2022 Cadillac XT6

The volume XT6 configuration is the Premium Luxury with the naturally aspirated 3.6L LGX V6 at 310 hp; the base Luxury trim's 2.0L LSY turbo four is rated 235 hp for 2022. 310 hp sits mid-pack for a mid-size luxury three-row, well under the Lincoln Aviator's 400 hp twin-turbo.

The V6's 271 lb-ft arrives high in the rev range at 5,000 rpm, so the low-end shove is modest for a 4,600-lb three-row — the base turbo four actually makes nearly as much (258 lb-ft) and makes it at 1,500 rpm.

Instrumented and manufacturer-adjacent figures for the 2022 V6 AWD cluster around 6.4–7.3 s; ~7.0 s is the representative midpoint. That is adequate but unremarkable — reviewers consistently describe the XT6 as wanting more thrust for the class.

The naturally aspirated LGX V6 is smooth and lag-free with linear delivery, and reviewers call the drivetrain quiet and refined in normal use; against that, the engine gets vocal and coarse when pushed toward its high torque peak, and several testers flag an over-sensitive throttle tip-in. Above the SUV cat1 median but short of the turbocharged German competition.

GM's 9T50 nine-speed with Electronic Precision Shift and paddles is unobtrusive in relaxed driving, but reviews of the 2022 car are genuinely mixed: some testers report a recurring shudder on the 1-2 and 2-3 upshifts and rate it behind the ZF eight-speeds in the Audi Q7 and BMW X5, and response to a downshift request is unhurried.

4,000 lbs properly equipped is competitive for a unibody mid-size luxury crossover but requires both the V6 and the extra-cost Smart Towing Package — a base 2.0T XT6 is rated for just 1,000 lbs, which will not pull a mid-size travel trailer.

All-wheel drive is optional (roughly $2,000) on every 2022 trim rather than standard, and the system is a road-biased on-demand setup with no low range or terrain-select modes; the Sport trim's twin-clutch rear drive unit with active yaw control is the one genuinely sophisticated version and it is confined to that trim.

6.7 in of ground clearance, road tires, no skid plates, no locking differential, no low range and no off-road trim in the 2022 lineup (Luxury / Premium Luxury / Sport only) — this is a pavement crossover whose AWD is for wet roads and light snow, not trails.

Two gas engines (2.0L turbo four, 3.6L V6), one transmission, two drive layouts — and no electrified option of any kind for 2022, at a point when the Lincoln Aviator, Volvo XC90 and BMW X5 all offered a plug-in hybrid. Two choices covers mainstream needs but the electrification gap is the whole story here.

21 MPG combined from the naturally aspirated V6 is poor for a 2022 three-row luxury crossover, where turbocharged and hybrid rivals reach the mid-20s and up. The base 2.0L turbo does better at 23 MPG but demands premium fuel.

18 MPG in town is the weakest part of the XT6's economy picture — stop/start and cylinder deactivation are not enough to offset a 4,600-lb crossover with a naturally aspirated 3.6L and no electrification.

25 MPG highway is the XT6's best showing and roughly par for a V6 all-wheel-drive three-row, but it still trails turbo-four and hybrid competitors in the segment.

The AWD model's larger 22.0-gallon tank rescues the range figure from the mediocre economy — 462 miles is genuinely usable road-trip range and the strongest item in this category. Front-drive V6 buyers get a 19.0-gallon tank and lose about 60 miles.

EPA's $2,950/yr at 15,000 miles is expensive running for the class and a real weakness against hybrid three-rows. The V6's ability to drink regular is what keeps it from being worse — the thriftier 2.0T actually costs $350/yr more because it requires premium.

The volume V6 runs on regular unleaded, which is a genuine ownership advantage over most luxury-badged rivals — but the requirement is not uniform across the 2022 lineup: the base 2.0L Turbo is an EPA-listed premium-fuel engine, so what a buyer pays per gallon depends on which trim they choose.

NHTSA crash-tested the 2022 XT6 itself in both FWD and AWD form and awarded 5 stars overall, with 5s across every frontal and side measurement — driver and passenger frontal, both side barrier positions, and the side pole. Only rollover falls short at 4 stars, which is the norm for a tall three-row crossover.

The 2022 XT6 earned a genuine 2022 Top Safety Pick+ — its third consecutive award year — and every legacy test it is rated in came back Good: small overlap front on both sides, the original moderate overlap front, the original side test, roof strength and head restraints. What pulled it down afterwards is the updated side test, rated Poor for a rear-passenger torso result, and IIHS applies that rating to 2020-25 models, so the 2022 car is covered by it. Crucially the OTHER Poor on this nameplate — the updated moderate overlap front, where the rear dummy submarined — applies only to 2023-25 models and does NOT reach the 2022 car, which is why this scores ten points above the 2023 XT6. One Poor in a flagship current-protocol test is still the bottom band's language, so it sits at the top of that band rather than in the middle one: the award was real, and the driver's own protection is strong, but a buyer should treat the badge as superseded.

