Well, my Tesla sold shortly after announcing that it was for sale and that I'd be daily driving my CTS-V wagon see it's all detailed Up and Under the Tesla car cover waiting for the subscriber who bought it to come pick it up. Oh, it's it's waking up. So I Really need to get the V wagon back on the road and hopefully we don't run into any parts problems like we did last time. I Bought my 2011 CTS V wagon sight unseen for thirty thousand dollars from a used car salesman in Kansas He told me the car was mechanically sound outside of a diff noise and I trusted him and he was right! The car performed flawlessly on our 700 mile trip home, where we also found the coolest store in the middle of nowhere Cargo pants, tide and ice cream all within a few feet of each other.

After getting the V back to legit Street quarters, we got Right to Work replacing the faded headlight lenses installing Factory Recaro seats a modern radio interface and more and now it's time to finish everything. I Need to start daily driving this car I Can't tell you how excited I am a screaming blown LS wagon that handles well with a great factory stereo. I Mean what else do you really need? We have a ton to do to get this car back on the road and one of the most important things to a car that is able to function properly driving down the road would be the brakes. You need the brakes! So I've decided to go with yellow calipers again, but we're gonna do a really good job and not the worst job ever.

So yellow calipers were a factory option on these gigantic Brembo brakes. and I think they just look so good with the crystal red tint coat, metallic paint. it just pops and just all kind of brings it together. I'm really excited and with the wheels that we're gonna bolt on, it's going to look so good.

So anyway, we have to take these off first and we're gonna get a brake flush out of the deal. Yeah, that fluid could have been changed. People don't change their brake fluid so this is probably really old. A lot of people just don't think about it, but brake fluid does soak up a bunch of moisture and you should definitely replace it.

probably. I don't know. Every three years or so, a lot of Manufacturers say two, some say five, but three years? That's the legit three cars recommendation. I bear no responsibility for your car.

So whatsoever though, follow the owner's manual. got those out all right. I'm going to take the rest of them off and then these are going to my buddies at Wicked Visions Customs for the powder coat job. but we have to disassemble them first.

so let's do that. And yeah, you can see here, these were silver from the factory. You can see that from the sticker, in and from the silverness. Because we're having these powder coated, we need to disassemble the caliper.

I'm a lot more careful once something looks pretty than I am right now. I Gotta say I should have just done this on the car. taking the pads off that hard but just easier with the car holding itself on and look at this. six piston brake calipers.

Awesome! Blow a little air in here, get them to move out a little. There we go. We're gonna replace all these dust, boots and seals and everything. rebuild the whole caliper.

So we got the seals on the inside here and we'll dig that out too. but rarely do you have to replace the Pistons If it's a good working caliper. you're usually fine and this is what we have to dig out because he's Gonna Bake these things in an oven and these seals will get destroyed and they're just square cut and here's another one and we just have a bunch more to do so anyway. Uh, we have lots of calipers to remove, lots and lots of pistons and seals to remove and then these are getting shipped off and we will see them a little bit later in the video.

So the CTS-V came with an optional two-piece rotor. This is not that though. it kind of looks like it might be two-piece but this is just one piece and I Called the dealer to find out if this car had the two piece from the factory because if it did, I would put those back on the car because I think it'd be kind of cool even though it's pretty much pointless. But you can't tell by the VIN and they're super super expensive.

So we're going one piece, get off my car and of course this one piece isn't going to cooperate. Needs the hammer? These have a massive lip so we won't be reusing them so we can give them one of these. Okay, we can give them one of these. Okay, that didn't work out.

When in doubt, just get a bigger hammer, huh? Ah, That's All She Wrote Little Buddy This is a bad bad bad rotor. Since we have the calipers off, we definitely want to replace these copper washers and these can be a total pain in the butt to remove. You can try and get a pick in here to remove it. You can try and get a screwdriver in here to remove it and they're very difficult.

They never want to come. Don't worry I got you covered. All you need are some locking pliers like these small ones work best and you're just going to grab the washer like So then we'll clamp it down and get your socket on your gun and we're taking it off nice and easy without damaging the banjo bolt. So you don't need to replace the bolt.

But you definitely want to replace these washers and this is how you pull it out without pulling out your hair. I'm trying to work as efficiently as possible here so the brakes are getting coated and we are going to prepare something on this bumper so that it's being worked on while we work on other stuff. Okay, as you guys are going to see here in a few minutes: I like Chrome I like Chrome on certain American cars and I know Chrome a lot of people are anti-chrome I like it and I don't like poorly done plasti dipped grills and we're gonna get rid of this and I'd read that if you use penetrating oil right on it, that'll make the removal much easier. So we're going to experiment and prep this with some penetrating oil to see if that is true because it's all about that prep work.

And speaking of prep work, let me let me show you the prep work I Just did on my lawn I Just got done doing my spring cleaning and we aerated the lawn as well. That's what those little holes are for and it was all in preparation for my first official Sunday Nutrient pouch of the spring. So this is a high nitrogen formula for high traffic Lawns like mine and it has potassium for root growth and zero pesticides and it's so easy. Just hook up your garden hose, turn the valve on and that's it.

You can treat your entire lawn in just a few minutes. Sunday Plans are totally custom to your lawn care needs, so you just type in your address and they create a specific plan based off the type of soil in your area. They even send you a soil sample kit if you really want to fine-tune the nutrients and Sunday ships right to your door for free. Now one of my favorite Parts is that if you guys have a question about your lawn, you can call or text Sunday any real live human being will respond.

