2007-2009 Pontiac G6

I didn't intend to skip July...with a busy schedule it wasn't possible to update until today. Hopefully I can make up for that.


Introduction: The Pontiac G6 is the replacement for Pontiac's Grand Am. Its often considered the 6th Grand Am due to it following a similar path as the later Grand Ams being platform mates particularly with the Malibu. The G6 is no different being built on the Epsilon platform which the previous generation Malibu used. Due to GM discontinuing the Pontiac brand and the Saturn brand, both the G6 and Saturn Aura were discontinued by the 2010 model year while the newer seventh Malibu would continue.

The G6 is one of those cars that hid under the radar for the common driver. GM didn't advertise it nearly to the extent that the 2008 Malibu got. The Saturn Aura was also often not even considered because nobody knew about it. The G6 and Aura showed the problem of splitting budget money on 3 cars which are very similar but forced to compete against one another. By splitting the money evenly GM might have ended up with 3 weak cars in the same segment, in this case they spent most of the money on the Malibu leaving the G6 and Aura to fend for themselves. As a result I didn't know what to think about the G6 as I've never thought about them before.


Performance: The standard Pontiac G6 is equipped with a 2.4L 4-cylinder Ecotec engine that produces 169 hp and 162 lb.ft of torque. This engine isn't all that different in character to the 2.2L that comes from the Cobalt/G5. Due to how much bigger and heavier the G6 is, its not as quick as the G5. Despite this, the G6 isn't exactly a slow car. Acceleration from 0-100 km/h takes about 9 seconds which isn't bad considering the ho hum numbers. Fuel economy on this car is also decent. Its not the most refined engine but it does its job well enough that its not a drawback.

My Score: 7/10 - A decent engine, nothing special but crucially nothing nasty

Handling: Taking the G6 in the corners isn't nearly as exciting as certain cars. Its not that the suspension is terrible in the case of the Grand Prix nor is it that the steering feel is totally wrong. Somehow the car doesn't seem to inspire confidence. In this sense the car feels so average that it becomes rather boring. Ride quality from the G6 is also average, its not as plushy as a Buick but certainly not as hard as some Hondas.

My Score: 5/10 - Its not terrible, but its rather joyless.


Interior: Once again there's nothing very special about the interior of the G6. Its a rather dark interior being mostly black. Nothing in this interior grabs your eye, everything is extremely conventional with absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The plastic is of mediocre quality, most feel rather hard and some are pretty cheap. The rear seats do fold down, I guess that's the most interesting thing to describe about this interior. As for the build quality its medicore, some are properly made others aren't. The G6 is assembled in the United States at the Lake Orion in Michigan.

My Score: 5/10 - Rather uninspired and as a result bland.

Styling: Aside from the Pontiac grille, the G6 is not all that extraordinary on the outside either. The rear is very bland and uninteresting and if it weren't for the Pontiac grille likely wouldn't look any different from any generic car. Due to how uninspired and the lack of passion that went into styling this car I can't give it a good mark.

My Score: 2/10 - You can tell nobody really cared to style this car.

Value for money: Due to how little money was spent in advertising this car and giving it recognition the G6 often is sold at a rather low price. While its very difficult to find a brand new unsold 2010 G6, a used one is very inexpensive to acquire. Many G6s were used as rental cars and as a result resale value is pretty low for a car in this segment. The G6 is also one of the few cars in this segment to offer a convertible rooftop, its competition being the Chrysler Sebring which is truly awful and the not very interesting Toyota Solara. Its not a particularly unreliable car but be aware of minor electrical issues. So long as you don't pay very much for this car it can be of good value.

My Score: 6/10 - Offers a convertible option, resale is very low meaning its great to buy used but terrible to sell from new.

Overall: 26/50 - Its not a terrible car, but you can tell GM put little effort into making it beyond a 4-door sedan. This car still features the old GM mentality of "good enough".

2007-2008 Suzuki Swift+

Sometimes you can tell how good or bad a car is just from the way it looks. Here's one that shouldn't be that difficult to guess.