2022 is the model year the XT6's standard suite got broad: Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert moved from Premium Luxury/Sport-only in 2021 to standard on every trim including the base Luxury, joining Automatic Emergency Braking with Forward Collision Alert and Front Pedestrian Braking, Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning, front and rear park assist, HD rear vision camera, IntelliBeam auto high beams and the Safety Alert Seat. Four of the criterion's five named systems are therefore standard fleet-wide. The single gap is the expensive one: adaptive cruise control is standard nowhere and cannot be ordered at all on the Luxury trim. That is the mid-band case, but with blind-spot and cross-traffic standard rather than optional the XT6 sits at the top of it.

The standard system holds two Superior ratings that reach the 2022 car — vehicle-to-vehicle and daytime pedestrian, with collisions avoided outright in most runs — and IIHS published no nighttime pedestrian evaluation covering the 2022 model year, so there is no rated weakness against it. Scored above the 2023 XT6 on that basis, but not into the top band: the night rating IIHS later assigned to the mechanically identical 2023-25 system was only Basic, with just 1 mph of speed shed on low beams in the 25 mph crossing-adult run, and there is no reason to think the 2022 hardware behaves differently in the dark. Superior daytime performance on every trim with an unmeasured and probably weak night case is this criterion's upper-middle.

Coverage is answered well and 2022 is the year it got there — Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert and Rear Cross Traffic Alert are both standard on all three trims for the first time, base Luxury included, where in 2021 they were Premium Luxury/Sport content. Quality is where it stops: these are alert-only systems with no blind-zone steering intervention and no cross-traffic braking, Reverse Automatic Braking is optional package content, and there is no safe-exit or rear-occupant alert. Standard-on-every-trim but alert-only puts it at the top of the middle band.

Lane Keep Assist with Lane Departure Warning is standard on all three trims and works as a departure-correcting nudge, but it does not hold a line. True lane centering exists on the 2022 XT6 only inside Super Cruise, which cannot be ordered on the Luxury trim at all and on Premium Luxury or Sport arrives only on top of a stack of prerequisite packages — and it centers only on Cadillac's mapped highways. On any Luxury trim, and on any road outside the map, the car has nothing that centers.

Availability is the problem more than quality. Adaptive cruise is standard on no 2022 XT6 and cannot be ordered on the base Luxury at all; on Premium Luxury and Sport it arrives only inside the $1,300 Y66 Driver Assist Package, so a large share of the lineup ships with plain cruise control. Where it is fitted, GM's full-speed-range radar system is competent and draws no notable reviewer complaints, and buyers who go all the way to Super Cruise get genuine hands-free highway assist. The score reflects a capable system a lot of buyers of this car cannot have.

2022 is the year Super Cruise reached the XT6 — GM confirmed it in July 2021 and orders opened in December 2021 — and Super Cruise itself is the most mature hands-free system on sale. But this is a thin, first-year application of it. It cannot be ordered on the base Luxury, it is a mid-year-availability option on Premium Luxury and Sport that drags several prerequisite packages with it, and because the XT6 is not built on GM's VIP/Global B electrical architecture it is explicitly excluded from the system's modern features: no Automated Lane Change, no trailering support, no enhanced navigation display. It holds its lane on mapped highways and nothing more. Available but genuinely limited in both coverage and access, which is the middle band.

IIHS rated both 2022 XT6 headlamp configurations and both came back Acceptable — the LED projectors fitted across Luxury, Premium Luxury and Sport, and the upgraded set bundled with the Platinum and Premium Headlamp System packages. The consistency is the strength: there is no dim volume configuration to fall into and no penalty for buying the cheap trim. What is missing is any Good rating available at any price, and neither variation is curve-adaptive. IntelliBeam auto high beams are standard on every trim.

The XT6's upright, boxy greenhouse gives it more glass and better forward and side sightlines than most swoopier rivals, and reviewers rate visibility as good on that basis. Working against it are thick pillars, three rows of head restraints in the sightline and dark tint, which leave enough doubt that deliberate blind-spot checks stay necessary. Camera compensation is the weak link on the volume car: an HD rear vision camera and front/rear park assist are standard, but HD Surround Vision and the digital rear camera mirror both sit inside the optional $2,350 Technology Package. Average natural visibility with partial, mostly optional camera support.