It's an amazing concept, but by far the best part is that if you guys click on my link down below or go to Getsunday.com Legit and use coupon code legit20 you're gonna get 20 off a full year of Custom Lawn Plan and don't delay. I did and this is what my lawn used to look like and then after just one season with Sunday it looked like this. The results are truly amazing so check out that link now! Let's go see if penetrating oil really does remove. Plasti Dip Here we go here, We go here, we go.

How easy is this going to be? Oh, it's definitely mushy, that's for sure. You might need a little bit more. There we go. This stuff is coming off I Hope the Chrome is in good shape underneath here.

Oh, it's definitely mushy. Chrome is that is that? Chrome it's you list you I know a lot of people black you out and I've I've done the same on certain cars but I'm gonna let you back out buddy. back out into the light. All right, it's coming.

Let's let's try pressure washer that might make things a lot easier. All right. cool. Is this working a lot better? and I'm trying to get underneath it? Oh yeah, sweet and what I like about this is with the Chrome Grille everything behind it is black so you'll see what I mean it looks really good.

Yes, now that is some satisfaction goodness right there. Get off my grill. Oh all right, that is the ticket right there. You just loosen it up a little bit and then peel it off by hand.

Cool. All right. let me finish this up and I'll show you our final product, but it's looking good. This chrome looks to be in excellent condition.

Okay, I'm done there. she is no more. Plasti Dip black chrome grill I I Like the actual Chrome much much better. Wait till it's back in the car and uh, here is most of the Plasti Dip that I removed so weight reduction.

The whole reason I had this front bumper off was to replace the headlight lenses so you guys saw me do this in the last video. I'll link it down below if you want to see how it's done but it cost me only about a hundred and twenty dollars. They look brand new right now and uh, took about three four hours so a little bit of labor, but well worth it that is for sure. So let's get these guys back on before our bumper cover goes back on.

It's got one connector down there and then we'll rest her nice and easy inside of her home. Okay. I actually had this bracket on the wrong way. Just fix that.

Good to go now. it should just go right in. Beautiful headlight. Number two.

Going back home. Done. Done. Look at this.

These look good. Love these headlights. One of my favorite designs. It's it's.

basically a diamond. Oh, all right. Oh yeah, let's do this. Bumper cover.

Don't scratch new headlights. Don't scratch the fender either. You don't want to scratch anything. really.

That's that's the goal before. I Get too carried away. now the washer sprayers to hook up I Don't want to forget that these are for the headlights to keep them nice and clean. Okay, all right, that's that.

No biggie. Take off our clamp, throw our clamp on the ground. All right. Don't scratch headlight.

Don't scratch fender. Don't scratch headlight jumped, scratch fender. All right. I'm gonna say modern day bumper covers? They're They're really not that hard to do.

You could totally do it by yourself. Stay I Heard a noise oh oh, looks good. Yeah they didn't do the blackout on the whole car. they just did the grill and I like a little Chrome on my caddy in the front Hardware in oh this is getting so real now guys.

I Don't know if I've ever actually seen a V Wagon on the road, maybe even never at a car show I Think the first V wagon I've ever seen in real life was this one in Kansas and now it's it's mine! I Am so excited to daily drive this. The motivation right now is super high I Just want to finish it. More bolts I Say more bolts than this is what I'm dealing with. So this broke off long ago.

It was missing one of the bolts on the driver's side fender and right now I'm in the process of cutting it off this up because otherwise it would melt the paint off the car. There we go since I cut the head off. Now we can take this little piece out just like that. A little nug of rust.

the nut was welded up here, but that is fine. We could grind this off, put a bolt and a nut on top of good as new. With that ground away, we can now install this Factory bracket that slides in underneath the bumper and there's little notches for it and that way it lines the bumper up with the fender perfectly. just like Factory.

Then I can take our bolt and I'm just going to go in through the top this time and we have a nut for the bottom and there's another bolt in here. so we want to start that guy a little. tighten on this Bolt and we're done. Look at that nice Factory Body line and swirls in the paint.

yeah we need a paint correction before. I Put the fender liner back on I Like to use this stuff called Mudslinger It's meant for dirt bikes and ATV and quads and stuff but mud doesn't stick to it and this is this is a mud guard basically so we're gonna coat this. It makes it look brand new as well and it smells absolutely delicious. If you like cherries, you will like this that looks good and it's gonna stay looking good now because it will sling sling it through the mud away and click and click.

I Don't know why I'm doing the torque wrench click but I just did all right. Beauty Cover back on Gem Performance Division. That's so cool and this isn't a detail video I know but I just I can't help cleaning stuff. Okay, look at how much better that looks before the clips go on.

which yeah we're just making it look good. Totally get carried away here. Now this doesn't constitute a detail, but this is what the engine looked like before and after just a couple of minutes. Here is what we have after.

so a big big Improvement and let's get the hole. Let's get the whole picture. foreign. this I forgot.

Hang on putting the penetrating oil on a rag and wipe it on. here. Let it soak in. There you go.

Well I Figured out that they didn't use Plasti Dip on this little section. They just rattle, Can it? I believe. Uh, so I'm just using a little bit of paint thinner. Hopefully we don't ruin the finish underneath, but nothing else is working.