Introduction: This car started out in 2004 and is known in South Korea as the Daewoo Kalos. GM decided it wanted this car and placed a Chevrolet badge for the international market and a Pontiac badge for the American market. For the Canadian market, GM still had control over Suzuki and decided to bring this along and put a Suzuki badge as well while bringing the other two rebadges. This resulted in the Chevrolet Aveo, the Pontaic G3 Wave and the Suzuki Swift+. All three of these cars are practically identical, only the grille had the biggest change aside from the badges. This would be GM's answer to the Toyota Echo, the Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio.

Now when I first got news that I was going to have to drive this car, I didn't really know what it was. I never knew Suzuki actually had this car as a rebadge or even knew of its existence. I knew about the Aveo, but not the G3 Wave or this. I do remember the old Suzuki Swift that had the 3-cylinder, this seemed nothing like that. Most of these are sold as hatchbacks and this is what this review will focus on.


Performance: The Swift+ featured a 1.6L 4-cylinder engine for the North American market. This engine produced 103 hp and 107 lb.ft of torque making it the lowest hp producing engine since the demise of the Golf Mk IV with its 1.6L. The acceleration this engine can manage for this car is going from 0-100 km/h in 10.8 seconds. Not the worst accelerating car I've driven. As for the engine its not a very good one, its very noisy and irritating. You can tell Daewoo was new to making cars due to how rough this engine puts out power with the noise and the fact you can feel the vibrations in the interior. The worst thing about this engine however is its not even efficient, the Chevrolet Cobalt with its bigger 2.2L engine manages slightly less fuel economy in the city but beats this Daewoo on the highway. What is GM thinking? What was Suzuki thinking? The old Swift at least was very fuel efficient, this Daewoo is inefficient yet still nowhere near exciting.

My Score: 2/10 - Unrefined, noisy and not fuel efficient...what good is it?

Handling: This is usually where small cars manage to get back some points if they failed on performance. This Daewoo...doesn't really get there sadly. The steering wheel is not as light as it is on a Toyota or Chrysler but crucially it doesn't produce a natural feel to the steering...it feels artificial and doesn't produce confidence when you try and corner for a small thrill. The body roll is very poor and with its very small wheels its less agile than its competitors.

My Score: 3/10 - They tried but failed, puny tires and the articificially inserted feel do not make this car any fun


Interior: This is where you start seeing why Daewoo failed in North America in the first place. Inside its just all black aside from some tin foil plastic which is as always pretty nasty to look at. The cup holder is very flimsy and very cheaply made, the door handles are also made of this flimsy cheap plastic, the seats use budget proportioned cloth and so on. I mentioned in the performance section that the engine's vibrations can be felt inside, the steering wheel is often the piece that shakes as the car idles, showing how cheaply designed the engine is and how cheaply trimmed this interior is. Due to how black and unattractive the plastic is...its actually a pretty depressing place to be inside. While Daewoo managed to have interior space for moderate sized passengers they sacrificed the tailgate space. Last thing to mention, Daewoo mostly fit these with no power locks...there is no way for the driver to manual lock their door since the inside lock itself refuses to move and must use the key from outside the car. This may not seem like a problem at all but I've seen these cars where the key hole actually collapsed and getting inside this car required entering from the passenger side and exiting the same way. I mentioned a key hole failing and this is another problem in this Daewoo because its not built very well. All these cars come shipped from GM's Daewoo factory in South Korea, so if you're not too knowledgeable about cars the salesman might con you into thinking this is American or Japanese.

My Score: 1/10 - Unattractive, very poor quality materials, flawed engineering, poor cargo room and not built very well.

Styling: This is normally where Chrysler regains some points...this Daewoo just doesn't. When you look at this car with its strange side profile, its dinky wheels and its not very attractive front end you can tell this car isn't going to be any good to begin with. With the surprisingly poor fuel economy I looked around to see how much drag it creates...well it produces a drag coefficient of 0.35 which is what luxury Japanese SUVs can manage. So basically you have this weird shape for no good reason.

My Score: 1/10 - Its bad when you can tell just from looking at the car that it will be bad, add for most people this will be a clown car.

