Pontiac Still Rather Alive

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Well, certain models with stay popular.

I see no problem with 4th gen Trans Ams staying popular, as well as the W-body Grand Prixs. Anything else...don't see staying relevant. The Grand Am scene is next to death now, as the cars are basically worthless now and most kids getting them do stupid crap to them.

[bchaffin72]

I do love Trans Ams, and I think they will always do well among enthusiasts. I, by far, prefer the Grand Prix over the Grand Am, if I had only those two to chose from for a Pontiac car. And the Montana(and maybe some of the well preserved predecessor Trans Sports) may keep some relevance for us one vehicle Pontiac lovers who need a minivan type vehicle. And there are some other great Pontiacs, but they have also built some that will now just fall completely by the wayside as fairly unremarkable, despite the name.

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Most 80's, 90's and early 00's Pontiacs are just sad reminders of how bad GM was.

My Grand Am GT was just so lousy compared to anything else in its classification. When I went to my Accord from my Grand Am...I couldn't believe these two cars were from the same year span. The interior's fit and finish made my GAGT's interior look like that of a little tyke's car. Even more lame...my GAGT had the 3.4L OHV V6. Made a wimpy 175HP. My Accord has the 2.4L DOHC I4, with 161HP. On paper, my Accord is no different acceleration wise than my GAGT. All the while, I get better gas mileage with less worry of engine failures and breakdowns.

I like Pontiacs, but all I see in them is lost potential. =[

[bchaffin72]

I certainly can't say anything bad about a Honda Accord. I briefly had a 1978 Accord with the 4 cylinder CVCC engine and 4 speed manual. It was one tough little car.

[FuriousGXP]

I understand your dislike for the Grand Ams but mine has been very good to me. The LIMs and wheel hubs are the only real issues I've had in the 10 years of ownership and that's with 6 years of autobahn driving at over 110 mph daily. I"m actually heading to Japan soon and I'm devastated at the thought that I might have to sell my GAGT. Sure, it's not powerful but it's a great car and I've never had any issue with the interior which is still in great shape. It actually saddens me to see the 99% of other Grand Am owners who think the car is junk and treat it that way. If you take proper care of them, nearly any car can be great and reliable. It's only when you start to view them as junk that they start to become junk.

I don't have any issue with you not liking GA's Chaos, but I think you are overly one sided in your "love the Honda but hate the GA" posts. The Honda is the right fit for you but that doesn't make all GA's junk. I personally can't stand seeing so many Hondas everyday (half the people shopping at our Autozone have a Civic or Accord that's falling apart) but I do understand that your taste is different from mine. I believe that GA's can be a classic car someday simply because so many people are able to afford one as their "first car" now. Those of us who bond with them will certainly value them in the future just as I value mine now. I know it won't ever be as fast as my G8 but the GAGT is a much easier car to learn how to work on that I will always have a warm spot in my heart for GA's. Don't bother comparing your car to others because there is ALWAYS something better out there. Learning to love what you have is where real happiness comes from.

Not ranting at you, just letting you know why some of us "crazies" still love our GA's. Very similar to why some of us crazy Pontiac lovers still enjoy a dead brand name. Then again, I've had a few Maple Crown and Cokes tonight so my thought process is a bit slurred....

[[ChaosweaveR]]

I loved my GAGT, don't get me wrong. But after living with one for over six years then getting my Accord...well, the obvious quality issues can't help but stand out to me.

My GAGT was rather problematic in the last two and a half years of my ownership of it.

One or two fuel injectors would intermittently not work, the blower motor resistors kept failing, the blower motor was ripping itself apart, a P0420 code that just would never go away, rear defroster broke, the LIM started leaking again, thermostat stuck open, exhaust was rotting away, blew a master cylinder...not counting when it shat out a fuel pump, broke a lifter twice on the same head and the two times people hit the car...

I had to ditch it, it was becoming such a nightmare.

Ever since I bought my Accord, I've noticed just how many 7th gen Accords are still on the road today. For every 5th gen Grand Am I've seen, I've seen five 7th gen Accords. I hate to sound bias, but reliability of these things are why they're still around and I've seen so little GAGTs over the past year.

It kinda shows to me why Pontiac and GM got such a bad reputation as well. I took such good care of that car, only for it to fall apart anyway.