It won't peel up and I do believe it's painted. You can see the rack chips and if it was Plasti dipped they'd be kind of deeper and we would be able to pick it off and then peel the whole thing off. But anyway, let's let's see how this goes. I Masked off the hood to protect the paint and I'm not super happy on how this turned out.

There are a lot of Little Rock chips and whatnot. but yeah, I'll have to get a new one of those and this Cadillac emblem is not in the best of shape. But let's remove all this and I'm going to ceramic coat the headlight lenses so they never yellow and they stay like this forever. Just wipe it on.

We'll wait 60 seconds and then just buff it off so that one's done and it's been 60 seconds on this one. Now two. So that is done. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. Hang on. I Buffed out the driver's side and look at how nice it is. It's really good.

It just took a couple of minutes. This is all scratched up. Uh, it's not gonna be perfect, but it is a daily driver. I'm gonna finish buffing this out so this chrome really shines.

And speaking of shiny, Chrome Let me show you the wheels. You guys remember in the last video, this was one of the front wheels. It was damaged. The spoke was damaged and repaired improperly and painted silver.

It's got little dents in it, two cracks on the inside. They tried welding it. This one is in really bad shape and basically just needs to be replaced and the other ones don't really have any curb rash, but they're very scratched up. This could be restored, but honestly I Found a much better option right here.

And what we have here are: PVD Chrome Wheels. So these are the factory wheels and this is an exchange program with the Wheel Exchange.com So I have to send them these wheels back in. That one's probably junk, but they'll be able to redo these three wheels and then eventually sell them to someone else. So PVD Chrome is different than normal.

Chrome It's not Chrome plated so we're not going to have the effects of salt where it peels it up. This is a much more durable finish and it's lighter than chrome plating as well. so these guys do this all in-house They have thousands of Wheels ready to ship out or you can just send them your wheels in on an exchange program so you don't have to have any down time with your car. You can hang on to your stuff, get theirs, and then you ship everything back after you've taken off your tires and whatnot.

So I Really like this program. It's a local American company. They have really good customer service and super fast shipping and they're giving me a coupon code I Think it's legit I'll have to verify it'll be in the description box down below, but it's going to get you like a hundred dollars off your next set of wheels. They were super! We're into the CTS-V Wagon project and we spoke and they hooked you guys up.

So thanks the Wheel Exchange.com Anyway, I think chrome wheels are going to look so good on this and since it's a daily driver I don't want to have to mess around with them peeling and whatnot. so this is what we have going on and because we have to be super ultra efficient I'm going to go ahead and drop these off so we can swap over our good Continental tires to the new Wheels While you know we work on other stuff like like those another really awesome. Local Company Wicked Visions Customs Here in the Chicagoland area, leave their link down below and they're giving you guys 10 off any powder coat service that you want. So they ended up powder coating my CTS-V brake calipers I've painted them in the past which has worked out really well, but this is also a much more durable finish and they were able uh to put the V logos back on and clear coat them in.

So these guys look amazing! Let's just go ahead and get these on the car. And yes, the car is red and yellow like ketchup like mustard and my wife. She's already making fun of me and calling my V wagon the Ketchup and Mustard Mobile. and you know what? I'm okay with that I like ketchup and I like mustard and uh, I Can't believe I'm admitting this.

but I Like ketchup on my hot dogs I Don't know if you guys knew this, but that's kind of an unwritten law here in Chicago you're not supposed to put ketchup on your hot dog. It actually might be a written law because Chicago people are crazy about their food, but I enjoy it! I've liked ketchup on my hot dogs ever since I was a little kid I was born this way I Cannot help it so let me know in the comments. do you like a little bit of ketchup on your dog? We have some yellow caliper rebuilding to do so. Let's make room and install these gigantic rotors.

I Already have the anti-seize on the Hub so it doesn't get stuck and I like to go with these coated rotors. They look really nice and it's not going to rust out. Now we have a set screw foreign for my gun. It's been like this for a while and here you can see on the front ones they didn't coat the face of the rotor because it's kind of pointless.

It's going to wear right off and on. The CTS-V The brakes are gigantic. These are 14 and a half inch rotors. In the front and the rear are almost the same size.

They're like 14.3 and you always want to clean this up. Just a wire brush will do just like that and we'll do a little bit of anti-seize And by little I mean a little. I Usually take a rag here and just kind of spread it out. just need a really thin coating.

That's all with that. The next guy who does brakes on this and like 75 000 miles probably we'll have a rotor that'll easily come off. Maybe that guy will be me I Don't know. There you go, future guy.

Okay, let the caliper rebuild begin. So what I'm about to show you applies to most all brake calipers. Whether you're putting them back together after having them powder coated or if you want to replace the seals because they are leaking, that does happen. So we're going to do is start off with a very clean area and we're going to pour some brake fluid in a little tray like that and then we also have some brake clean to clean.

The Pistons and I made my tray by cutting off the top of my double-sided tape package. So these are all the old Pistons out of the calipers and because we didn't have any issues whatsoever, we are going to reuse them. but when in doubt, just take a look at the Piston. If it's pitted at all, just replace it.

You don't want to run into any issues, but these brakes were working perfectly fine so no reason to worry about anything here. Cleanliness is key here, so we're just going to use a little bit of brake clean and a microfiber. Don't worry about this part here, that doesn't matter. This is the only ceiling surface and you're never going to see this part with a clean piston.