The second row is genuinely good — two complete sets of easy-access lower anchors in the outboard positions, wide door openings that swing fully clear, and enough room to take a bulky rear-facing seat without stealing front legroom. The third row is where it loses points: no lower anchors back there at all, only top tethers on the two outboard positions, and fixed head restraints that push a high-back booster off the seatback. IIHS rates LATCH ease of use Acceptable rather than Good for exactly this split. Workable for two seats, compromised for anyone filling all three rows.

A 60/40-split second-row bench is standard across all three 2022 trims (Luxury, Premium Luxury, Sport) for seven-passenger capacity, with sliding captain's chairs available on the two upper trims dropping capacity to six in exchange for a walk-through to the third row.

39.8 in of first-row headroom is mid-pack for a mid-size SUV. 2022 is the third model year of the first-generation XT6 (2020–2025) and brought no structural revision — the changes were Super Cruise availability, a Sport Brembo brake package, safety-content shuffling and chip-shortage content constraints — so the launch body dimensions carry over unchanged.

41.2 in is the weakest interior dimension on the card — barely above the SUV band floor and short of the Lincoln Aviator (43.0) and Audi Q7 (41.7) it is shopped against. Consumer Reports' 2022 road test independently flags the consequence, reporting a "limited range of seat and steering-wheel adjustments" that disappointed testers.

39.1 in of second-row headroom sits near the top of the SUV band and is a genuine packaging win from the upright, boxy roofline reviewers criticize aesthetically. Third-row headroom of 37.2 in is also class-competitive.

39.1 in of second-row legroom is genuinely adult-sized and ahead of the Acura MDX (38.5) and Audi Q7 (38.8), and Cars.com rates the third row's 29.5 in as "pretty good for the class." With the sliding captain's chairs it is the second row, not the third, that defines this car's usable space.

A real third row rather than a token one, but a kid-and-short-trip proposition: 37.2 in of headroom and 29.5 in of legroom are competitive on paper and access improves markedly with the optional captain's chairs, yet reviewers of the 2022 car split on whether adults fit and consistently note the aperture is narrow and the raised floor pushes knees up.

43.1 cu ft with the third row folded is mid-pack for a mid-size three-row and a clear step behind the Chevrolet Traverse it shares platform hardware with. The 12.6 cu ft left behind an upright third row is the number that bites a family of seven — barely more than a compact sedan's trunk.

78.7 cu ft with both rear rows down is respectable without leading — well short of the Chevrolet Traverse's ~98 cu ft, but at the upper end of the luxury three-rows the XT6 is cross-shopped with, and the floor is genuinely flat.

Competent, conventional and short on ideas: a covered center-console bin with armrest lid, usable door pockets, six USB ports across three rows and two 12-volt outlets — but no household 120V outlet, no underfloor bin, no reconfigurable console, and nothing that would count as a storage innovation next to a Kia Telluride or Ford Explorer. For 2022 the wireless charging pad that would normally be standard on Premium Luxury was itself chip-constrained.

The front and second-row seats themselves are among the XT6's better features — plush, well-bolstered and praised over multi-hour stints, with the captain's chairs rated nearly as good as the fronts — but 2022 scores below its own generation on adjustability and equipment: Consumer Reports faults the limited seat and wheel adjustment range, ventilated fronts are a $750 extra rather than standard, and cars built between mid-March and May 2022 left the plant with the heating and ventilation hardware deleted entirely.

Ride comfort is the thing reviewers most consistently credit the 2022 XT6 with — MacPherson struts up front and a five-link independent rear tuned to isolate rather than to corner, riding well on the volume Premium Luxury's 20-inch wheels. It stops short of segment-leading because genuinely broken pavement still reaches the cabin and testers report the optional adaptive dampers change little.

Genuinely quiet, and one of the few places the XT6 clearly earns its badge over the Traverse and Acadia it shares hardware with — acoustic treatment and active noise cancellation keep the naturally aspirated V6 remote at a cruise. Reviewers stop short of a class win only by comparison with an Audi Q7.

The equipment list is strong on paper — tri-zone automatic climate control standard on every trim, heated front and outboard rear seats and a heated, power-adjustable steering wheel standard on the volume Premium Luxury, plus remote start and an UltraView panoramic roof — but 2022 is the year the microchip shortage actually removed comfort content: cars built from 14 March to 1 May 2022 shipped without heated fronts, ventilated fronts and heated rear seats against an MSRP credit and a later dealer retrofit. Ventilated seats also remain a $750 option rather than standard equipment.

