GM is killing off Pontiac

VMAX  Forum

Help Support VMAX Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
this is bad, 3 of the best cars i have owned were grand prix, a 77, a 79 and a 82, great cars, shit is getting scary, WTF is happening to our country, i am scared to death for my daughter, she is set for life money wise, but what she will see in the next decade i hate to think about. dave


OR you can stop talking about how set you are with money.
 
That is a shame. My first NEW car was a 1964 black GTO convertible. Got 9 moving violations in 6 months. Had a ton of lawyer fees and went on probation for a year. Had to sell the GTO. Just too much temptation (I was 20 when I bought it). I also owned a used red 1967 GTO, a new yellow 1969 Catalina convertible and a new black 1979 Trans Am TA6.6. The Trans Am was such a lemon that I dumped it in less than 9k miles and never bought a Pontiac again.... :bang head: In fact it was my last GM car period.
 
As far as GM is concerned. Its sad, but they dug there own grave.

I feel for the dedicated workers and there families, and all the smaller companies that will go with them. I have family that cnc parts for them.

My grandpa was a GM mechanic for over 45 years. My dad was GM mechanic until he died. Ive always drove GM vehicles.

When i got older, i realized there are better made vehicles out there. If i was going to buy a truck, id buy a ford, period.

The car i have now is a 99 pontiac bonneville sucks edition. They cheaped out and instead of having the upper intake plenum cnc'd out of aluminum, they made it out of plastic. Every one of them warps and develops leaks and you burn coolant until you change it. In my case, i had a bad fuel pressure regulator, which over pressurized the injectors, filled the whole intake full of mix and then it backfired and blew the plastic upper intake in half, catching on fire and sending plastic shrapnel all over some coworkers in the process. I can fix it myself for about 250$, but it would be over 1000$ with GM labor.

Another design flaw i had to fix was a ground bus bar. Its where the fuel pump, windows, locks, just about everything from the firewall to the ass end of the car has ground wires plugging into this bus bar, going to a bigger wire up to the battery. They conveniently located right under your foot under the drivers side carpet, where salt and water could corrode the hell out of it. Took me a while to figure out why the hell the engine died and vapor locked when i rolled down the windows!

Another design flaw is the drain tube for the place under the windshield. It gets plugged with dirt etc, and then overflows right onto the circuit board that controls your blower motor. Had to rig a 30 amp circuit with a toggle switch, and now i have 1 speed fan that changes with engine rpm's LOL

Also, the rear windows roll down fine all winter long, but NEVER work in the summer when you need them. Still scratching my head on that one.

I likely wont ever buy another GM car in my life.

Id like to see some quality GM cars and trucks built, but it will never happen.
 
The car i have now is a 99 pontiac bonneville sucks edition. They cheaped out and instead of having the upper intake plenum cnc'd out of aluminum, they made it out of plastic. Every one of them warps and develops leaks and you burn coolant until you change it. In my case, i had a bad fuel pressure regulator, which over pressurized the injectors, filled the whole intake full of mix and then it backfired and blew the plastic upper intake in half, catching on fire and sending plastic shrapnel all over some coworkers in the process. I can fix it myself for about 250$, but it would be over 1000$ with GM labor.

Id like to see some quality GM cars and trucks built, but it will never happen.

I hear ya. Did the plastic plenum replacement in my dad's '98 LeSabre. Took us forever to figure out what was causing the cylinders to fill up with coolant. 2 broken starters later, head gaskets and head work we finally read up on the problem and eventually got it fixed right. What an ordeal. Runs good now though at least until the plenum lets go again.
 
Sucks hard GM for several reasons, the main being I have about 56K in GMAC bonds that do not mature until 2018. I really hope they can keep the pig floating along with their finance department!

My first car was a 1974 T/A with a SD 455, second car was a 1979 T/A with a 403 oldsmobile, and my third car was a 1981 T/A that came with a 305 Chevy and B&W Super T-10 tranny, replaced with a 412 SBC dirt tracker motor within 2 months of purchase.

I still have 2 Fieros, one a V-8 Archie F40 conversion, the other a bone stock 1986 GT with a 2.8, and a 2001 SSEI 3.8 supercharged Bonneville.

I knew when Buick died, Poor Old was next in line.

Next thing you know the Chrysler merger will happen and all my 43 year old Mopar jokes will be on me!

Great times in the USA!
 
Killing Pontiac,

WTF? Now that the feds are essentially running our banks and auto industry hold onto your shorts. Things are really about to go down the crapper
Oh, and I hear you about the plastic intake failure, same happened to my96 t-bird. GM isn't the only one doing that. Ironically. I swore off Ford due to a number of major failures. I've had much better results with GM.
 