We can install the Dust Boot and it just slides, slides into the groove and I Like to spin it around a few times. make sure that it's seated all the way around so we're good there. Next we're going to lubricate the seal but just verify that it is the proper seal. It should be a very, very tight Precision Fit over the Piston so it can seal and this looks like the right one.

So what we want to do is lubricate it now. They do make a special grease for this job, but I've never really needed it. Brake fluid works just fine, just make sure you saturate the entire seal and then we're going to be fitting that seal right into this groove here. So you want to make sure that this bore is perfectly clean and that there's nothing getting in the way here because that seal needs to rest up against the inside of the caliper perfectly.

So let's just go ahead and place the seal inside of the groove and you might need a little assistance from a tool here. And this is a seal tool, so it's not a sharp pick, but there we go now. Just use your finger work it around the seal, make sure that it's sitting in there. It should put true just a little bit outside.

that's going to be the new ceiling surface. then I Like to take a cap full of brake fluid and go ahead and just pour it in there. You can't have too much brake fluid and I just kind of mix it around here so we're totally lubricated and then we want to get it all over the Piston like. so and you're going to go back together with the Piston.

Make sure it's straight and then you're just going to push down all the way. That's it. Okay, and make sure that the Piston does go down all the way because that's the only way you're going to get your brake pad in. But also, if the Piston goes all the way down, that'll indicate that the seal didn't get caught up and bunched up at the bottom.

So if it's not going all the way down, just start over. Take that piston out, make sure the seal is okay and it should be a pretty fluid motion. You just push down with both thumbs and it'll go right down. Now the dust boot does fit into this groove.

It's not going to be perfectly flush, but you do need a little assistance pushing it down sometimes and I just like to use an extension to do that. It's gentle on the seal, so just go around the seal like this and push it down like so okay. When you're done, it'll look like this and then in my case, I'll have five more to do per front caliper and then four more per rear caliper. So this is pretty repetitive.

So I recommend that you turn on some tunes and and just kind of jam out and get it done. That's that's what I'm gonna do before. I turn on some copyright music that I can never play on. YouTube I Just want to point out that on these multi-piston calipers, the Pistons are different sizes.

You can kind of see these holes are different sizes so make sure that all the seals are the right size and the dust boots as well. It's pretty obvious if they aren't as they won't fit, but figured I'd mention that because it's important. All right guys. About three songs later and I have rebuilt both of the front six piston calipers.

I think I can do a rear four piston in about two minutes, so you know what? I'm getting at here. We're timing it all right. It's 222. We're gonna start right about now.

Okay I got everything set up? Oh man. I'm getting nervous here. Getting nervous already. All right.

Clean, piston, wipe, piston off. We need a dust boot. That's good. Put this in our little tank.

Let's go ahead and be ultra efficient and just dump all these seals in here now. And yes, there is absolutely no reason for me to rush this other than I like to challenge myself sometimes I was a dealership technician people I worked on Flat Rate So we had to beat the clock all the time to make money. If you didn't work fast and and well, you wouldn't make any money. Let's get this guy in.

Okay. I'm gonna spend the extra time just to go around the seal with my tool. All right, make sure it's even. Oh my gosh, we're already in a minute.

Oh man. lubricate the piston all the way down. Bam. Seal is in okay.

I'm going way too slow right now. I've got 30 seconds left to be two minutes. This ain't happening. I'm gonna fail.

I'm gonna fail at my mission. You know those movies where they have to like diffuse a bomb in like two minutes or they all just blow up and they don't know which wire to cut? I Wish there was a car movie where someone had to like do a car repair job or the same thing would happen I'm at two minutes. Okay, I just all right in that car movie I would have just blown up. um I've done one and three quarter piston in two minutes though, so still not that bad and time five minutes 54 seconds.

Uh for one of the calipers I Got hung up on one of the seals and had to take the Piston out. Um, but yeah, if there's ever a caliper rebuilding competition where they time you count me in, I'll do that. That's how long it takes me to rebuild a four piston caliper when I'm under the imaginary gun. But seriously, how cool would a car movie be if they added a real mechanical job where lives were at stake? I would watch that.

it's time for the mustard. All right. So if I'm Gonna Roll around my calipers Are Gonna Roll around with me. So I installed some new bleeders on the calipers and I chased the threads with my tap just to clean everything out and seven out of the eight of them went perfectly fine except one of them.

Unfortunately, it had a different size bleeder which makes me think someone made a repair. so I drilled it out. Uh, re-tapped it and put an oversized bleeder in there so hopefully that'll hold. but I don't know I don't know, we'll see.

I'm thinking I might just get a used caliper for that. it's for the other side. But anywho, let's get this gigantic caliper on. Look at that So pretty and guys! I've mentioned this before, but if you have a car with big Brembo brakes like this, definitely try and replace your pads and rotors yourself.

I Think you'll be surprised at how easy they are. They're actually easier than normal car brakes. These fixed calipers are just kind of simple to work on my battery Tabs are broken I gotta fix that. Pads are lubricated so we just pop them right in.

Oh shimmy going on. Now there we go and the outer one next. There we go. We're rocking all new hardware so we have our Center brace here.