The entry Luxury trim opened at $48,595 plus a $1,195 destination charge — $49,790 delivered, and for 2022 the least expensive way into a three-row luxury crossover, undercutting an Acura MDX slightly and an Audi Q7 or BMW X5 by roughly $10,000–$15,000. It is also the cheapest of the XT6's scored model years, $200–$800 below every later one, though the base car makes do with the 235-hp 2.0L turbo four.

Premium Luxury is the volume trim and the one worth buying: it is where the 310-hp 3.6L V6 becomes standard along with leather seating, heated front and rear seats, a heated steering wheel, navigation and a power-folding third row. At $52,995 plus $1,195 destination that is $54,190 front-drive, $56,190 with AWD — a ~$4,400 step above the base Luxury, and $2,000 cheaper than the equivalent 2023 car.

GM parts and labor rates keep the XT6 materially cheaper to service than its German rivals, and the 4-year/50,000-mile bumper-to-bumper term absorbs nearly all repair spend through year three, so the bill is back-loaded into years four and five. The figure splits the two mainstream estimates — CarEdge's light $3,201, which understates the V6's year-four plug-and-fluid service, against KBB's roughly $6,200 combined maintenance-plus-repair model — leaning above CarEdge because the nameplate carries a ~28% probability of a major repair inside five years. The published estimates are nameplate-level rather than model-year-specific, and 2022 shares its powertrains and service schedule with the years either side of it.

Retention is the item that drags this category, but 2022 is the strongest of the XT6's scored years — these cars were delivered into the microchip-shortage market and have held value better than the 2023–2025 stock, and the orphaned final-year 2025 car fares worst. KBB's current book on a 2022 Premium Luxury is $27,100 resale against a $54,190 delivered MSRP, or about 49% at roughly four and a half years, and carrying that curve to the five-year mark lands near 47% — which is also where the retrospective nameplate figures from iSeeCars (46.4% retained) and CarEdge (47.8%) sit. That is at or just above the luxury large SUV class average, so it is par rather than a strength.

Cadillac's 2022 bumper-to-bumper limited warranty runs 4 years or 50,000 miles — the luxury-brand norm, matching BMW, Audi and Lexus at 4/50 and a year longer than the mainstream Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia the XT6 shares a platform with. Transferable to a second owner, and it includes towing to the nearest dealer for warranty work.

Six years or 70,000 miles on the engine, nine-speed automatic and drive system — longer than the 4/50 the German luxury brands offer and a step above the 5/60 on the mechanically related Chevrolet and GMC siblings, but near the bottom of the framework's 5–10 year band, which is scaled against Hyundai/Genesis-style 10-year/100,000-mile terms.

Cadillac covers exactly one service visit on a 2022 XT6 — oil change, tire rotation and multi-point inspection, redeemable at a Cadillac dealer within the first 18 months — where BMW (3 yr/36k Ultimate Care), Audi and Volvo included multiple years of scheduled maintenance, so this lands mid-band rather than high; the four-year Premium Care Maintenance program Cadillac once ran was long gone by 2022. The offsetting perks are genuine and, unusually, are matched to the powertrain term: 6-year/70,000-mile roadside assistance AND 6-year/70,000-mile courtesy transportation, plus roughly 8 months of OnStar Safety & Security, a Cadillac Connected Services trial and 8 months of unlimited in-car data.

$54,190 volume-trim price minus its estimated resale value after 5 years (47% retained, or about $25,469) leaves about $28,721 in depreciation. Add the projected $5,200 in 5-year maintenance and repairs, and owning this vehicle for 5 years costs about $33,921 in total.

2022 is the best-evidenced year of the XT6 generation and the evidence is two-sided: these exact cars won their J.D. Power segment at 90 days in the 2022 IQS and won it again at three years in the 2025 VDS, so early quality actually held up rather than fading. Consumer Reports keeps it out of the top band by calling it only about average, and has too little owner data to rate a single trouble spot for the year.

Cadillac cleared the industry average in every study bracketing this car and placed better in the contemporaneous ones than in any adjacent year — 8th of 34 brands overall for initial quality in the 2022 IQS, fourth premium in the 2022 VDS, and second premium in the 2025 VDS that graded these very cars at three years. It stays mid-band rather than top because the placements are strong without being Lexus- or Genesis-class, and because the independent repair-cost data rates the brand poorly.

Three NHTSA campaigns is more than the years either side, but the composition is better: none touches the powertrain, and 2022 is specifically excluded from the sun-gear transmission recall that caught the 2023 cars. Two of the three are genuine crash- or fire-risk defects — a rear toe link that can separate, and a fuel-tank rollover valve that may not seal — which keeps this mid-band rather than higher; both are narrow assembly/supplier escapes with straightforward inspect-and-replace remedies, and the third is a missing warning label. The generation's 9-speed torque-converter shudder TSB sits behind all of it.