I'm more concerned if they axe Holden which I believe may happen too.

My car was designed and built in Australia by Holden which is another failing GM company. They make a HELL of a car though.

Hopefully 2009 is the last year for Pontiac...

As for the plastic intakes... Mine is plastic on my G8 and so are all the Vettes, and any other Chevy V8 and most if not all V6 models as well. I think yours was an early model for the plastic intakes. They don't have any issues with them. They remove A LOT of weight from the front ends.

Chris
 

Attachments

  • G8GT back side.jpg
    G8GT back side.jpg
    136 KB · Views: 20
Can't complain too much. Mostly a Gm guy but we have other brands here. I've got my 69 Bonneville Convertible (which was the first car I bought with my own money) as well as a number of other GTO's and lemans cars. I've had three trans-ams and still have a few parts laying around for them (79 10th anniversary 400 4 speed car, 80 turbo Indy pace car, and 81 Turdbo). The 79 was amazingly fun and I had outfitted the chassis with PST parts and Yokohama AVS race tires. The 400 was worked over and the Super T-10 gone through. Car was worn on the outside but ran awesome.

I ended up selling the three of them to pay for the concrete in my big shop. I'd still take the 79 back in a heart beat.

Niel - I do have enough Fiero parts to almost put together 6 cars. Interested in any parts? Make you a good deal on them. Better bring one hell of a truck as I think it would fill up a 20' box truck pretty easily.

Sean
 
Heard about it on the news last night and couldn`t believe it !
My first car was a "67" firebird formula 400, It came stock with chrome valve covers, high rise manifold with a 4barrel quadrajet,chrome air filter cover, turbo 400 trans, 15 inch rims with wide radials and only a couple of inches off the ground.
That thing was a high school bitch magnet.:punk:
I never should have sold it as I`ve only seen a couple since.
They have only 10 days to merge with Fiat or the`re on their own .
I guess Greed and being cheap is the main cause of it all R.I.P. chrysler
but maybe they can make money on after market parts LOL:rofl_200::rofl_200::rofl_200:
I own a 2001 300m too.
<<Dave>>
 
Killing Pontiac,

WTF? Now that the feds are essentially running our banks and auto industry hold onto your shorts. Things are really about to go down the crapper
Oh, and I hear you about the plastic intake failure, same happened to my96 t-bird. GM isn't the only one doing that. Ironically. I swore off Ford due to a number of major failures. I've had much better results with GM.
FORD=
F::found
O::0n
R::road
D::dead

<<Dave>>:rofl_200:
 
I can't believe they'd write off Pontiac and keep BUICK? God, who under 60 buys a BUICK? (No offense to any of you who own one, lol.)

It's all my parents owned as I was growing up, so I'll forever think of them as old folks cars.
 
Morons said they couldn't get Pontiac to be successful as a performance brand. I'd guess that puking Aztec didn't woo any of the Firebird owners back? I mean who wouldn't trade that Trans Am for an Aztec?

Or when they killed off the Grand Am, one it's biggest selling models EVER!

They need to be horse whipped at GM, they are too stupid to be allowed to make little red wagons!

Oh yea that Buick brand should sell real well when all the old people die off and they try to sell that old shit to us younger crowds!

GM is brain dead.........
 
I can't believe they'd write off Pontiac and keep BUICK? God, who under 60 buys a BUICK? (No offense to any of you who own one, lol.)

It's all my parents owned as I was growing up, so I'll forever think of them as old folks cars.

I'd buy a Grand National if they still made them, especially if it was a GNX model.
 
Buick is apparently VERY popular overseas, that's why they are keeping it. I would have liked to see them keep Pontiac as a youthful sporty brand like Toyota's Scion, and sell them at Chevy dealerships. Keep the Solstice, maybe the G8, and come out with a nice sporty compact (not the G5!). Hell, Buick only has 3 vehicles under its nameplate, why not Pontiac? Hopefully the Solstice/Sky and G8 will survive under the Chevy or other nameplate. The Pontiac nameplate has really been nothing more than a way to get Pontiac/Buick/GMC dealers the same cars as the Chevy dealers had, only rebadged.

Really, I have no sympathy for the Big 3. I wish there was a domestic made car that I was really interested in buying, but there isn't. Same with bikes (although the HD XR1200R is getting closer). I am a dedicated American and WANT to buy American, but I want the best product for my money even more. 30 years of churning out (mostly) bland, unreliable, overpriced, mediocre vehicles, piss poor company management and giving into the Union's every request is what did the Big 3 in, not this recession, or bank failures, etc. The current economy just hastened the inevitable.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top