Value for money: This is normally where Korean cars start to look good due to being very well equipped and fantastic value for your money. This Daewoo...doesn't, it may have the lowest MSRP of its time but when running costs are added its more expensive than its Korean rivals and clearly more expensive than the Toyota. Its more expensive due to how fuel inefficient it is but also due to the parts being sourced purely from South Korea it takes a long time for them to arrive. Accident damage or an out of stock part puts this car out of commission longer than cars made in Japan or Germany. Its not very well equipped either, unlike the Kia or Hyundai it has nothing as a standard feature. More importantly, its not very safe either it did spectacularly badly during its earlier crash tests, today its just scores just average which for a small car is worrisome.

My Score: 2/10 - Its got a low MSRP, unfortunately its burdened with no standard equipment, expensive running costs due to bad fuel economy, difficult to source parts and worst of all disappointing safety scores.

Overall: 9/50 - Its a very bad car, I'm still perplexed at why GM even bothered when they clearly could do much better with a smaller Cobalt. This is part of the reason why GM had to declare bankruptcy, stupid decisions like selling this car outside of its home country.

2008 Hummer H3

Sometimes some vehicles are forgettable which is why I tried to push out that 2006 Sentra review as soon as possible. There are others I have no idea why I forgotten other than I haven't driven them for a while like this one.


Introduction: The Hummer H3 was introduced in 2005 as GM's smaller Hummer model. While the news media tried to portray this as Hummer attempting to address the ever growing fuel prices, that was not the true purpose of the H3. GM actually wanted the H3 to be a better off-roading vehicle than the clumsy and larger H2 thus they decided to use the Chevrolet Colorado as a base to achieve this goal. The fate of the Hummer H3 is unknown due to the sale of the Hummer division to the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd.

I've heard about this vehicle when the idea surfaced and didn't really believe the media when they attempted to portray this SUV as Hummer's more environmentally friendly alternative to the H2. Hummer knows it'll fail attempting to fit that image and to do so would mean to take away much of its off-roading capabilities and become a crossover, yet with something as mean looking as a Hummer it looks awful if it couldn't do anything close to what the military Humvees are capable of.


Performance: The H3 comes with 2 engine choices, a 5-cylinder and a V8. The original H3 had a 3.5L 5-cylinder engine, the H3 I drove had the newer 3.7L 5-cylinder Vortec engine. This 3.7L produces about 242 hp and 242 lb.ft of torque which seems pretty good for a normal car. The H3 despite being smaller than the very heavy H2 is at least 4700 lbs. This weight greatly influences the acceleration, 0-100 km/h takes nearly 11 seconds. I also didn't find the engine to be very refined and thus can't say I enjoyed the performance. If you're thinking of buying a Hummer, the I5 H3 is not quick oh and if you're thinking about fuel economy...assume the worst because the H3 is rather thirsty.

My Score: 3/10 - Not a refined engine, consumes lots of fuel and underpowered for the vehicle

Handling: I mentioned the ridiculously heavy body the H3 has to lug around, as a result cornering is not very good either. While I don't expect SUVs this large to be agile, the H3 is just so heavy that its clear you shouldn't take any corners quickly at all. The suspension is somewhat balanced in stiffness and comfort, too much compromise for comfort would ruin its off-roading ability. There is some steering feel from the chunky wheel so its not totally lacking character and also makes it easier to drive than one would think.

My Score: 3/10 - Its very heavy and as a result corners pretty poorly, suspension is reasonable in its tolerances though and not that difficult to drive.


Interior: The very first thing you will notice about the Hummer's interior is how chunky GM has made some items. Much of the interior for most H3s only comes in black, there are two tones like beige and black but I don't believe anything else. I mentioned the steering wheel first because its rather fat and not made for small hands like mine. The next one is the gear lever for the automatic is very chunky and while I normally rest my hand there on most cars...this one I refrain due to how gigantic it feels. The remaining features are very plain and quite a lot of the gauges came straight from the Colorado which wasn't sophisticated. The seats are decently comfortable although this truck doesn't feel all that large inside despite its exterior. The blind spots...in the H3 are very bad, the windows are very small while each pillar is very large with the A pillar being the least intrusive, the B, C and D pillars on the other hand are very intrusive. The tire mounted on the back also intrudes on the already small rear windscreen. Not driver friendly for those who want to see without looking at the front windscreen. As for build quality...I haven't seen many issues so far. H3s sold in North America are built in Shreveport Louisiana, in the United States.

