Pontiac is dead?

[dkn1997]

Saturn was a great concept when they launched. Small, Cheap, reliable,Fuel efficient cars.  halfway decent styling for the time, no haggle pricing.   Then GM fattened them up and started with re-badgeing opels and made them as expensive as regular cars.  If GM had stuck with the original concept, saturn would be thriving in this economy.  I agree saturn has to go now.  just more of the same cars that chevy makes. 

Pontiac? I have a 99 grand prix and it's the best car I ever had.  supercharged, fast, roomy, still looks ok.  paid 22K for it in 99.  Has 100K on it now and still runs like new.   Has anyone with a pulse seen the G8?  how can anyone say that car isn't exciting.  looks like a 5 series bmw on roids.

Buick? anyone who's interested in a buick is either dead or soon will be. 

They should do what the japanese do, two marques.  the regular line and then the luxury one.

[Mike DC]

 

Saturn was a great concept when they launched. Small, Cheap, reliable,Fuel efficient cars.  halfway decent styling for the time, no haggle pricing.

Chevy was supposed to be that concept all along.  But they spent so too many years flooding the roads with tons of shitty little compacts in the 1980s that they ruined their image.  (My Grandmother's 1985 Cavalier was puking large drivetrain components at 60-70K.  That thing was driven by a small-town woman in her 70s for most of its life.) 

I think GM really created Saturn rather that trying to salvage Chevy's name in that area of the market. 

[aussiemuscle]

supercharger cans the pontiac gto for being based on a holden monaro, which was based on a commodore

Bird67 likes the g8, which is also based on a holden (commodore in this case)

two ends of the spectrum  on the same thread and same page...

[Lizey]

The new GTO?  Hmmmm, yes and you would have thought Dodge would have learned from the mistake where resurrecting hallowed nameplates are concerned.

i agree. that gto is nothing but the name slapped on a turd, much like that dodge chrysler slapped the mighty charger name to.

dont burn me at the stake for saying it but i think the new chargers one of the more impressive cars out there!

[WingCharger]

The new GTO?  Hmmmm, yes and you would have thought Dodge would have learned from the mistake where resurrecting hallowed nameplates are concerned.

i agree. that gto is nothing but the name slapped on a turd, much like that dodge chrysler slapped the mighty charger name to.

dont burn me at the stake for saying it but i think the new chargers one of the more impressive cars out there!

[Ghoste]

No one is denying the car is good, its more an issue of questioning whether or not its good judgement to use a name from the past in an obvious marketing effort to target baby boomers and then giving them a car that is nothing at all what they expected from a styling point of view.  Same thing is being applied to the GTO in this case.

[moparstuart]

  I agree these cars would have done much better named as the G8 and Magnum sedan .

 

[Mopar2Ya]

  I agree these cars would have done much better named as the G8 and Magnum sedan .

 

W/you 100%. It's funny on the SRT forums no one has ever mentioned this dislike of the 4dr Charger. 

[max]

While I don't care for the GTO looks at all I did test drive one of the 400 horse models and it was pretty impressive.

same here, my father bought a new 06 GTO and i got to drive it one time before he traded it back to the dealer. that 400 HP was very impressive for a new car that weighed roughly 3700 lbs.

this is the only photo that i have of the car, he keept it for 2 years and it only had 1500 miles when he traded it back in.

it would have given my 1970 Hemi Challenger a run for it's money.

[Mike DC]

dont burn me at the stake for saying it but i think the new chargers one of the more impressive cars out there!

I don't hear much good about the long-term ownership of those things though.  Reliability is in pretty serious question. 

[Ghoste]

Thats what they said about them in the 60's too.

[ACUDANUT]

dont burn me at the stake for saying it but i think the new chargers one of the more impressive cars out there!

I don't hear much good about the long-term ownership of those things though.  Reliability is in pretty serious question. 

Funny you mention reliability. Todays Chrysler products will only live half the life of a New GM product.
I'm a die hard OLD SCHOOL Mopar guy, don't get me wrong.  It's just that have been burned/ripped off on buying todays Chrysler products.  I may try a third time and buy a new Challenger.  Fingers crossed here.

[Lizey]

dont burn me at the stake for saying it but i think the new chargers one of the more impressive cars out there!

I don't hear much good about the long-term ownership of those things though.  Reliability is in pretty serious question. 

long term ownership?
hell the first ones arent 5 years old yet!

[captnsim]

5 years is old for a car that needs constant upkeep...no matter who makes it.