The volume Premium Luxury's naturally aspirated 3.6L LGX V6 is the sturdiest member of GM's high-feature V6 family — no turbo, and the timing-chain wear that plagued the earlier LFX was reengineered out — and 2022 sits in the sweet spot of the generation, after the 2020–21 teething complaints and before the 2023–24 sun-gear and erratic-shift cluster. The nine-speed is still the exposure: the shudder TSB predates this model year and applies to it, and the LGX's oil-consumption and chain-guide reports recur across GM applications, so this stays mid-band rather than in the proven-family top band.

The cabin is the weakest quality credential on the car — reviewers consistently land on the same complaint, that the controls, displays and layout would not look out of place in a mainstream Chevrolet, and that hard plastic takes over in the second and third rows. Real leather, wood and metal on the volume Premium Luxury and the semi-aniline/suede Platinum package keep it off the bottom, and at $54,190 delivered this is the cheapest XT6 model year, which helps the materials-for-the-money reading a point above the 2023 car without changing the verdict.

Assembly quality is much better than material selection, and 2022 carries the strongest initial-quality evidence of any XT6 year: the car won its segment outright in the 2022 IQS while Cadillac posted 163 PP100 against a 180 industry average. More to the point, it held — the same cars took the three-year VDS segment win in 2025, and that study is largely a defects-squeaks-and-rattles measure. Scattered owner reports of rattles, wind noise and weatherstrip leaks are what keep it just short of the top band.

Roughly 590 US Cadillac stores make this one of the densest luxury service networks in the country — far broader coverage than a Genesis, Volvo or Land Rover owner gets — and the study contemporaneous to this car put Cadillac second among all premium brands for dealer-service satisfaction, its best placement of the generation. Only Lexus ranked ahead of it, which is what holds this at the bottom of the top band rather than higher.

Almost everything mechanical under the XT6 is shared GM hardware — the LGX V6, the LSY four, the 9T65 nine-speed and C1 platform pieces common to the Acadia, Traverse, Blazer and XT5 — so parts move through dealers and independents alike and five-year upkeep runs at or below the luxury three-row average. The nameplate's discontinuation after 2025 is a mild long-tail concern, blunted by that commonality and by the size of the 2020–25 population.

Every 2022 XT6 trim keeps the 8.0-inch CUE center touchscreen the car launched with for 2020, and no larger display is available on any trim or in any package. That is near the floor of the SUV band at a point when mainstream three-rows were shipping 10–12 inches as standard.

CUE is easy to learn — shallow menus backed by a console rotary controller and real hardware for volume and tuning, which reviewers genuinely appreciate — but this is a small, 2020-vintage screen with dated graphics, and the physical redundancy is what carries the score rather than the software itself.

Wireless Apple CarPlay and wireless Android Auto are both standard on every 2022 XT6 trim including the base Luxury, at no cost — a full-marks answer for the era, and with a native screen this small and this dated, phone projection is how most owners will actually use the car.

Natural Voice Recognition is standard and works for basic destination and media commands, but embedded navigation is not standard on any 2022 trim — it arrives only inside a roughly $1,000 CUE upgrade bundled with the 14-speaker Bose system, which is a step behind 2023 where nav became standard on the volume Premium Luxury. Most owners will simply project maps from the phone.

Audio is the strongest part of the XT6's tech suite: an eight-speaker Bose system is standard even on the base Luxury, and the optional 14-speaker Bose Performance Series is genuinely good rather than a badge upgrade — reviewers single out its imaging.

There is no full-digital cluster on the 2022 XT6 at any price. Trims get a color driver information display set between conventional analog gauges, and the larger 8-inch reconfigurable color cluster display is bundled inside the extra-cost Technology Package rather than being available on its own.

The 2022 XT6 is OTA-capable through its OnStar connection and receives infotainment, maps and telematics-module updates in the background, but it sits on GM's pre-VIP electrical architecture — there is no whole-vehicle software update path that adds features the way the newer GM platforms do, and nothing in the 2022 model year changed that.

myCadillac covers remote start with climate preset, lock/unlock, vehicle locate, diagnostics and status alerts, and 2022 buyers received a multi-year Remote Access plan with the car — solid core functionality. It loses ground for having no phone-as-key on the XT6 and for the remote features eventually reverting to a paid OnStar plan.