The new hardware has Factory Loctite on the new bolt and that goes in from the back. Make sure this is good and tight. There we go. Just like that.

With your new brake pad pin started from the back, you can start to tap them in and don't worry if this front pad falls down. just lift it back up, line it up, tap it in. That's all. Watch your mustard.

Now with that top one in place, we can go ahead and install our brand new brake pad retaining. Hardware like. So then you're going to push down the bottom, get this pin over it, and line it up with the pan. Bam Bam When the pin is fully seated, you can actually hear it, so just make sure that it won't go out any further and you're good.

So at this step, we just have the brake hose left. Look at that old yellow paint. It's very important you replace these copper seal washers so you're gonna have one on that side of the bolt. and I'm just going to go through like that.

and then you have another ceiling washer on the other side. Like so, the ceiling surfaces are totally clean. This yellow paint is flaking up as I speak. I'll probably just blast that off of the pressure washer, but at that point you're just going to go ahead and thread this in.

Don't strip it, be gentle. Right there. We started it. That's it.

It's easy now. it's tempting to use an impact here to make things go quicker. but you don't want to play around with your calipers. just do everything by hand when it comes to brake hoses and lines.

Right there. we're going to tighten it. You don't have to go too much, and if you end up seeing a little tiny leak when you're bleeding, just tighten it up a little bit more. Don't go crazy.

It doesn't need to be that tight. Oh, she's looking pretty. She is looking mighty fine at this point. I'm going to do the other three brake calipers.

It's exactly the same aim. The rear is exactly the same. they're just kind of smaller. and if you guys want to see an in-depth video on how to replace pads and rotors on a car equipped with big Brembo brakes, I'm going to link a video from like four years ago or something like that and I go through it in detail so you guys can learn every one of my tips and tricks in that video.

And if you're kind of newer to the channel and you're curious about the Channel's Roots I'm at my home garage. That's how I started the channel about six years ago or six and a half years ago in the first roughly five years was in my at-home garage that I built by saving up money doing side jobs outside. So if you want to check that out, link down below. Brakes are fully installed.

Here's what it looks like on the passenger side and I haven't eaten all day and I keep on thinking of ketchup and mustard on a hot dog. I'm starving. Who else can't eat when they're busy? Like when I come into the shop? I Do Not eat all day. It's been about 10 hours right now.

nothing just water and coffee. The CTS-V on the other hand is getting some synthetic brake fluid though, so we'll fill up this Reservoir and then for. Fortunately, it's been dry for quite some time since I sent those calipers out, so hopefully it's not a pain to bleed, but we should be good. Oh, we're gonna need a lot.

Yeah, you guys have seen me bleed brakes a million times. So I did it off camera, but you know. I Always like to use my pneumatic fluid extractor so we hook up shop air to that and then that line goes to each nipple of the brake caliper. I Start from the inside and then go outside if you have two of them and always start with the caliper furthest away from the master cylinder and work your way to the driver front Which is closest to the master cylinder.

So with the brake bleed procedure done, we got wheels and tires and then I just got something in the mail for the interior and then I'm going to show you the infotainment system that we upgraded. There's a lot left to do before the final reveal. Outside: Beautiful! Just got the tires mounted hang on I Got new center caps. brand new Factory Center caps.

Bam! Like I said. I'm reusing the tires. these are the rears. Um, they're still pretty good but I uh I did stuff to make them go away but they still have a season left in them for sure.

But the front tires are like brand new. so yeah, it's definitely worth transferring these over. And I'm showing you guys the headers for the van I honestly don't remember, but let me let me show you again. check it out.

Long tube headers for and I actually bought these a while ago for the Chevy Caprice they're for a 5th gen Camaro and they didn't really fit the Caprice perfectly so I just saved them and I think these are gonna fit the soon to be supercharged Chevy Express van. So anyway back to the Cadillac Here we go here we go: Chrome Wheels hello calipers which by the way were a factory option starting in 2011. and the CTS V so it could have came like this although there was never an actual chrome wheel option. they were polished which I do think looks good I just I just think this looks better and I did get brand new lug nuts as well.

these are brand new center caps. Everything is new well except for the tires. they're like like new all right. The rear tires aren't like new, they used to be new.

lower yourself I Gotta say these quick Jacks are pretty sweet I know I have lifts but I got broken cars on the lift so quick Jacks it is suspension. it looks a little lifted right now and clean the tires and put tire shine on there and everything. but as my daily driver next up we have to swap over to our new control panel. So I found one from another CTS V with the piano black and everything so we can just Swap this entire thing.

I just need to take the vents off and you can see here this has the mag ride button the other one I'd ordered although it had coffee spilled in it I didn't even realize it didn't have the mag ride button because it was from a normal CTS but this one I need some cleaning but overall is in pretty good condition so we're we're gonna do that. but I Got a new steering wheel from Carbon Tastic. I've wanted to work with these guys for so long so we went over what I like in a steering wheel and uh and they made one for me. so I'm not a huge fan of Alcantara on the steering wheel I just wanted nice perforated leather and I didn't want super glossy carbon fiber I went with Matt So wow, this is really packaged well.

Oh look at this a steering wheel cover and they say these guys don't mess around with the packaging. that's for sure. I'm gonna save some of this bubble wrap for our merch stuff's expensive so this is on a core Exchange program. so I didn't have to send mine and have any other downtime with the car.

