Quote:
Originally Posted by mgescuro
Pontiac still sells, even if they're all POS's too. but that doesn't help Pontiac's reputation... nor does it help GM's reputation... and it just perpetuates the fact that GM is a directionless company.
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As someone with experience with the Vibe, G5, G6 and Torrent, how are they
all POS's? As far as "rebadges" go, the styling is differntiated for the most part to the point where it looks like a different car. The only exception to this is probably the G5 and the Cobalt, but the styling actually seems to fit Pontiac better than it does Chevrolet. The G6 is an Epsilon car, just like the Aura and Malibu, but it's actually the most unique one among the three and cannot be qualified of
POS. The dynamics also typically appear to be somewhat differentiated, which leaves me to believe that there are tweaks beyond the styling in most cases, which could lead one to prefer the Pontiac over the Chevrolet, or vice versa.
Really, the only Pontiac that might be a problem is the soon to be retired Grand-Prix: it's an old design, on an old chassis, using old-school GM parts in majority. However, the rest of the lineup is modern, competitive and certainly worthy of sticking around. Are they entirely unique? No. But compare an Acura to a Honda, and you'll see similar part sharing and in vehicles supposed to belong on two seperate tiers in this case.
You don't turn things around overnight and the biggest part of the problem is the public's ~20 year outdated perception of all things GM. Why shutter a division that's still selling, and selling competitive product at that? Because some people think there's only room for Chevrolet and Cadillac? Because that's the Toyota and Honda way? Well... We're not talking about Toyota or Honda here, and frankly I don't see the problem. Could they better differentiate the G5 and Wave/G3? Probably... But, I don't see how they're so far out of line to some, especially excluding those "rebadges." Leave high-end performance to Cadillac, especially when people are incresingly caringt about efficiency: the G5 I drive is decently "fun, without being a 500hp supercar.