Ingrid Palmer, Edmund's feature's editor, drove the Cadillac Seville from Denver to Paducah, Ky., in March to drop the car off with our vehicle data administrator, Scott Schapiro. During her day-and-a-half with the car, Palmer declared the Seville her top choice of any vehicle in the Edmund's test fleet for a cross-country trip. Palmer's favorite characteristic of the Seville is the car's ability to gobble up miles of interstate quickly and quietly. The Seville cruises highways and byways so smoothly that our lead-footed editor found herself sitting on the side of the road talking to a state trooper who pulled her over for travelling 10 mph above the speed limit. Fortunately, Palmer was able to sweet-talk her way out of a citation.

Palmer did have some gripes, however, as she found the instrument cluster difficult to read because it was often washed out by sunlight. She also dislikes the location of the memory seat preset buttons, finding that she often activated them on accident when pushing open the door.

Schapiro was very excited about taking delivery of the Seville, and was looking forward to trading the turbodiesel Beetle that he has been driving for 300 good-old-fashioned American horsepower. Until recently, Schapiro owned a Chevrolet Camaro, so he is familiar with the spine-tingling thrill of American V8s. Nevertheless, he was somewhat disappointed that the Seville lacked the seat-of-the-pants excitement that his Camaro possessed.

Schapiro said, "While it no doubt will get out of its own way, it just doesn't have that same seat-of- the-pants feel as the 300 horsepower my '98 Z28 had. To be fair, my former Camaro was a bit lighter and had better torque, but the Lexus GS400 and BMW 540i definitely feel faster." Some people are never satisfied; Schapiro is the first to complain about the Seville's power.

Some of Schapiro's complaints are familiar ones. He found that he had to open the owner's manual to figure out how to program most of the Seville's "automatic" features. Speaking of features, Schapiro took issue with several that he feels are a complete waste of money. He finds the adaptive seats uncomfortable, the Radio Data System (RDS identifies station call letters and format on stations broadcasting the appropriate signal) useless until more stations began transmitting this data, and the automatic climate-control system a waste. Schapiro claims to not like any automatic climate-control systems-guess he's one of those people who likes fiddling with the climate controls every few minutes to stay comfortable.

Schapiro did have one huge compliment for the Seville, citing the intelligence of having an in-dash CD player and a center-console-mounted six-disc CD changer. This allowed him to spend an entire day in the car listening to his own musical selection. He is also impressed by the speakers, claiming that they retain their clarity even when pounding out an eardrum-splitting volume of music.

Schapiro has not yet taken the Seville to be serviced for the complaints reported in last month's update. Other than those outstanding issues, the Seville has been trouble-free.

Current Odometer: 14200
Best MPG: 22.47
Worst MPG: 16.98
Body Repair Costs: $0
Maintenance Costs: $0
Problems: None