My Score: 3/10 - very plain, not very interesting but surprisingly small inside and rather annoying with poor visibility.

Styling: This is the main reason to buy any Hummer. You basically accept the higher gas bills, the difficulty of parking, the anger of environmentalists and some luxuries in order to have a vehicle that looks like this. Its very mean and menacing, while giving an image if it being very tough and strong. People will put up with the big faults of the H3 just to have these looks. I must admit I do think the military influenced design has worked to this SUV's favour.

My Score: 10/10 - Deep down, everyone would love to have a vehicle that can terrorize other puny vehicles on the road.

Value for money: Unfortunately the H3 is not a very good value for money since there are much cheaper off-roading vehicles that aren't burdened by a very heavy body and as much daily expense as is to run a H3. Even the actual price tag is not going to please since another GM SUV going by the name of the Chevrolet Tahoe is only a few more thousand dollars is much larger has more seating capacity, its much quicker and has very similar fuel bills to boot. You really do have to spend much of your money just to have the style and nothing more.

My Score: 2/10 - The only vehicle out there with these looks, yet a horrible choice when looks are taken out of the equation.

Overall: 21/50 - Not a brilliant SUV, GM is solely relying on mere looks to grab the attention of would-be buyers.

2008 GMC Envoy

This review will be quickly done, we don't have too many Envoys and I forgot its practically the same as the Trailblazer so I'll admit this one will have quite a bit of copy and pasting.


Introduction: The GMC Envoy is GM's mid sized SUV marketed as an upscale version of the GMC Jimmy. Like the Jimmy the Envoy is a truck based SUV and thus is more rugged for off roading than a crossover. The XL trim version of the Envoy had a 3rd row of seats, it was also longer than the standard Envoy. The Envoy would remain in production until 2008 and continued to sell model year 2009s while the Jimmy would retire in 2005.

Much like I found with the Trailblazer, I didn't really find much interest in the Envoys due to how they're practically the same aside from interior and exterior design.


Performance: The Envoy has a 4.2L straight-6 engine which outputs 275 hp and 275 lb.ft of torque. It seems like a lot, but I can't help but think GM could have gotten more out of such a large I6. Anyways this engine moves the Envoy rather well, its a smooth unit as expected and accelerates the SUV from 0-100 km/h in 7.7 seconds. I don't really have much issues with this engine.

My Score: 9/10 - Its a good engine, not the most memorable one but it does do its job well.

Handling: The Envoy's handling is mediocre at best, for an SUV. With the very large wheel and its heavy weight it doesn't handle all that well. Steering doesn't feel all that attached possibly just by how large the steering wheel is. I may be rugged, but its not agile on the streets.

My Score: 5/10 - I know its an SUV, but there are SUVs that do a better job.


Interior: This is the biggest difference between the Trailblazer and the Envoy. The interior of the Envoy is a bit better than the Trailblazer's. Small details being the major thing between the two. The Envoy isn't colour limited like the Trailblazer meaning you don't have to have a depressing interior. The vents are a step up from the Trailblazer's bottom of the barrel ones, there's more chrome in the interior over the dark plastic of the Trailblazer. All in all these small changes manage to change the atmosphere inside from being disappointingly cheap to become disappointingly average. The build quality however is still atrocious.

My Score: 3/10 - Using better material can make more of a difference in interiors...too bad this car is still built badly and still shows some of its truck interior blandness.

Styling: The Envoy has more of a truck image than the Trailblazer does with its much larger grille. It doesn't have the same plastic bits slapped over the SUV like the Trailblazer does making it already less cheap looking. In Denali form it actually can look somewhat nice with an even better grille, however there isn't much worth noting on the style since the rest is pretty inoffensive and kind of uninteresting.