Six USB ports across all three rows — four of them USB-C — is genuinely good for a three-row family SUV and means third-row passengers are not left out. Two things hold 2022 back specifically: there is no household 120V outlet anywhere in the car, and the wireless charging pad that is nominally standard on Premium Luxury was chip-constrained through much of the model year, so a real 2022 car may not have one.

Proximity keyless entry with push-button start and remote start (fob or myCadillac app) is standard across the 2022 range, and the volume Premium Luxury adds a hands-free power liftgate. The gap versus a full-marks answer is phone-as-key, which the XT6 never offered.

The hardware is good when fitted — HD Surround Vision, Automatic Parking Assist with braking, a Surround Vision Recorder and a rear camera mirror with washer — but on the 2022 car all of it lives inside the extra-cost Technology Package, so the volume configuration ships with a rear camera plus front and rear parking sensors and nothing more.

A reconfigurable full-color head-up display is offered and reviews well, but it is bundled into the optional Technology Package on Premium Luxury and Sport and cannot be had on the base Luxury at all — available on the volume trim, but only as part of a multi-thousand-dollar bundle rather than a standalone box to tick.

The second row is genuinely excellent for family logistics — Cars.com graded every seat type an A there, with lower anchors partially exposed in the seat bight and tethers easy to find, and wide-opening rear doors that clear a bulky rear-facing seat without stealing front legroom. It falls short of a benchmark score because the third row has no lower anchors at all, its headrest openings are too small to route a tether through, and the aperture into it is narrow.

2022 is the XT6's strongest safety year for families: a 5-star NHTSA overall result, a genuine 2022 IIHS Top Safety Pick+, and the model year in which Rear Cross Traffic Alert and Lane Change Alert with Side Blind Zone Alert joined automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, lane keep assist and parking sensors as standard on every trim including the base Luxury. What keeps it out of the top band is adaptive cruise control, which cannot be ordered on the Luxury at all and costs extra on the trims families actually buy.

A quiet cabin, tri-zone climate with dedicated second-row controls, six USB ports across all three rows, an UltraView panoramic roof and seats reviewers praise over long stints make this a comfortable family tourer for five. Seven aboard is the problem: 12.6 cu ft behind the third row will not take a week's luggage, there is no rear-seat entertainment option, and the third row is a short-trip proposition for anyone past childhood.

Easy company in traffic: the naturally aspirated 3.6L V6 in the volume Premium Luxury is smooth and untemperamental, the cabin is well isolated, the upright greenhouse gives good sightlines and Consumer Reports found it handles like a smaller vehicle. Two real annoyances hold it back — accelerator hesitation in the default Touring mode, and torque steer under power on front-drive cars.

An expensive way to commute. The volume V6 is EPA-rated at 21 MPG combined and Consumer Reports measured just 18 MPG overall in its own testing, against roughly $2,950 a year in fuel — and there was no hybrid or plug-in XT6 at any price in 2022. The one saving grace is that the V6 drinks regular unleaded where the thriftier 2.0T requires premium.

A genuine mid-size footprint at 198.8 in long and 77.3 in wide with a 39-ft curb-to-curb turning circle, so tight urban work takes deliberation. Front and rear parking sensors are standard and the tall, upright glass helps place the corners, but HD Surround Vision and Automatic Parking Assist are locked inside the extra-cost Technology Package, so the volume car does without the camera help that would lift this score.

A 4,000-lb maximum rating with the V6 and the Smart Towing Package covers a small utility trailer or a pair of jet skis, and 78.7 cu ft of flat load floor takes bulky loads — but it is a unibody luxury crossover with no bed, and a car without the towing package is rated for just 1,000 lbs. There is no payload headroom worth quoting and the naturally aspirated V6 makes its 271 lb-ft at 5,000 rpm, which is the wrong shape for pulling.

The mechanical case is reassuring and 2022 is the best-evidenced year of the generation — the naturally aspirated 3.6L LGX V6 and the nine-speed automatic are long-serving high-volume GM units on a platform shared with the Acadia and Traverse, and these exact cars won their J.D. Power segment at 90 days in the 2022 IQS and again at three years in the 2025 VDS. But nothing about the car is built for abuse: leather and semi-aniline surfaces, no wear-friendly trim option, no fleet track record in work service.

Provisions are thin and aimed at recreation rather than work: the Smart Towing Package brings a hitch with cover, a 7-wire harness, a 170-amp alternator, heavy-duty cooling and Hitch Guidance with Hitch View, and the accessory catalog offers roof cross rails plus cargo tie-downs. Beyond that there is no onboard 120V power, no bed, no washable surfaces and no upfit ecosystem of any kind.

