Rented a pontiac G6...

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Jun 15, 2003
Messages
40,389
Location
ME
2.4 ecotec. Very smooth. Had to open the hood and rub my eyes in disbelief at the 4-banger.

Throttle by wire. Junk! Has a mode where the car gets peppier for the same pedal input the faster it goes. Seems to cross thresholds at 25, 35, and 45 MPH. Once when I had the pedal steady in the middle it hit one of those thresholds and temporarily downshifted then re-upshifted! Also at wide open pedal I don't think I got wide open throttle until 25 MPH... was trying to get into traffic and not exactly thrilled. Wonder if I would have had better results with trac control off. Dry pavement but it might be how they cheat for the magazine performance tests.

Transmission was very nice, they use that aggravating TBW to do quick firm shifts with little jarring. IIRC it's a 5 speed and above 3rd gear or so I can't even mentally keep track of what gear it's in. Also they keep torque convertor lockup engaged most of the time. It's an automatic for the stick shift driver to get stuck with when renting.
smirk2.gif


At 12k miles the passenger power window fell off its track. I got it back in most of the way but it whistled.

Gas mileage was probably pretty good; I can't be sure I got it with a 100% full tank. I turned it in with 20 miles on the tank I filled and a previous person could have done the same. Figured out the trip odometer built into the radio much later as well.

I'm 6 foot, 34 inch inseam, and my torso is slightly too long for this car. Seems engineered for a very specific height driver. Has that fashionable narrow side window tank-like treatment. Tough to see out the back when reversing too.

The rear doors are very long in a wedge shape which interferes in the parking lot. The seatbacks are 8-10 useless inches forward of the rear part of the opening. Stupid!

Parked next to a saturn aura which would seem to be this thing's twin along with the new malibu. Have heard rave reviews on the other two. I will concede this thing handled wonderfully. I liked the firm suspension and lack of lean. Wonder if interior stuff will loosen up over 200,000 miles and rattle.

A stripped down stick shift version with a tamed or eliminated throttle by wire, height adjustable seat that could be lowered, crank 'em windows etc would be the only way to get one of these in my garage.
 
For some reason on edmunds.com, the G6 got a bad review, but the Malibu got a great review. I thought they were the same car, maybe not?
 
Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
For some reason on edmunds.com, the G6 got a bad review, but the Malibu got a great review. I thought they were the same car, maybe not?


One of my neighbors has 07 G6..It has been back to the dealer so many times I lost track..The last problem was the whole sterring system went out..The car has only 7K miles on it.

Another neighbor has a 07 Malibu..It has 40K miles on it now and no issues.
 
The Malibu is apparently a much better car.. Usually gets good reviews. I wouldn't buy a G6 either. There are so many better competitors out there..
 
GM's newer V6's have not been impressive. Yes, the 3800 was getting long in the tooth, but it was a fine motor that could have seen even better city MPG's had it been hooked to a 5 or 6 speed auto. Even with a lot of city driving I still manage 22-23 mpg out of it. In a larger car than the G6.

Definitely take a new 'Bu over a G6 any day. That's about the one car GM got right the past few years.
 
I have an Aura and I love it, no problems at all but I only have 20k miles on it. I don't notice the drive by wire or any delays. I do know that GM is big into torque management software to save wear on the transmission, I don't drive mine really aggressively so maybe that is why I don't notice it.

The 2009.5 G6 (if it ever comes out) has a reworked interior that resembles the Aura and gets rid of that goofy trip computer built into the radio and should resolve a lot of the G6 interior complaints.
 
I don't actually mind the radio trip computer/ info center as it gives the passenger something to play with. Just was hard to find off the bat. The button sequences were confusing for a rental but one might get used to them if they owned the car. I reset the oil life monitor accidentally on purpose by pumping the gas 5x.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: JustinH
A friend of ours has a g6 "GT" with the v6 motor.

The thing is a pig, gets just over 20mpg, sometimes under 20mpg in the city.



That has been my experience with the G6 with a V6 engine, too. Very surprising to have a modern car that gets such a bad mileage.
 
A woman in my nieghborhood has a G6 convertible. Neat, hardtop convertible GT. She gets a combined 27 with her V6 - mix city/hwy. Maybe these other people drive hard to get less then 20mpg.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
I have an Aura and I love it, no problems at all but I only have 20k miles on it. I don't notice the drive by wire or any delays.


It's transparent with my Cobalt as well, but that may have to do with the 'old school' 4T45E trans.

Joel
 
I see a LOT more G6's on the road around here than Malibu's. I prefer the Malibu, must be good sales on the G6's....
 
I rented a G6 for a week to travel approx. 300 miles. It was a piece of junk feeling car. That's about the nicest thing I could say about it really.
 
I don't understand why people feel the G6 is junky yet they bought the Grand Am in droves. I never liked a Grand Am made after 1991. The G6 was a HUGE improvement.
 
One of my co-workers has a G6 and has had so many problems with it he calls it his Garbage-6.

It's a real POS. He is now fighting the dealership trying to get it declared a lemon.

Riding in it with him a few times, I wouldn't say it was anything spectacular, but it was better than the plastic-factory type vehicles GM was putting out a couple years before that.
thumbsup2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: BrianWC
I don't understand why people feel the G6 is junky yet they bought the Grand Am in droves. I never liked a Grand Am made after 1991. The G6 was a HUGE improvement.


+1

I don't think Grand Am-s were particularly spectacular before 1991. I had a 1988 model and it was a very crude product.
 
Yeah, I know they weren't the best...But I don't think they stuck out as much as a big hunk of junk back then. I remember them being pretty popular girl cars in high school... Certainly a better choice than the POS LeBaron vert that my then future wife was driving!
 
Most newer cars have adaptive shifting whereby it learns when to shift based on how you drive. Or something like that.

In a rental car, any goofy shifting you notice may well be the result of what it learned from previous drivers.

Next time you notice goofy shifting in a rental car, and you feel like a little bit of experimentation, try disconnecting the battery for several minutes and then reconnect and see if it shifts better.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top