My Score: 7/10 - Pretty good SUV styling without attempting to leave behind its truck roots.

Value for the money: The Envoy is not a cheap SUV, like the Endeavor its also in the $30,000 range. Unlike that SUV, this does not act like a car and has some serious flaws. Considering how much money is spent, the build quality is unacceptable and other off road SUVs are better equipped for off roading making the Envoy not necessarily good at the road or off road. It should be much cheaper than GMC is asking for due to some of these flaws.

My Score: 3/10 - Not the worst SUV, but the awful interior quality and the lack of some off road equipment should have slashed the price.

Overall: 27/50 - Still a ho hum SUV but certainly a tad bit better than the Trailblazer.

2008, 2009 Buick Lucerne CX

I have a bit more time today so, some more reviews...I noticed I haven't put out that many GMs so here they are.


Introduction: The Buick Lucerne was introduced in 2006 as a replacement for Buick's previous large cars like the LeSabre and the Park Avenue. Buick made the Lucerne less expensive than the relatively inexpensive LeSabre but particularly with the V8 option it also ranged more expensive than the Park Avenue. The Lucerne is the last remaining vehicle on the H-body platform which was first introduced in 1986 from the LeSabre from that time.

I'm not particularly a fan of Buicks...to me they're always associated with the elderly. Other than some of the stranger Buicks like the Reatta and the classic Buicks...they've never appealed to me. As a result I really didn't care whether I drove one or not, in this job I drove quite a few so I'll review them.


Performance: The Buick Lucerne was given 3 engines, 2 of them are V6s and the other is a Northstar V8. I've driven both V6 engines since the earlier Lucernes had the 3.8L 3800 Series III engine(197 hp and 233 lb.ft of torque) while the 2009 and newer Lucernes uses the 3.9L High Value V6(227 hp and 237 lb.ft of torque). Now I know I mentioned how savage the Grand Prix's 3800(the exact same engine) was, its far more reserved in the Buicks. Pushing the Buick and the Grand Prix the exact same way...despite the exact same engine you get a different result...the Pontiac gives a rough jolt of power as you press the pedal...the Buick is quiet and the power is very spread out. It might be the ECU or transmission programming that affects this. The 3.9L V6 is really not all that different...it some ways it doesn't even attempt to distinguish itself. That said the Lucerne is no slouch, its acceleration goes from 0-100 km/h in 7.2 seconds with the 3800 engine, due to how little torque was increased in the 3.9L I assume its practically the same with no official numbers out for this engine.

My Score: 9/10 - Fantastic for the Buick's traditional customers, very quiet, very smooth and very refined...not as lovable as the Grand Prix reacts using the same engine though.

Handling: One thing Buicks are not known for is taking corners with agility. The primary focus of the Buicks seem to be road comfort and making the wheel easy to turn. The Lucerne does not walk away from that meaning this big car is very poor at taking corners at speed. You also don't get very good steering feedback from the very light wheel. In essence for the driving enthusiast they'll be very bored driving these cars, the elderly who need the soft ride to not destroy their bones and extremely light wheel to deal with arthritis will absolutely love this.

My Score: 3/10 - Totally set up for comfort, totally discourages turning at speed unless done slowly.


Interior: The interior of the Lucerne is extremely large inside. There is a lot of room for passengers in both front and back, the trunk space has not been sacrificed at all making it very good for carrying luggage and people at the same time. On a CX trim level, the Buick however is very unsophisticated other than power options and a stereo...there really isn't much to it despite being a car this large and having a higher price than Chevrolets. The seats are comfortable and the atmosphere is catered to Buick's base. The build quality isn't really a problem in this car, its built in Hamtramck Michigan, in the United States.

My Score: 6/10 - A very roomy and comfortable interior, but lacks anything that might interest someone younger.

Styling: The Lucerne does not attempt to change Buick's image in any way. This design looks like a natural progression of the old LeSabre being really inoffensive and extremely conservative. There are no sharp angles in the design anywhere and it even has something retro in the styling featuring the long gone ventiports from much older Buicks having a vent on the fender corresponding to the number of cylinders in the car. 3 on each side for the V6 and 4 for the V8. Its a design catering to Buick's loyal customers, sadly not very inviting to anybody else who may feel they'll be seen as an old person in a design like this.