Oh man, yes this is what I'm talking about that Matt carbon and the perforated leather. oh it smells great. this is so cool. Look at that.

Oh I like it because the interior of the Cadillac it's It's not that modern. so I didn't want anything too flashy and I think this is going to blend in perfectly. All right. So I have a little bit of assembly because I have to swap over my buttons, but we went with the matte carbon as well for those.

So yeah, those are just wrapped up in here. Anyway, let's get the control panel in. let's make sure our Recaro heated and cooled seats work. That's why I needed this whole thing because of the control unit for the cooled part of the seats.

Let's go do that. I swapped over the vents, just a couple of clips and then we just have two connectors. one for the cigarette lighter or 12 volt power source as they call it now I guess and then just the main one for the control unit. So now this thing just basically slides right in.

Let's get the screen up. now. we should be able to stamp this in All right moment of truth. There we go.

It's working. We have cooled recaros in the CTS all right now. I will say this: I've never really been impressed. uh with cooled seats.

Uh, it is just a fan in there after all. So anyway, it works. We needed it to work. We can't have Recaro's in here and not have them fully function.

Your first step to removing an airbag on any car is to disconnect the battery. So I already did that on this car. It's got a little hole in here. we just have to jam something in there.

Yeah, there we go. And we're able to pull the steering wheel off on this corner and there's another one on the other side. Kind of got to go fishing in here. You're working blind.

There we go. Got it? Okay, all right. cool. Really anything that fits works I'm just using a random Torx driver.

Next we have a couple of locking tabs. These are the connectors for the steering wheel, airbag, a couple little pink guys on the side just like that you Gentle same thing with this guy. Okay, so this part we will be saving. Okay, we'll see what all we have to disconnect here, but we have a T50 and you can use an impact gun here.

Easiest way to do it for sure and see that Arrow There it's pointing to that little Notch so you can't mess this up. It'll only go back on one way. Pulls right off. Yeah, so that was the only connector right there.

Uh, now we can go to the table and swap stuff over. Uh, just don't play with your clock spring. leave it exactly the way it was. You don't want to spin this around a bunch of times, then you're in.

You're in big trouble. Next, we have to swap over all of the buttons and looks like there's just a few T20s for that. Actually, let's let's do this much faster and we can leave this because we're going to be installing this one. Okay, we're gonna be swapping this chrome over as well.

and to remove the actual buttons, you just have to get a flathead screwdriver and push at the same time. So we're lifting up on these tabs. Now we can just push it right into the new carbon fiber piece and then push the little chrome trim in like that looking good. I've removed the three T30s that hold this plate on I Think it's going to make it easier for us to get to the wiring harness and then we just have a couple tiny little torques here for the paddle buttons.

So with that screw out, these pop out and they are broken right now. they're missing the entire plastic button part. but this is the button. That's probably not that fast, but it's going to look fast because I'm installing these which were a gigantic rip-off I Got these for like 150 dollars I Can't believe that's what they charge.

They are aluminum though, but still a little little outrageous on the price. We also have to swap over the entire back plastic piece and that kind of houses most of the harness. So here we go. This will be easy.

Yeah, totally just going to swap this whole thing over. Here's our gutted steering wheel. This is easy. Yeah.

I'll remove this Yeah I Need a new ring I Know I know goodbye and hello. Don't know why I say goodbye I Say hello Beatles Beatles anyone I grew up listening to The Beatles anyone in Chicago remember breakfast with the Beatles back in the 90s I Don't know if they still do that every Sunday morning a radio station would play only Beatles songs. Tighten these three back up with the switches plugged in. let's snap them into place.

Just like that, we'll snap the caddy V emblem in as well. Okay, and I got the screws back in there. Two more there and we're on to those really expensive paddle shifters. Well, I probably should have ordered new shifter buttons the old ones broke off for Tyler and I can see why.

There's two little dowels and they fit into these holes right here. This one's supposed to snap in much tighter and they're just worn out. So this is the activation of the button so we can't just glue these in because it does need to Pivot But with these installed into their little holes, we could do a little bit of plastic welding so I'll just heat this area up. This is just a solder gun you can use really anything that gets hot enough to melt the plastic.

but they do sell kits for this as well. All right. So we're just going to add a little bit of reinforcement on top and I'm gonna hold pressure on here. So right now we're leaving that hole alone and we're just building on top of it in hopes that it'll just kind of hold it in.

So there's that and I'll do the bottom as well. Hold it in there while it's hot. okay and I'm gonna keep pressing until it cools off and hardens. That's what it looks like up close.

So obviously you're not going to see the back of the steering wheel. So it's not the prettiest repair in the world. But after doing the other side as well, we have functional paddle button slash fake shifters. This may not be the most permanent repair, but it could last and if not, I'll just order up some new little buttons.

No big deal, but look at, look at what we have. They did have carbon fiber pedals, but I just I think this is subtle and sleek and not overdone and it'll match kind of the older and dated. CTS V Interior Steering wheel going back on. You just gotta fish these two wires in little.

Loctite on the steering wheel bolt plug that in these are color coded. we have white and pink. Snap this thing back in. there we go.

Oh yes, yes, pals are still working. They're good. We might be okay, they haven't fallen off yet. I Don't know.

