fcsuper’s unofficial Pontiac G8 experience

Some have derided the Pontiac Sunfire, but it was actually a pretty good car.  I actually owned a Pontiac Sunfire at one point.  It was a shared car between me and my ex-fiance.  In my opinion, the Sunfire GT 2001 was the best looking of all the Pontiac Sunfires every made.  It was just enough pizazz, without too much flare.  It had the round parking lights on the rear; this was replaced with clean yet plain slits.  The headlights also didn’t look like a big grin that was on the 2003 model.

Best looking of all Pontiac Sunfires

The car was a little underpowered, yet still fun to drive around. And yes, I had the red one just like the one imaged here. It was my ex’s choice.

A nav system is not offered for the Pontiac G8.  However, that isn’t stopping many from installing their own.  One popular choice is the Garm nuvi 755T and similar 4.3″ widescreen GPS devices.  These devices are very powerful with US and Canada maps (and sometimes Europe too), text-to-speech with real street names, traffic, bluetooth, FM transmitters, waypoints, and the ability to store and use photos and MP3’s.  The 4.3″ size (3.81 x 2.25) is ideal since it fits nicely into a dashboard replacement from JHP.  Here’s a general overview of the upgrade.

The San Francisco Bay Area meet and ride on April 25th was a great time!  This is despite the face we only had four cars show up this time.  I hope no one was left out because our meeting place ended up being closed.  The course that Todd picked out turned out to be a lot of fun to drive.  There was lots of windy turns and awesome views.  Here’s just some of what we experienced:

Connecting an MP3 player to the radio via the 3.5mm Front Aux connector can involve some research.  If at all possible, I recommend connecting to the Rear Aux.  However, that’s inside the dash.  So, for more convenient use, the Front Aux is available.

Some people have been having issues with the Front Aux, though.  Many issues with Front Aux may come from a bad or poor quality cable. I originally bought a cheap 3.5mm. It had popping and feedback noise. It wasn’t properly shielded or maybe even had shorts. Get a higher quality cable, like Belkin and there should be fewer issues. I paid too much for mine at the Mac store, Amazon.com and other sources have them for cheaper.  If you have an iPod, make sure to get the a cable designed for iPods.

There’s a great posting over on the G8Board and Grrrr8 right now were a lot of people are posting little things they discovered about their G8 after buying it.  There’s a pretty good list building.  Here’s a sample of some of the discoveries:

1. Start the car in Engineering Mode by holding down the Enter button and turning the key.
2. It is unnecessarily to hold the key to start while it is cranking over.
3. “Some CD’s and all MP-3’s burned to CD have song information available by pressing the passenger side button on the bottom of the radio screen”
4. Enter stealth lighting mode (the radio screen off and everything else except for the tach and MPH) by pressing the + & - gage dimness buttons at the same time.
5. Enter Service Mode by holding down the Road Selector button and turn the key to accessory.

Check out many more G8 hints and tricks here and here (Grrrr8)

Just a reminder: 

It’s time for another meeting of the G8 owners in the greater SF Bay Area on April 25, 2009. This time we are meeting in Castro Valley and touring mountian roads on our way to Orinda. More information here: April ‘09 G8 Meet and Ride, greater SF Bay Area

An article in the G8 version of the Spring 2009 edition Pontiac Performance magazine features my wife and I, and my 2009 G8 GT.  I’m pretty stoked.  I’ve been waiting months for this issue!  There we are, big as life sitting comfortably with my G8 GT in the background.  It’s pretty cool.   Depending on the version of the magazine, we somewhere between pages 9 and 14. 

If you are a Pontiac owner and not receiving your free Pontiac Performance, goto myGMmagazine to sign up for it.  If you haven’t checked out the G8 first hand yet, I recommend going to your local dealership to test drive the G8, and asked to see if they have a copy of the G8 version of the Spring 2009 edition Pontiac Performance too.

The G8 is an awesome car.  I’m not sure why it has taken so long to catch on.  I suspect the new name “G8″ has something to do with it, along with a slow start to advertizing and the bad economy, oh and gas prices when it was released.  However, it’s getting some sales traction.  In the recent GM sales report, G8 actually got its own headline “G8 sales nearly triple of a year ago”!  I would say that this fact is amazing except for the fact that the G8 is an awesome car that is earning its place in the market, even without significant advertizing by GM.

The article can be found here.  It does highlight that GM still has a long way to go to recover.  There are signs of hope, though, one of which being G8’s sales.

My wife and I were recently profiled in G8 version of Pontiac Performance. This is a magazine that is sent out to owners of Pontiac vehicles. I’m not sure why I, as an owner of an awesome new 2009 G8 GT, would need a magazine full of articles pointing out the greatness of Pontiac cars. I already get-it. That’s why I bought the car! (Maybe they are hoping I will buy another model right away?) Anyway, the magazine does have its use, and I’m getting to the point soon. First, if you want to see my profile article, I believe the magazine is carried by Pontiac dealerships. If you feel so inclined, go in to a dealership and ask to see if they have copies of the G8 version of Pontiac Performance Spring 2009 edition.  (It has to be the G8 version of the magazine since it seems they publish different versions based on which car you are interested in or already own.)  The article is on pages 12 and 13 (pages vary based on the version of the magazine, but its somewhere between page 9 and 14 in most). Then, while you are there, check out the G8. I’m actually not being sarcastic when I suggest this.

Anyway, back to the point. In the magazine is another article called Car Camaraderie about how online forums are bringing Pontiac drivers together. They did a whole article about online resources being utilized by Pontiac owners. As far as I know, none of these resources are directly related to GM. The writer of the Pontiac article understands the Pontiac’s online community well enough to mention the most popular sites for each of their models. This is just one article in one magazine that doesn’t have public distribution. It’s a start for them, though. Sure, OnStar has been online based for awhile now, but that is a paid service. The act of actually profiling users on several of the forums (even mentioning their user names) is something that is not that common yet. Like many other old-school companies, they are starting to understand the Information Age, finally.

The Pontiac G8 community site that was mentioned was G8board.com, of which I am a fairly active user.

It’s time for another meeting of the G8 owners in the greater SF Bay Area. This time we are meeting in Castro Valley and touring mountian roads on our way to Orinda. More information here: April ‘09 G8 Meet and Ride, greater SF Bay Area