A competent mile-eater: a genuinely quiet, well-isolated cabin, seats reviewers praise over multi-hour stints, a ride tuned to isolate, and roughly 460 miles from the AWD car's 22.0-gallon tank. What it lacks is the fatigue-reducing driver assistance a road-trip specialist needs — adaptive cruise is not standard on any 2022 trim and cannot be ordered on the base Luxury, and 2022's first-year Super Cruise application is a package on the upper trims only.

Fine for gravel roads, trailheads and a bike rack, and no more than that. All-wheel drive is a roughly $2,000 option rather than standard equipment on every 2022 trim, ground clearance is 6.7 in, and there is no low range, no locking differential, no skid plates and no off-road trim in the 2022 lineup. Roof cross rails and a 4,000-lb tow rating cover the toys; the terrain does not.

Power-folding second and third rows operated from cargo-area switches open a flat 78.7 cu ft hold quickly, and roof cross rails plus a dealer hitch extend that to bikes, boxes and a small trailer. It is held to mid-band by having only 12.6 cu ft behind an upright third row, no underfloor storage bin, and no clever seat-fold trick beyond conventional flat-folding.

Better than its size suggests and better than its mission requires — Consumer Reports found it handles like a much smaller vehicle without excessive body lean, and testers report it stays composed on a genuinely twisty road, helped on the Sport by the twin-clutch rear drive unit with active yaw control. It stops well short of the top band because this is a 2020-vintage front-drive-based unibody crossover on comfort-biased tuning, and reviewers are unanimous that it is not as sporty as the German rivals.

The XT6's most criticized dynamic trait. Reviewers describe the steering as smooth, light and accurate enough to place the car — one road test even rates the feedback better than expected for the size — but it is short on genuine information, and front-drive cars suffer torque steer that tugs the wheel under acceleration.

Braking is one of the XT6's solid areas and 2022 improved it: reviewers describe the pedal as firm and responsive with stops from 60 mph landing around 120 ft — par for a 4,400-lb mid-size crossover — and 2022 is the first model year in which Brembo front performance discs became standard equipment on the Sport trim. The volume Premium Luxury keeps the conventional brakes, which is what holds this out of the top band.

The naturally aspirated 3.6L LGX in the volume Premium Luxury is genuinely smooth and lag-free with linear delivery, and the nine-speed slips between ratios unnoticed at part throttle. Against that, testers of the 2022 car report noticeable accelerator hesitation in the default Touring drive mode and some report a recurring shudder on low-gear upshifts.

Near-silent at a cruise — the acoustically insulated cabin is one of the XT6's clearest wins over its Traverse and Acadia siblings, and the V6 is inherently vibration-free through the controls. It loses points only because the naturally aspirated engine has to be revved toward its 5,000-rpm torque peak to move 4,400 lbs, and gets audibly coarse when it is.

39.0 ft curb-to-curb is unremarkable for a mid-size SUV — mid-band, and a consequence of the 112.7-in wheelbase shared with the XT5 and Acadia rather than of any 2022-specific change. It is workable in a parking structure but takes a deliberate three-point turn on a narrow street.

Sightlines are good — tall glass, an upright greenhouse and a commanding hip point — and the dash is uncluttered with the small screen backed up by a console rotary controller and real climate hardware. What pulls it down is adjustability: Consumer Reports specifically faults a limited range of seat and steering-wheel adjustment, and the glossy wood trim throws glare on sunny days.

Nobody recommends the 2022 XT6 to a driver. It is competent, quiet and pleasant to cover distance in, and the Sport trim's Brembo brakes and twin-clutch rear axle give it a sharper edge than the badge suggests — but light, uncommunicative steering, a ~7.0-second 0–60 mph that reviewers say wants more thrust, and comfort-first tuning add up to an appliance with good manners rather than a car with character.

The $49,790 base Luxury is decently stocked for the cheapest entry into a three-row luxury SUV, and 2022's one substantive content change was in the buyer's favor: blind-spot monitoring with rear cross-traffic alert joined the standard list, on top of the UltraView panoramic sunroof, tri-zone climate, heated front seats, wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, eight-speaker Bose, power liftgate and the Cadillac Smart System driver-assist set (automatic emergency braking, forward collision alert, front pedestrian braking, park assist, safety alert seat, Teen Driver). What holds it mid-band is what money cannot buy on the base trim — the 8.0-inch CUE screen is the same on every trim, seating is synthetic rather than leather, and adaptive cruise, head-up display and surround view all require Premium Luxury or higher — plus a 2022-specific wrinkle: the microchip shortage put heated front, ventilated front and heated outboard rear seats under constraint from March 14 production until May 1, and limited wireless charging availability, so some 2022 cars were delivered without content the spec sheet promised.

