fcsuper’s unofficial Pontiac G8 experience

Need for winter tires

Before moving from California to Massachusetts, I changed my tires from the stock summer-only performance tires to the Michelin all weather performance tires.  My summer-only tires were near the end of their life anyway.  However, I’ve learned something since living in Massachusetts.  For a rear wheel drive car like the G8, you really need actual winter tires, not just tires that are rated for driving in snowy conditions (unless you are some expert driver that has skills beyond that of us mere mortals).

The brand that has been recommended to me on multiple occasions is Bridgestone Blizzak.  The model I got was Blizzak LM 60.  I also got new and inexpensive 18″ rims for my winter tires.  The tires and rims were ordered as a balanced set.  The outside diameter of the LM 60’s was nearly the same as the 19″ rim Michelin tires (which is also nearly the same as the stock summer-only tires). 

Yes, I bought a whole new set of rims for my winter tires; for ease of switching the tires year after year.  This means reduced costs and wear of switching tires since they won’t need to be removed and added to my stock rims and rebalanced twice a year.  I paid a little more up front for piece of mind down the road, literally.

Road Force Balancing and Pressure Sensor reset

When I drive home from the tire shop, there was pronounced wobble or oscillation of my steering wheel.  This wobble was worse between the speeds of 55 and 75mph.  The next day, the car tire pressure monitoring system showed a simultaneous error on all four of my tires while driving down the freeway.  I brought my car back within a couple of days.  The tire shop had to do a full reset of my car’s computer system, so that it would properly read the new sensors in my new tires.   This worked for that issue.

However, they weren’t able to fix the wobble of my steering wheel.  They checked the tire balance, and everything seemed fine.  They asked me to bring the car back another day to further investigate the wobble issue.  On that drive home from the tire shop, I noticed the wobble was reduced, but still present.  This got me thinking.  Maybe there’s something else going on that balancing doesn’t take into account.  Could it be how the tires where installed?

So, I got onto G8board.com and looked around to see if other G8 drivers also experienced this issue with their winter tires.  A thread on G8board.com suggests that this is actually a common problem: Steering wheel wobble with new winter tires….  Two things become obvious.  First, even though the tire balance was checked for the new winter tires, the tires needed road force balancing.  Second, the proper torque (125ft/lbs) must be applied when installing the wheel lugs.

Armed with this knowledge, I returned to the tire shop on my scheduled appointment.  During the process of road force balancing, they discovered that two rims where slightly out of round with their tire.  They corrected the issue by shifting and remounting the tires.  When they installed the tires back onto the car, they hand tighten the lugs to 125ft/lbs torque.

The results?  The improvement was like night-and-day from the inital install!  Success!  The new winter tires actually feel slightly smoother than the tires on the stock rims.  This makes me think that I may need to have those checked with the road force balancer next spring.

Just before I moved to Massachusetts from Silicon Valley (what was I think?), I finally finalized the interior console and dash of my G8.  I originally had changed the dash to include a small Garmin GPS navigator.  However, Garmin turns out to be junk.  Besides that, the small screen (the size that fits into the hole in the dash) was too small.

However, I did like my changes to my console.  I replaced out the be gaping hole under the radio with a nice clean swooping door.  Much better!

Finally, I got rid of the navigation system and the hole in the dash, placing it with much simpler and clean looking air ducts.

Frankly, this is the way the car should have been stock.  I’m not sure what Pontiac was thinking or why they felt the need to undo some decent interior design work by Holden on the Commodore (the Australian manufacturer of the G8). 

Thank you to Crazy Paul for his quick delivery and reasonable prices.

Is it getting to be that time to change your battery in your G8 key fob?  I just did mine in under five minutes.  There is a great write up on the G8board.com forums with step by step photos.  Here’s the link:

Replacing Battery in Key Fob (Pontiac G8)

Before you start, you’ll need have the replacement batteries handy (of course).  This is type 2032.  I installed the Duracell, but there’s many brands available.

Of course, these links are provided for information only.  It’s up to you to follow the manufacturer’s instructions and to take responsibility for any work you do yourself.

My Pontiac G8 GT has now officially been west coast to east coast.  Here’s a photo of her at the T-wharf in Rockport, MA.  When I bought her in 2008, I always had a feeling I’d be driving a great adventure with her.  I guess the next goal would be coast to coast to coast (as in the Gulf of Mexico). 

Day 6 of my cross-country trip was marked by yet another viciously beautiful day as I drove my G8 into Massachusetts. Eastern New York is beautiful, save for a few cities here and there (which have their own charm). There are more rustic farms that might as well be from the late 19th Century, and more lush forested hills. This day was the first time on my trip where I had to pay two separate road tolls in the same day. I guess $5 (total) isn’t bad for travelling a couple of hundred miles. It’s certainly a better price than paying $5 to cross a 1 mile bridge over the Delta in Northern California.

I made it to my appointment in Massachusetts with 10 minutes to spare. My time estimate for the overall trip was nearly perfect. I didn’t get to enjoy some of the cities as much as I had wished. Besides that, this 5 1/2 day road trip turned out to be a good experience that I’ll remember very well.

