NHTSA Complaint #11463717 — 2015 CADILLAC SRX

The headlights are very, very dim when driving the vehicle at night. They are getting progressively worse. Before I took ownership of the vehicle, it was owned by my elderly parents, (82 and 88), both recently deceased. In the years prior to their deaths, they drove much less and hardly ever at night. It wasn't until I took ownership that my wife and I began to notice just how dim the lights were when driving at night. I took the car, which then had 52K miles on it back to Bentley Cadillac in Huntsville, AL, where it had been purchased to have it's latest recall performed. I also paid $1350 to have the climate package controls replaced, which hadn't worked properly for years. I was preparing the vehicle to sell as I was left with too many vehicles and too few drivers. A potential buyer test drove it and part of the drive was at night. They came back saying what we had noticed previously, that the headlights were too dim for safe nighttime driving. The buyer, who had previously expressed very strong interest did not follow through with the purchase as she stated that she felt the vehicle was unsafe to drive at night, which, of course, would seriously limit the vehicles usefulness to her, or, to anyone else for that matter, including myself. I looked at the internet to try and ascertain whether there were others having similar problems with vehicles like mine. Indeed, there were many describing exactly the problems I had been experiencing. The seals on these SUV's were and are continuing to break down allowing moisture into and the headlights, making them defective and unsafe to drive. While I found no active recalls, Cadillac had previously acknowledged the problem by reimbursing some owners for repairs they themselves had paid for up-front around the year 2020. I contacted the Cadillac and the dealership. The best they did was to offer between around $400 and $600 toward a repair that was going to cost between $1600 and $2K, or more by the time is was completed.