broadly: the purchase price plus collateral and incidental charges, minus a mileage offset tied to the distance driven before the defect was first reported. Registration, taxes and finance charges are frequently recoverable. The offset is the part manufacturers most often calculate in their own favour, and it is worth checking line by line.
Other Manufacturers
The badge does not decide the claim.
The law applies the same way to every brand sold in the state. What differs is the defect pattern, the warranty terms and how hard the manufacturer fights.
Get in Touch
Is your Cadillac back at the dealership again?
Send the year, model and the repair history. An open recall on your VIN helps, but the repair orders are what carry the claim.
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