Would I do a similar trip across the USA again? If I had to, yes. Next time, I may take more time to enjoy many more stops along the way.

Western New York state is beautiful, gorgeous and simply stunning. The forests are lush and rich in color. The lakes are serene. The farms are stereotypically and wonderfully idyllic. This was entirely unexpected by me.

The drive to Binghamton, NY was long. Getting across New York state takes as much time as any other larger state, such as Kansas (though is much more interesting than Kansas). There happened to be a festival in Binghamton on the day of my arrival, called First Friday Art Walk. The event was fairly lively with a lot of friendly people. I got a hotel (that I picked myself without the help of Expedia or that Hotwire unpublished rate thing) that was right in the middle of the downtown area action, so I was able to walk around freely without having to drive anywhere. There are a few attractions that are prolly better seen during the day, but here’s a couple of late evening photos anyway (to the right).

I learned along time ago that good planning for a trip is critical. That includes planning for flexibility. On this road trip, I learned that it is very easy to forget the day of the week or even what city I was in on the previous day. There is a new understanding as to why rock stars often gaffe by shouting out the wrong city when they are on long tours.

Due to poor success with picking a hotel using Hotwire’s unpublished rates via Expedia (yet again), I ended up with nice hotel that was not close enough to the area I wanted. I was stuck at the hotel (since I didn’t want to drive anywhere). However, complimentary services weren’t denied to me at this place. Though hotel rates can be as much as 50% less, I would still think twice before using Hotwire’s unpublished rates again.

The weather turned from gray to very sunny somewhere in Ohio. I decided to stop off in Erie, PA for a very early dinner. The weather was gorgeous! The lake was beautiful. I had a great swordfish sandwich at Rumrunner’s Cove. It’s nearly impossible to find swordfish on the West Coast these days due to mercury contamination. Even though I had my swordfish steak in a sandwich, it was cooked a 100 times better than what I got at The Chart House in Boston the month before. My early dinner was very relaxing, though very short, since I needed to get back on the road. I’ll have to come back to Erie, PA again.

OK, I was stunned by what I found in western New York state. More on this later.

My drive out of Kansas City was uneventful, with a brief lament about the fact that I didn’t get to spend more quality time there. On the way to St. Louis, I stopped off at this one Mayberry type town (which shall remain nameless here). There were several official brown highway signs pointing out the existence of this quaint town. Even that modest highway advertising was a bit overstated. The photo to the right shows the full extent of the “historic old town”. To me, it seemed like a glorified yard sale, with its four or five antique shops. The windmill was interesting.

Crossing the middle of America went well. I was able to hit St. Louis about mid-day to see the Gateway Arch. It’s big and very stainless (as in stainless steel). If you don’t intend on staying at the monument for longer than 30 minutes, parking is fairly easy to find (in the 30-minute park zones). However, spending more time there will likely cost a few bucks on garage parking.

There was no time to go on a tour inside the monument, but there was enough time to have lunch at Pappy’s Smokehouse (of Man V Food fame). The food was great and the service was quick, polite and friendly. When I got back on my way, I crossed over the mighty Mississippi without giving it much more than a passing glance. The only reason for such disregard was that I forget to look at it as I drove over the bridge.

Oh, did I mention I drove through Illinois (and avoided Chicago)? Yeah, I did that too. I was on a mission to break my old, personal record for the most miles on one tank of gas. In my old 2003 Acura TL-S, I was once able to go 360 miles without refueling. With my 2009 Pontiac G8 GT (with its 6.0L 8 cylinder engine), I easily passed 400 miles, with about 24MPG. (I love the engine technology that shuts down 4 of the cylinders when they aren’t needed). City driving is much worse, with about 15MPG. So, I either get really good mileage (for a V8) or really bad mileage, depending on the type of driving.

Day two of my journey across America was met with viciously perfect weather in Salt Lake City, UT. I didn’t have time to do any real sightseeing, so I did Japanese tourist-style sightseeing (I drove by a couple of important sites, and took a picture of my G8 in front of it). I did go to a little hole-in-the-wall place called Bruges Waffles & Frites (of Man V Food fame). They serve waffles Belgian-style, and have double-fried fries called frites. My waffle was good, though for the price, it didn’t seem like enough food.

The drive eastward from Salt Lake City into the mountains is beautiful. The mountains are as green as I can imagine. They are offset with gorgeous white caps of remaining snow. The drive was windy and fun. There was barely any traffic.

Wyoming was a pleasant drive as well, for awhile. The mountains gave way to rocky hills. One hill looks as though it’s a bunch of mountain trolls mooning the freeway (see the picture). Eventually, the Great Planes appeared. Let me tell you, the Great Planes are boring! This fact becomes even more important on the next day of my trip.

I stopped briefly in Cheyenne, WY and took another quick photo (see below) before continuing on to Denver. Driving in the rural states is different from the urban states. The left lane on the freeway is really only for passing in the rural states. Don’t hang out there. I travelled fairly close to speed limit for most of my drive through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and even Colorado. I almost never got passed by anyone.

I didn’t have enough time to do any sightseeing in Denver. That will have to wait for another time.