Wow this is beautiful! Oh I Can't wait to show you guys the full picture outside. It matches so well. I Was a little worried that we need like a leather wrapped airbag or something like that. but honestly that's not what this car is.

You know this fits perfectly. All right. One last thing in the interior. the infotainment system.

So I'm gonna be driving this car daily and it had No. Bluetooth it was very outdated so I did something about that in the last video and I've been testing it and now I can kind of show you hang on here. just take a look at my view real quick. Beautiful! These guys were a lot of fun to work with.

So I'll leave you a link down below or you can follow them at Carbontastic. If you guys are here for the last CTS Video then you know that I installed a control unit that connects with the factory screen and makes it more modern so it'll give you things like apple carplay. If you have a good phone it'll give you Android auto. Um so I installed it but I hadn't had time to play with it I spent like 650 bucks on this module and I wanted to give you guys a good recommendation.

that's why I didn't mention the brand or leave a link or anything like that and I have been playing with it and it does work really really well. So let me show you that. but first in that video, the module was just jammed in here with foam. It was a really bad installation.

The foam all fell out and the thing was just red battling around it was. It was not good, not good at all. So you guys can't even tell where this V Line module is right now because I found a really cool spot. It's as if GM gave us this spot for a control unit so it's right there.

I Used some double-sided tape to attach it. It is solid as a rock and there was like an inch inch and a half air gap here anyway, so nothing sticks out. If anything, it actually gives it a firm backing. This is what it felt like from the factory because the Tolerance on the foam just wasn't any good.

So I should put something else right here to make it better. Anyway, that's where I hit it. it is all connected. I just have to throw the glove box back in I have the two connectors plugged in.

Cool new screws on the bottom and we're golden. Next up, we're going to snap in this kind of fake carbon fiber piece. There we go and I know you guys have already commented that this piano black is kind of destroyed. The old one is like that as well.

These things scratch up very easily. Um, but my guys at Chicago Auto Pro said they can buff this out. Uh, and better yet, they said they can wrap it in a matte carbon fiber to match the steering wheel and then we might wrap this trim as well. It's definitely carbon fiber-esque but yeah, it'd be easy to pop those out and just wrap everything and call it a day.

Let me know what you think though, because the piano black does look good when it's polished. it's just yeah. it's too fragile. All right.

I Wasn't gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it. So technically the Recaro seats came with an Alcantara shifter knob and the guy who sold me the seats gifted me this so I can always go back to leather. I'm just not a big fan of Alcantara on surfaces you're going to touch all the time. but if that was Factory and we have Alcantara on the doors too, ah, I'm gonna do it.

I'll put you in the glove box, little buddy. don't worry, you can come along for the ride. You've been here through a lot, haven't you? haven't you? Welcome home Now You better not get all greasy and slimy on me or I'll clean you. but if you do it more than once you're getting replaced, everything needs a really good cleaning.

which I'll get to. but Alcantara Shift knob partially Alcantara Recaro Seats last piece before we take this thing outside is this cracked chilling I Got all the screws out. What's going on? Yeah, I got a new one. one two, three, one two three.

Okay, there's always one more screw I was missing one right there. Now this should come up. there. we go.

I Got the replacement off eBay for 130. most of them were 300. They claim no damage and they probably don't think there's any damage to it. but I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's curling up like this one.

that was a common thing. Let's see, maybe just maybe I get lucky. Yeah, I guess not that's curled up too. Oh well, at least it's not cracked off.

So the module that I installed is a V-line from Grom Audio.com so I believe I paid about 650 for this module and there are other alternatives for this car and many other cars. Uh, where you get like a big Tesla like screen and in the case of the CTS it cuts all of this off and then you don't get a radio knob or anything like that. and I think this looks good. not not the piano black with scratches in it but I like having a nice Chrome knob here and this is a great spot for a boost gauge.

So I really wanted to keep this but have all the modern amenities that you can get from Android Auto or Apple carplay. So really for me all this is is Google Maps and Spotify those are like the two things I use all the time. So if you guys have used a car with Android Auto before, uh, basically your Android phone is now part of the screen. I Probably got about 40 emails from you guys asking for the link to this and I hadn't mentioned it in that video because I just wanted to test it out.

A lot of these are gimmicky and I was worried that the touch screen wouldn't be any good because it is still an old touchscreen, but it's phenomenal. It is really, really good. It's super fast, it loads right up pairs with your phone and I deleted most of them, but you can add and remove all sorts of different apps on here as well. The voice command is really good.

Check this out! Shuffle songs by Blink 182. sure asking Spotify to play Blink 182. Okay, okay all right I'm gonna get hit by a copy right there, but I'm going to a Blink 182 concert next month. Super excited.

Um, but anyway, this interface is fantastic and now that I've used it I can highly recommend it I bought this thing I Know this video has been a little product heavy but I've installed a lot of products. uh and I need to tell you guys what they are like I didn't mention this thing in the last video and I'm getting emails and comments and everything about what is it. Uh so anyway I bought this but I always reach out to all the companies of all the parts that you see in these videos to see if I can get you guys a discount. So I don't know if I can get you a discount on this just yet, but if I can I will drop that link uh down below and hopefully it's a good one.

First drive, it feels like home. It feels like I'm gonna be in this uh, an hour a day driving back and forth from the shop. This feels good. The steering wheel is perfect.

Oh ah, the paddles work. They haven't fallen up. Yeah, that's good. Oh oh, hang on cold seat.