On paper 2022 is the XT6's best value year: $49,790 delivered made it the least expensive three-row luxury SUV on sale, undercutting an Acura MDX modestly and an Audi Q7 or BMW X5 by $10,000–$15,000, while the $54,190 volume Premium Luxury brought a 310-hp V6, leather, heated front and rear seats and a power-folding third row for $2,000 less than the equivalent 2023 car. Two things pull it back to mid-band. Reviewers did not agree that the price was low enough — Edmunds specifically flagged "a price that seems overpriced" against an interior it judged short of luxury standards, with an 8-inch screen, no hybrid in the range and thirsty EPA figures. And in 2022 almost nobody paid the sticker that makes the argument: Cadillac buyers averaged roughly $4,000 over MSRP in January 2022, which erases the segment's cheapest-entry advantage at the point of sale. Super Cruise was announced for the 2022 XT6 but never reached the order guide, so the differentiator that lifts the 2023 car does not apply here.

Three well-spaced trims (Luxury, Premium Luxury, Sport) spanning $49,790 to the mid-$70,000s loaded, FWD standard with a $2,000 AWD option on the two lower trims, twin-clutch performance AWD standard on Sport, and second-row bench or captain's chairs for six- or seven-passenger seating. The gaps are the same ones that dog the whole generation: the 2.0L turbo four is confined to the base Luxury and the V6 to everything above it, so there is no engine choice within a trim, and there is no hybrid, PHEV or V-Series variant in a class where electrified options were becoming common. 2022 scores a point below the later years because the chip shortage made the theoretical configuration breadth partly unobtainable — options came and went from the order guide mid-year.

2022 was the XT6's peak year and the only one with an upward trajectory: roughly 20,000–21,000 US deliveries, up slightly on 2021, achieved in a year when supply rather than demand was the binding constraint. That is a genuine market presence and the best the nameplate ever managed, but it never came close to the class leaders and the collapse began immediately afterward — deliveries fell sharply in 2023 and kept falling until GM discontinued the model after 2025.

Cadillac in 2022 was a brand with real pull — the Escalade halo was strong enough that dealers were asking $30,000–$40,000 over sticker for one, the V-Series line had credibility, and the Lyriq was arriving to establish EV bona fides. The XT6 drew less of that benefit than other Cadillacs: the model's defining critical complaint throughout its run was that it never escaped its Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia origins. It scores a couple of points above the later years because 2022 is the one year the XT6 carried its own quality credential — highest-ranked Upper Midsize Premium SUV in J.D. Power's 2022 Initial Quality Study, ahead of the BMW X5 and X6. Resale lands at par rather than as a brand bonus.

The worst year of the run to be a buyer, and this item scores the buyer benefit. Factory money on the 2022 XT6 was thin and shrinking — up to $1,750 off in February, $1,250 in May, then $1,000 for most of the second half, versus the ~$2,500 allowances and 2.9% APR programs the nameplate attracted once inventory recovered. More decisively, the microchip shortage meant the advertised discount was not what anyone transacted at: 82% of all new-vehicle buyers paid above MSRP in January 2022 and Cadillac buyers averaged about $4,048 over sticker, so a nominal $1,000 rebate was routinely swallowed by a dealer addendum. That is squarely the "sells at or over MSRP" band.

2022 is the third model year of a first-generation XT6 that launched for 2020 and never received a mid-cycle refresh — squarely mid-cycle, current but not cutting-edge, on a 2019-vintage architecture with an 8.0-inch CUE screen and no electrified option in a class rapidly adding them. It is the freshest of the XT6's scored years and the only one where a buyer could still reasonably expect a refresh to come; the changes themselves were minor (standard blind-spot monitoring, new wheels and colors, Brembo front brakes on Sport), and the announced Super Cruise option did not materialize for 2022.

The high-water mark for the nameplate's credentials, though the reviews themselves stayed lukewarm. 2022 is the only XT6 model year holding two real awards at once: a third consecutive IIHS Top Safety Pick+ — Good in every crashworthiness test, top marks for both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian front crash prevention, with only the headlights short of the best rating — and highest-ranked Upper Midsize Premium SUV in J.D. Power's 2022 Initial Quality Study, ahead of the BMW X5 and X6. Both lapsed afterward: the 2023 car rated Poor in the updated IIHS side and moderate-overlap tests, ending the streak. Against the hardware, the aggregate verdict was competent-but-unremarkable and mid-pack — U.S. News 7.2/10 and #14 of the 2022 luxury midsize SUVs, with Edmunds concluding it "loses its luster" next to the competition.