[Ghoste]

Reliability has always been an issue for Chrysler products... at least in the media.  As long as I can remember people have always slammed Mopars and claimed they were unreliable and needed constant upkeep 
It'll never change, we've always been the Big Three underdog and always will.  Oddly enough, every single car dealership I've ever seen has a service department and even stranger the cars which seem to be mostly populating the service departments are almost always whatever model they are sellign the most of.   Hmmmmmmm.
They might be ugly but I don't think they are any more unreliable than anything else.  It happens to be Mopars most affordable mid size family car so thsoe, Rams and minivans are naturally going to have the most tales of turdishness.

[Mike DC]

You can't tell me there is no difference from brand-to-brand though.  Some specific examples can always be produced to the contrary, but the overall trend is there. 

Not everyone who switched to foreign cars did it because they don't wanna give Detroit a fair shot.  And even when Detroit has been busting their asses to close that gap, certain makers like Mopar still have a rep for quality problems even among those who give Detroit the benefit of the doubt.  Their bad rep has been earned & maintained pretty honestly in the big picture.

       

[Ghoste]

Maybe in the past but I don't buy it much today.

[Mopar2Ya]

I've had the best luck w/Mopars, & my few modern Mopars have been excellent. My immediate family drives all Mopars w/little/no problems. I owned one japtrap & it will most likely be my last. JMHO. 

I've heard only a few issues w/the LX cars, mostly the normal brake rotors wearing quickly. That is until you start adding 100+hp then stuff starts breaking. 

[Mike DC]

I've had both Mopars & other American stuff, and Jap crap.  I've consistently have better reliability with the Jap-crap. 

I don't want it to be this way.  I'm always looking for ways to excuse the problems on the Americans or make a big deal out of the Japs' problems.  But the trend is there and I can't deny it.   

 

[Ghoste]

I've had a pile of American cars as well and I've never had a single problematic issue with any of them, I also cannot deny my trend.  I haven't bought a Japanese car lately but I haven't needed to.  I have had them in the far past and they were complete pieces of disposable crap, only three of them but three for three makes it a 100% bad experience.   That was a long time ago though and even though no one seems to remember today, the Japanese cars were not always such highly regarded mechnical perfection.  We initially bought them because the Arab oil embargos caught the US automakers off gaurd and the tiny tin cans from Japan were dirt cheap and got good mileage thus making for a quick and easy turnover into smaller cars.
In any case, I'm sorry you've had such terrible luck with American cars maybe next time I'm ready to trade in one of mine I'll let you know. 

[WingCharger]

Reliability has always been an issue for Chrysler products... at least in the media.  As long as I can remember people have always slammed Mopars and claimed they were unreliable and needed constant upkeep 
It'll never change, we've always been the Big Three underdog and always will.  Oddly enough, every single car dealership I've ever seen has a service department and even stranger the cars which seem to be mostly populating the service departments are almost always whatever model they are sellign the most of.   Hmmmmmmm.
They might be ugly but I don't think they are any more unreliable than anything else.  It happens to be Mopars most affordable mid size family car so thsoe, Rams and minivans are naturally going to have the most tales of turdishness.

I hate it when they bash Chrysler.
In TIME in their article about saving Detroit:
"Chrysler is currently developing a Electric Vehicle platform that isn't going to get anybody excited. Their only option is to partner with a foreign company with design standards they can meet if they intend to survive into the future."

[Ghoste]

Exactly.  All the while I have here sitting in front of me a Chrysler flyer from the newspaper talking about an electric Wrangler, Patriot, minivan, 200C and that Circuit sports car Lotus looking thing.  Nothing there to excite anybody is there?

[WingCharger]

Exactly.  All the while I have here sitting in front of me a Chrysler flyer from the newspaper talking about an electric Wrangler, Patriot, minivan, 200C and that Circuit sports car Lotus looking thing.  Nothing there to excite anybody is there?

Look at any issue of Car and Driver. They tested four door sedans. Hyundai, Ford, and Chevy. No Chrysler IN THE ENTIRE ISSUE!
Looked at 3 other issues, same thing. Oh wait, one had a insulting column saying the Challenger handled like a boat.

[SeattleCharger]

can any of them build a decent transmission in the trucks?  wth?

[Mike DC]

 
I'm not sure anyone in the entire auto industry can build a decent strong auto trans anymore. 

They're so ape-shit about getting an extra 0.06 mpg out of the drivetrain that they forget to make them work right.  All their new trannys get 15 different gears and tiny little clutches & moving parts.