[bchaffin72]

For me , my only preference of Grand Prix over Grand Am is styling. I just generally prefer the Grand Prix for looks. But I also understand the frustration of a difficult car, whatever it is. I had a 1980 Mazda 626 that was a total POS. I bought it used, cheap and 100% as-is, so i can't complain that it needed some work. But that work never seemed to pay off. The car was hot and a ton of fun to drive, ran real fast, when it ran at all. But it refused to be fixed. No matter what I did, constant problems. I gave it to my brother in law when he had no car. He even tore it down and rebuilt it and very quickly started having trouble all over again. He gave it back to me when I needed it, and it still wouldn't stay fixed. I finally drove it to my grandparents and parked it back in the woods. Someone apparently came out one night and made off with it. All I will say is this, if they ever got that stupid thing to run right, they earned it!

[markpetersonii]

Holy moly this is old! haha

[bchaffin72]

Holy moly this is old! haha

If you refer to revival of the thread itself, it's not too terribly old. And I do have guidelines for reviving things that interest me. Generally, no more than 2-3 years old and I like to make sure the topic starter, or at least a few people involved, are still active. I have seen the revival of 10-12 year old zombie threads, where no one ever date checked and are talking to people who are long, long gone as if it happened only yesterday.

[[ChaosweaveR]]

Hey, we haven't been around long enough for real necro thread revivals.

[killerspeed101]

Well, certain models with stay popular.

I see no problem with 4th gen Trans Ams staying popular, as well as the W-body Grand Prixs. Anything else...don't see staying relevant. The Grand Am scene is next to death now, as the cars are basically worthless now and most kids getting them do stupid crap to them.

the W-body scene is going the same way, i give it another year before its a dead platform. already had thoughts of demodding and jumping ship while they still have some value.

[Ringo64]

Long as your comment is related and contributes to the thread, I think it doesn't matter how old it is

Semi-related:

My book of choice on my personal/business flight travels (when I'm not working during the flight ) this year has been "Car Guys Vs. Bean Counters" and I think Lutz does an amazing job of capturing exactly how/where GM was struggling and the process of turning it around. I love a lot of the comments he makes about processes and rules GM had in place for stupid stuff that was such an easy fix to improve quality, for instance gap quality was a matter of just saying "do it" with an average of less than 5 mm

[Frosty]

I got that book for Christmas! I just finished reading it last night. it was more poignant for me since I was working at GM Powertrain from 1993 to 2007 and again for GM in Warren from 2011-2012. So I really understood the processes and most of the people he mentioned in the book. While I was dealing with engine and transmission executives and engineers, the VLEs frequently came to Pontiac for status reviews on the development of new engines and transmissions.

The only piece of the puzzle I don't get is why they choose not to sell Pontiac when someone was interested in buying it - like they tried to do with Saab, Hummer, and Saturn. i see why GM choose to shut Pontiac down (whether the government told them to or not) if they weren't making any money. My question is why wasn't it for sale? The scenario that I've heard mentioned most recently by Bob Lutz himself was that Saab, Hummer, and Saturn were essentially "stand alone" brands. You could easily separate or disconnect those brands from GM. Pontiac was thoroughly integrated with Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac platforms. So pulling out Pontiac-only design, engineering, and manufacturing resources (to name a few) was not as easy a thing to do as Saab, Hummer, or Saturn.

My final rhetorical question is this - is this the story they gave to the GM dealer who came forward and wanted to buy Pontiac? Or was he told that "Pontiac is not for sale at any price period." - meaning we can't be bothered pulling Pontiac out of everything since we are sooo busy working on bankruptcy? Makes me wonder.

[Ringo64]

I can see Saab and Hummer being "different" but a lot of the later model Saturns were straight GM rebadges like Pontiac (the Outlook comes to mind because my Aunt owns one and I just drove it last week, that's just a Chevy Traverse). Ironically, I think Saab's reason for death is also the reason it sold, because it wasn't fully a "part" of GM.

[Frosty]

That's was Lutz's point too. Saab kept some level of independence even after GM gained 100% control. Saturn was set-up as an independent at the beginning, although GM was well on its way to fully integrating them. Hummer was quasi-independent because of the relationship with AM General for building the H1 and H2s and licensing the Hummer brand name from them.