My Score: 5/10 - An extremely conservative design, appealing to the loyalty crown unappealing to others who dislike the conservative design.

Value for money: As I mentioned in the introduction the Lucerne is less expensive than what Buick used to charge for the LeSabre or the Park Avenue. The cars that the Lucerne competes against are however much better suited for a larger target audience. Even within GM the Pontiac G8 and the Cadillac CTS are much more attractive to a bigger audience. The Impala may cannibalize the Lucerne's sales due to that car having similar mannerisms but at a much lower cost. The competition from outside means its up against the Toyota Avalon, Ford Taurus, Nissan Maxima and Chrysler 300. The Avalon and Taurus are better executed and offer higher quality for the audience Buick wanted to attract for this car while the Maxima and 300 go after the bigger market of younger drivers.

My Score: 2/10 - Aside from loyal customers, even within GM there isn't a truly compelling reason to buy a Lucerne over a G8, CTS or Impala. Older customers I doubt will find the Impala to be much different and for very conservative drivers who distrust front wheel drive, the Crown Victoria is far more appealing.

Overall: 25/50 - Its a perfect car for your grandparents, but a terrible choice for just about anybody else.

2007 Cadillac CTS

This Saturday hasn't been too bad in terms of work so I'm not nearly as tired as I was last weekend.


Introduction: Before the Cadillac CTS, GM has tried twice to get a suitable entry level Cadillac in order to compete against BMW, Lexus, Mercedes and Audi. Their first attempt was the Cimarron which damaged GM's reputation far more than anticipated. The reason was due to the fact the Cimarron was truly a Cavalier with slightly different styling and a different badge. Fundamentally the car was still like the very low budget Chevrolet, many buyers believed this to be a rip off and as such the car ended up as a total failure. Cadillac's next effort was the Catera which hailed from GM's Opel division known as the Opel Omega. This time while a truly foreign car(it was made in Germany) there was very little inside the Catera that made it worthy of being mentioned alongside the brands it was supposed to compete against. Opel designed it as a regular mainstream car, not a luxury entry level car and thus the Catera failed too. The CTS is the result of GM returning to the RWD platform which the previous Cimarron and Catera were not. The new GM Sigma platform would be the launching pad for the CTS and future Cadillacs in an effort to shatter the old people's car image most had of Cadillac at the time. The results meant a 2nd generation CTS, the crossover SRX and the Seville replacement the STS.

When I started, I knew this was the car to take a good look at whether GM could really turn itself around. This car received a lot of praise even from those normally critical of GM, add the fact it was RWD I was actually excited about this GM product.


Performance: I had the run of the mill Cadillac CTS, not the more exciting powerful CTS-V. So the engine I did try out was the 3.6L which produced 255 hp and 252 lb.ft of torque. The 3.6 was available to the CTS since 2005. Well this engine was how you would expect from a car this high priced, its very smooth and power delivery feels just right. I never got the chance to take the CTS for a test run at acceleration but its acceleration from 0-100 km/h is about 6.6 seconds which is by far the quickest car in all of these reviews. Clearly GM updated the powertrain to the degree they wanted a true winner.

My Score: 10/10 - Smooth, quiet and bloody fast.

Handling: This part I could test a lot better than powertrain due to the confines of the area I could drive this car. First thing I noticed was how much easier the CTS was to drive over every other GM I was exposed to at this time. I truly noticed the balance from the rear wheel drive unlike the Dodge Charger/Chrysler 300, the degree of confidence the steering wheel feeds to your hands is what makes cars of this level better than a front wheel drive econobox. You can feel the chassis is very capable taking a turn slightly fast, while it rolled a tad bit it was by far the best GM product I've ever driven when it came to handling.

My Score: 10/10 - GM has done almost the impossible, made Caddillac truly for a car enthusiast with a family.


