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Model rationalisation at GM will impact CT6-certified shops

NCR Cadillac

The end of the Cadillac CT6 sometime in 2019 means collision repairers who joined the GM certified repair network for the advanced aluminium-and-steel vehicle will have had just three years to reap benefits like GM restricting parts and measurements and referring customers to them through OnStar.

The network began to take shape in 2015 ahead of the CT6’s debut for the 2016 model year. It reflected that the new, complex body design required special equipment and procedures. The car was 64 percent aluminium, and its parts were largely replace-only, Cadillac said at NACE 2015. Joining methods described then included items like adhesive, flow-drill screws, rivets and barely any welding.

The CT6 was among “the industry’s most advanced body structures – an aluminium-intensive architecture incorporates 11 materials,” Cadillac boasted to consumers while discussing the 2017 model. It also was the first vehicle to receive the hands-free, partially autonomous Super Cruise system, which GM will expand to all Cadillacs in 2020 and to other GM vehicles after that.

The first CT6s appear to have been delivered to U.S. dealers in March 2016. Cadillac does have a 2019 model year for the CT6, whose line-up includes V-Sport and regular editions.

GM CEO Mary Barra didn’t say when in 2019 GM would specifically pull the plug on the CT6, but she confirmed it, and five other GM vehicles would be “deallocated” from five North American plants by the end of next year. The CT6 has sold 7,270 vehicles to date this year through the end of September, down from 8,128.

Three years of volume isn’t a huge pool of business to form a return on the CT6-certified shops’ investment, which would include what GM said in 2015 would be an $4,500 annual membership fee on top of buying any training and equipment the shop lacked. GM said it was examining the future of the 87-strong CT6 network, although GM could still need to have qualified body shops around to work on the vehicle for a few years, at least until it depreciates to the point of being an “always-total”.

This article courtesy of John Huetter of Repairer Driven Education (RDE). Check out their website at; http://www.repairerdrivennews.com/ for this and many other informative and educational articles on the collision repair industry.

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