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Sedans Pontiac G8 2008 Pontiac G8
1265 messages, Last post on Jul 21, 2009 at 10:14 AM
You are in the Pontiac G8 Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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The reason it is not built here is our fault. GM carries a premium of ~ $2500 per every vehicle made in the US over the foreign vehicle transplant factories (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) in the US. due to legacy union deals. The UAW United Auto Workers union is choking our car companies. I personally wanted to puke every time the UAW has held a strike in the past years. Just the payoffs alone for GM to layoff an employee is sick. The amount of money these selfish people on the assembly line make is outrageous and then they have the gall to strike or make threats to hurt their own employee. They don’t care that GM is sucking wind, they want to ride it to the ground. When American’s work they demand top dollar, the best health insurance, the best working conditions, protection against every grievance of with their employee, etc, etc – But when they shop, they want to shop at Wall-mart where the products are made somewhere in a sweatshop in China by employees making $10 a day with no insurance. I too worked in high tech as an engineer. We had a development crew both here and in India where the engineers made 25k VS 100k respectively. It is a global economy and we need to get use to it. Why do Americans blame Bush for the price of oil when China & India are buying up every gallon they can to produce our goods. There is no mystery to the price of oil, It is just simple supply and demand. GM is still one of the largest employer in the US NOT your Toyota or Honda. Now here is the kicker. You say “Conversely, a Toyota Camry built in Kentucky puts money in the pockets of US-based bla bla”. This leads me to believe you are a typical American trying to hurt the country. I bet you too wanted Microsoft to lose the monopoly suite. Too bad Sony didn’t create windows… Toyota a Japanese car company builds some cars in the US. Some of these vehicles are exported too. That’s ok. Yet GM builds some cars in Australia and export them and GM is lame. Toyota and Honda seem to be doing ok with this business model. Don’t forget why Toyota & Honda started building cars here in the first place. It was to avoid tariffs. I don’t know if you realize this, but GM is just about bankrupt. If GM goes down (again, one of our biggest employers) this country is going to the dogs. GM needs all help it can get to dig out of this mess. I am sure if the $2500 legacy UAW per vehicle premium was put toward R&D GM could give the foreign competition a run for its money. My hopes are GM can raise some capital from subsidiaries such as Holden. Certainly I realize they are in no position to retool American factories or to over invest as much in R&D which they should be doing. Having a winner (hopefully) like the G8 built out of their Holden plant costs them very little and could just help their bottom line. Wouldn’t it be good for America if mazda, Jaguar, and Volvo could help Ford out of this mess instead of bleeding it to death. Futhermore, it would be nice if GM was first out of the shoot on an all electric vehicle. I bet you are rooting for Toyota. You are dreaming if you think a healthy Toyota & Honda is better for America than having a healthy Ford and GM. Yaa, like you I would rather see the G8 made in America or even Canada for that matter. But I also realize the uphill battle GM faces over its foreign rivals. You need to put on your business hat and be more realistic though. GM needs short term help, period. One last point. You make it sound like the G8 is totally an Australian design from the ground up. Yet one of the major selling points is the pushrod engine itself. GM has daunted every foreign manufacture with compact lightweight reliable design. Nobody believes me when I say my 6 speed C5 vette easily achieves 33MPG on the highway. I can and did beat a 6 cylinder Camry in a gas mileage test. And I run it on regualar unleaded to boot. GMs full-size trucks are the most fuel efficient in the business. |
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Replying to: flip7 (Aug 13, 2008 3:49 pm) No - it is not. Not likely any time soon... Though the 2010 Camaro ( based on a modified G8 platform ) will be... |
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Replying to: mrpushrod (Aug 13, 2008 2:44 pm) Regards, OW |
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Replying to: mrpushrod (Aug 13, 2008 7:52 pm) G8 is nice and the CTS and Malibu...and always Corvette. That's about it, folks! Unless you like trucks. Regards, OW |
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Replying to: mrpushrod (Aug 13, 2008 7:52 pm)
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Replying to: actualsize (Aug 14, 2008 12:06 pm) Welcome to the Global Economy! Everything is connected. Regards, OW
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Replying to: circlew (Aug 14, 2008 12:19 pm) I am very impressed with the overall appeal, love the color palate offered for this car. If they want to bring back the Pontiac with a new look and name, then they started in the right direction. Because word is, they could get rid of the Pontiac name in the near future. |
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Replying to: mrpushrod (Aug 13, 2008 7:52 pm) Unions are not the problem in of themselves, it is when they AND management strike expensive deals. Again Management agree to this. Unions do not do any harm to BMW in Germany. Bush gets the blame because the economy has been screwed up under his and GOP rule. Unlike the 90's under the Democrats.
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Mr. pushrod's 2 cents left me speechless... The "unwieldy-handling Camry" does save fuel, it's what people care about these days, and as circlew correctly mentioned, it reduces our dependence (60% comes from overseas) on foreign oil. "Profit" stays in the US - what profit? Negative $15.5 billion every quarter? Maybe it's because GM pays Mexican, Canadian, and now Chinese salaries more than ever? Assembling Japanese cars here works out better for this economy though we shouldn't be in this business in the first place anymore. Making Buicks for the Chinese is the only thing GM does well these days. Let's stay on topic though - Yes, if I wanted a rear-wheel well-built sedan for driving ~5K miles/year, I'd get this car instead of the BMW. But the Camry is in its own class and it satisfies more practical needs, so let's not mix it in here. |
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I am used to dealing with American car bashers. The fact is Volvo reported a loss of $151 million in the first quarter of 2008. Simple enough to track down “leftlanenews.com. They have been an overall big drain on Ford since the purchase – Do your own research The fuel used to build the G8 comes from Australia NOT the US And as “cracovian” pointed out yet again – The Camry does handle unwieldy. Furthermore, the V6 Camry is NOT recommended by consumer reports because it is not reliable according to owner surveys. This means it is really unreliable because there is still a perception that American cars are not as reliable as their Japanese counterparts. This is according to JD powers. As a matter of fact JD powers just announced that American vehicles on the contrary to popular beliefs ARE as reliable (spread is negligible) as their Japanese counterparts and more reliable than vehicles from Europe. As far as mileage goes, who cares if a Hybrid or even 4 cyl. Camry gets good gas mileage. I drove the vehicle next to the reliable fusion. It is an appliance. They all spin the wrong wheels. That’s what Japan gave us – Vehicles with 60% of the weight on the front tires (not a good scenario for handling) while serving up plenty of torque steer.. Step on the gas, all weight goes to the rear of the vehicle. Faster you accelerate, the lighter the front drive wheels get. Step on the brakes when entering a corner, watch the rear end lift up as all what little weight there is on the rear tires shifts to the front. What is the first thing taught in racing school. Keep the weight balanced front to back via gas and brake for optimum handling. At least GM’s caddy division realized this is no way to build a car. Yet Honda with its Acura line is still trying to defy physics. Lastly, GM is not going to put a Camry engine in the 2009 G8 GXP. They are going to put an old fashion pushrod V8 borrowed from the Corvette stable. So I guess you would believe this is going to hurt the America economy because they are not looking at Toyota for their higher performance sedans engine.
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