Interior: This is the only early 21st century GM product that I felt had a proper interior while most of the others had disappointingly bad interiors in comparison. There are features I felt showed a small sign of GM's struggle to get a proper interior down like the alarmingly silly looking vents, the tin-foil plastic in the center console and the low grade stereo the rest of the interior was not half bad. The leather provided is actually of decent quality and the cabin is quite comfortable. There's a lot of space for your passengers both from and back. I drove an older unit and even despite this, I didn't notice the disappointing build quality I was used to seeing from GM products. These cars are made in Lansing, Michigan in the United States.

My Score: 7/10 - Mostly a reasonable interior, just a few silly tacky and unattractive items.

Styling: In hindsight I'm starting to like the styling of this car as it ages. I initially didn't like it too much, I originally thought it tried to keep too much of the old Cadillac while mixing it with radical shapes to scare the old people. Now I actually prefer this version over the 2nd generation CTS, its mild mannered by at the same time you can see its not the same Cadillac your grandparents drove...its in fact tailored for the youth.

My Score: 8/10 - An interesting blend of old and new, takes some time to settle but in the end it ages pretty well.

Value for Money: When GM introduced the CTS, I wasn't sure whether it would pose a serious challenge since back then most assumed GM was going to fail again like the last two times. After driving the car, it really looks like a true bargain. The CTS despite being entry-level is actually the size of a 5-series but has a 3-series price, its not a sluggish pig like old Cadillacs suggested and they're quite well equipped. The most the foreign brands could offer over Cadillac was brand appeal and reputation which Cadillac lacked. Still, when looking at value the Cadillac was a serious deal you just had to overcome the negative image of General Motors which was really difficult to overcome back then.

My Score: 8/10 - An absolutely fantastic deal, the biggest thing that might have hurt its sales was that it came from General Motors and its disturbingly bad image.

Overall: 43/50 - An absolutely excellent product from General Motors, it makes you wonder what took them 30 years to get something like this right.

2007-2009 Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac Montana

I almost forgot this one, I don't drive too many different types of minivans so it sometimes is easy to forget them.



Introduction: The Chevrolet Uplander and Pontiac Montana are both part of GM's minivans. The earliest GM minivans were introduced for 1990 as the Chevrolet Lumina, Pontiac Trans Sport and the Oldsmobile Silhouette. GM's minivans have only gone through 3 generations with the early Luminas lasting nearly 10 years in production. These minivans were GM's attempt to take on Chrysler and its Caravan which sells in very high volume. Ford was the first to quit the minivan business after the Freestar's disappointing sales, now GM also put its minivans on the chopping block and have so far not mentioned a succeeding minivan beyond the 2009 model year.

Like I mentioned in the last review, I wasn't too thrilled about the GM minivans either. I don't even get much in terms of choices of minivans its either GM or Dodge, now its all Dodge.


Performance: The GM minivans are all powered by a 3.9L V6 making this the biggest V6 available for a minivan outside of the highest spec Dodge Caravan. The Canadian spec V6 is flex fuel compatible allowing you to put in E85. These engines produce 240 hp and 240 lb.ft of torque making these the least expensive but most powerful minivans. Unfortunately they do not produce the best acceleration numbers since they can only do 0-100 km/h in 8.1 seconds. Better than the least powerful minivans but not close to Toyota or Honda who both have smaller V6s and are still quicker. You do not really notice the size of the V6 in the Uplander/Montana since it doesn't move the van that quickly, its better than the Caravan but it doesn't feel fast nor acts like the engine is that quick.

My Score: 8/10 - Engine is adequate in performance but not efficient versus Toyota or Honda

Handling: The Uplander as a minivan is not designed to tackle corners. Taking these minivans to a corner quickly, you'll notice huge amounts of roll and at the same time not feel all that excited until you probably get the sense the van will roll over. They're much easier to park than the Caravans mostly with their better turning radius. They're not fun however, the wheel is very lightly weighted and thus produces little feel. I guess its suited for moms but as a driver who likes driving these were a bore to drive.

My Score: 3/10 - Not good at corners, bad body roll, lacking steering feel.