Does it actually do anything? Oh I can feel it already. Yeah, it's doing something. You can definitely feel it. I mean obviously you got to be wearing a t-shirt but that's what you'd be wearing if you're using a cold seat.

All the other ones I've had granted they're older cars too. this is old. they don't do that much like on my E55 and all the older. Mercedes I Just I Don't know.

Oh I'm gonna get really bad gas mileage with this thing. I mean it just gets bad gas mileage naturally I don't really have to try all that hard so I guess I might as well just have fun with it. But the sound, the supercharger wine, the handling. oh we're not even in hold on sport mode.

the handling. this is so cool. I Love this car! I've always wanted a CTS-V a Gen 2 and of course you know I Love my wagon. So now I have this and the E55 wagon.

The wagon. we painted like half that car and just made it like too nice to daily. Okay this thing it's rebuilt title. It's got some little paint chips and whatnot so we're dealing it.

Oh look at that and we got a 5-0 a wide body charger 5.0 It's like 75 degrees out. Yes, spring and summer in Chicago is great. Winter not so much for us car guys. but we are back baby! All right so the car's already cleaned up.

Let me let me go show it to you when I bought this CTS V wagon from Hoovi in Kansas just a few weeks ago. it wasn't that bad, but there were definitely some areas of the car that needed some love and attention. The interior was pretty bland and outdated as well and so after a little bit of work, this is what we have. Ladies and gentlemen, the legit street cars new daily driver I Know I get giddy about a lot of cars.

but I'm gonna drive this every day I'm gonna drive it every day. Do you see that? Let me just let me show you the car. Okay I know I know I got to get some paint work done My guys at O'Hare Auto Body are busy right now. but I do want to make the quarter and the doors match a little bit better.

This was all done about six years ago. It's not too bad from certain angles uh, and you can still see a little white right there from the white car that they harvested some of these parts from. But anyway, enough of the bed. Look at this.

I am a huge fan of this chrome. Grille especially because it has the black kind of behind it. I Do need to get the new Cadillac Crest There but brand new headlight lenses I Mean it makes the car just look brand new. Faded yellow headlight lenses are no good and a lot of times you can restore them.

but that one was dented. the other one was messed up on the inside. But look at these chrome wheels, look at them. Let's go back to the sun.

I like Chrome when it's done right and in my opinion, this was done right from the factory. The car came with chrome accents and I think these chrome wheels just really set it off and the gigantic yellow Brembo breaks this thing. it's it's a screamer. Normally these wagons are a little mundane.

You might not know that it's a V wagon if you're just a normal person. but this car, this car just it's It's seriously special. There's I think only about 150 of them in this color, so very, very rare. and I don't know why.

why don't more people buy the wagon in the United States It's kind of like manual transmissions. Everybody wants one supposedly. but then they don't buy them. People in the US buy wagons.

they're so usable. I Mean just just look at the room back here. There's a ton of room for activities and it's not like you're sacrificing anything. A nice comfortable big back seat, and I spent a little bit of time cleaning up the interior I Know the lighting is a little weird right now with the Shadows It's very sunny out, but this is now a beautiful place to be.

Factory Recaro Seats These came out of a car that had less than 20 000 miles I think a lot less they they look practically brand new. Brand new steering wheel Alcantara shifter. We now have some Modern functionality in the car as well cooled seats which actually do something but look at this. Oh man! I'm surprised this person didn't order this V-wagon with the recaros from the factory.

That's what I would have done. but I'm in love with the steering wheel. This looks so so good. I Don't think it's out of place.

It feels perfect and you can see here the brake rotors are cleaning themselves off in the area where they need to be clean. the rest of it will be coated in black and it won't rust and look old and crusty now. I Do have some performance modifications in store for the V wagon. We're gonna make it faster, but and I know this is gonna sound weird, but we're gonna make the V more environmentally friendly and also get better gas mileage, all while retaining roughly 650 horsepower.

maybe even more. anyway. I Hope you guys are as excited about what's in store for the V wagon as I Am. This is going to be so much fun! I Am really gonna try and have as much of my cake as possible and eat it too with this car.

So if you haven't already, give this video a big thumbs up. Share the video with your friends, subscribe if you're new. we're almost at 1 million subscribers and I'm gonna have a big event that I'm announcing in my next van video where I'm gonna put a supercharger on it. Uh so we're gonna have a big event in June in the Chicagoland area so stay tuned for that announcement.

But most importantly, thank you guys for watching the video! I Hope you have an awesome day and I'll catch all of you in the next one. I Put this on wrong Maybe I did ow e All right. All right, All right with that ground away, we can now install our Factory here run for us and the tray I made by cutting off the top of my double-sided tape. Yeah, uh.

container. Yeah! now you can install your new brake pad. There's an audible. There's an audible change.

There's an audible difference you can hear you can. Well, it's late and the stores are closed. And my pneumatic era. Well, it's late at night and my new, well, my pneumatic uh.

and if these end up loosening and if these end up and if these end up falling off, I'll just may not be per this. this may not be it. and the voice command is oh my gosh, Stop! I'm trying to show you guys the voice command Okay Human being it's it's quite amazing Plane I'm hoping so how you doing oh it's okay. Go away Wind go away guys.

Building a roof? Go away. Loud diesel trucks. This is so hard to fill.