Thanks for the help Volvo and Zack. My commute to work is all highway about 50 miles both ways. I agree with the " Its a GM product " Volvo Thanks this does help me make a decision.
Joined Jul 10, Messages Reaction score 0 Points 0. Anyways, if you're buying a commuter car, just get something easy to work on. I know Saturn SL2's were pretty decent my dad had one. Great in winter, a fun 5-speed, tons of space in the engine bay, and easy to work on. But 50 miles is quite the drive, so a Grand Prix GT or a similar vehicle would keep the ride comfortable. ZackKon said:. Volvo said:. In all honesty, if you could not tell, I am not a fan of GM by any means.
However, also having an 05 GT, this is a decent car to work on lots of space in the engine compartment for new model , and it is pretty comfortable for longer drives.
Mine has , on it and had not needed anything done to it other than normal maintenance. I havent driven it in the winter yet I like my 88 F , but I have a buddy that tells me these cars are great in the winter. Zimgxp New member.
Smooth riding mid size car. And the power of a v8. Works for me. My ex had an '03 that had , on it with no trouble. CatSkinner New member. I have an 04 GTP, kinda the predecessor. The 07 and 08 GXP had V-8's, although in 07, thee was still the supercharged 3. The power curves between the 5. However, the ride that those cars give is incredible. It's the perfect marriage between performance and luxury.
I think the only way you can improve upon it would be to drop a new 6 cylinder Ecoboost from Ford into it ooooh, Skinner dropped an f-bomb. There's not a lot of difference in fuel economy between the 6 and the 8, but with the 8, you get to run regular and I understand it runs well with it, whereas; the 3.
The last 2 generations of Grand Prix's were outstanding cars, it's a shame GM had to screw them up. Oh, and my truck's a Ford, so y'all can kiss my hairy butt about the f-bomb.
CatSkinner said:. It's ok, my other car is a Ford. Thanks for the info guys. I am not worried about fuel milage as I need a car with lots of power for passing all the slow drivers on the highway usually cars in a row.
My grand am is ok but not as much power as one would like. The result is understeer. The faster the driver herds the car into a turn, the more it wants to go straight. Highs: Mellow V-8 rumble, plentiful V-8 torque, excellent road manners. Pontiac's solution to these two inherent front-drive directional control problems-understeer and torque steer-is unique. So we put our computer guys on it, and they came back with a recommendation for a smaller rear tire, to give the car better balance.
This is a radical departure from conventional wisdom, and the idea proved out in initial testing. But there was a nasty side effect: Increasing the contact patch at the front amplified torque steer. However, after experimenting with a number of different tires from a variety of manufacturers, Minch and company decided the problem lay in the tire's construction-the way the plies were wrapped-and not the footprint. With sufficient application of power, the tire sidewalls distort, thus affecting directional stability.
Bridgestone, the supplier of choice, was initially reluctant to accept this theory, but when the GXP team achieved improved results using an off-the-shelf tire from another maker, the Bridgestone people got to work and developed a tire that delivered the desired performance.
Other elements of the GXP package include Bilstein monotube front struts--a first for a front-drive GM car, according to Minch--and forged aluminum inch wheels 8. Still another challenge was fitting the 5. Although GM has flirted with this idea in the past—our man Csere drove a Chevy Lumina mule with V-8 power more than 10 years ago—it wasn't as easy as simply greasing the thing up and cramming it in there.
The powertrain troops had to develop a tidier version of the 5. The net of the redesign was a reduction in overall length of "about an inch," according to Minch, which was enough. Lows: Hints of torque steer, hefty curb weight, high steering effort at low speed. The transplant also required mods to the 4TE four-speed automatic to handle the extra torque and a three-point engine-mount system designed to damp the V-8's torque rotation at full throttle.
Pared down, the 5. The all-aluminum V-8 is actually lighter than the supercharged iron-block 3. But how does it stack up in terms of Pontiac's BMW objective? Let's be clear. This ain't a BMW. It's not as agile as the sports-sedan pacesetters from Bavaria, and even though the unique tire stagger puts the GXP's responses much closer to neutral, the Pontiac's defining trait is still mild understeer. The four-speed TAPshift manumatic is better than some we've experienced, leaving upshift decisions totally in the hands of the driver, but the transmission offers only four speeds to play with.
The engine's torque band is so broad, and the transmission's up- and downshifting so prompt in full automatic mode, that the driver can achieve pretty much the same levels of haste by simply putting the lever in D and leaving it there. That said, the GXP is not without some appealing traits.
If it's not quite BMW eager in transient response, it's not too far off the curve, and if the GM Magnasteer II system is artificially heavy at low speeds, it's quick 2. The GXP turned in a ho-hum 0. And braking performance— feet from 70 mph, and zero fade—is on par for this class. The net is a forgiving and capable four-door, arguably the most entertaining sedan Pontiac has ever offered. There are some interior elements that enhance the entertainment.
The front buckets, for example, are close to BMW territory in comfort and support, and the grippy steering wheel and nicely sized shift buttons enhance the sense of driver involvement. The head-up display is effective for keeping track of speed without glancing down, and the center-dash info display even includes a g-meter. Unfortunately, the latter will only deliver its readings—accel, decel, and lateral—when the car is stopped. Thus, the driver can only see the peak numbers achieved during his most recent stretch of road, rather than what's going on in real time.
Minch admits the GXP team made the mistake of checking with the liability lawyers before programming the g-meter display. An intriguing footnote to this front-drive breakthrough is that it won't be immediately applied to other GM offerings. The Chevy Impala SS , for example, gets the 5. The Verdict: A cool idea that would have been even cooler a decade earlier.
And that adds up to a tough sell. But this is GM, remember, the discount leader. At that price, this good-looking all-American is tough to resist. Here is a car that depicts the difference between soccer and football, between Peter Pan and Terry Bradshaw.
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