Interior: With minivans, you have to look at the clever ways they use space or innovative features that make them worth buying over the competition. The short wheel base GM vans do not provide very good trunk space and do not have Chrysler's clever stow n' go. Even worse as base vehicles they only provide 6 seats making it a somewhat pointless minivan until you go further with options to get 7 seats. Most minivans offer 7 or 8 seating, its the Crossover SUVs that offer mostly 6 or 7 seats. As for cargo space, you can fold the seats but they take up extra room versus the Caravan which folds the seats to floor level. The van's materials are pretty cheap and mostly unattractive. The wheel like I mentioned about the Grand Prix is also gigantic, not sure why. Last but not least the build quality...the GM minivans have horrid build quality. I've seen some vans where the plastic tag for the carpets that were not removed meaning sometimes you see a tiny plastic spike in your carpet. They rattle very often due to loose pieces all over, the cup holder often fails and I've once had door trim come out. Worse however is sometimes the trim surrounding the door rails fail and prevent the sliding door from opening. They're almost as bad as Trailblazers in this sense. They are built in Doraville, Georgia, USA.

My Score: 2/10 - 7 passenger seating is an option, no interior innovation and very badly built

Styling: The Montana is a pretty standard looking minivan, the Uplander however has a horrible looking grille. Some automobile articles think the Uplander is one of the worst vehicles in terms of style...I'll only agree if they specifically focus only on grilles. Taking out the grille, the rest of the van is generic. The Edsel looked very good if it weren't for that grille it had. There are uglier vehicles out there.

My Score: 5/10 - Generic minivan styling but the Uplander has a terrible grille.

Value for money: These minivans can only compete well if they are at their base MSRP unfortunately the fact that the 7 seating capacity is an option puts it in trouble. There's nothing special about the interior versus the Caravan. Its not very luxurious either compared to the Japanese. This current generation is also horribly unreliable, the traction control always believes it has a problem. Other than being heavily discounted these are not worthwhile vans.

My Score: 2/10 - 7 passenger capacity being an option, poor reliability, offers very little compared to the competition.

Overall: 20/50 - These are not good minivans, they're cheap for a reason and it seems GM realized it was no good and killed it for good reason.

2007-2009 Chevrolet Equinox, Pontiac Torrent, Suzuki XL-7

Just thought of one car that's pretty much gone from our fleet. The Chevrolet Equinox, Pontiac Torrent, Suzuki XL-7, these are all pretty much the same SUV.




Introduction: The Chevrolet Equinox was introduced as a replacement of the old Blazer. The larger Trailblazer was introduced while the Equinox remained GM's smaller SUV in order to compete against the Ford Explorer and increasing Japanese entries. The Pontiac Torrent would fill the gap left by the very controversial Aztek. Suzuki decided on joining with GM to make an addition to their SUV entry with the XL-7. The fate of the Torrent went with Pontiac and would go no further than the 2009 model year while the XL-7 due to very poor sales would also be discontinued as a 2009 model. The Equinox however had better success and has just entered its second generation.

As usual from the beginning I'm not too thrilled about SUVs so I really didn't care about these three. I actually initially thought the Suzuki was a bit different mostly due to the styling until I got inside and saw the exact same dials from the Equinox and Torrent.


Performance: The Equinox and Torrent had two choices of engines the 3.4L V6 and the 3.6L V6 while the Suzuki only got access to the 3.6L V6. All the vehicles I drove had the 3.6L V6, judging from the numbers the 3.4L V6 is definitely not the engine you want to power an SUV. The 3.6L produces about 252-264 hp and 243-250 lb.ft of torque, it differs with each brand. All three SUVs accelerate from 0-100 km/h in about 7.8 seconds. This SUV is pretty well powered and the V6 is reasonably smooth. Oddly enough while this is one of the quickest vehicles I've driven they didn't seem all that fast.

My Score: 9/10 - Very well powered with the 3.6, its not very exciting however despite its performance.

Handling: The three SUVs handle pretty reasonably and offer no real surprises. You cannot push them as hard as good handling cars but they don't feel as heavy as some bigger cars or SUVs. The steering feel is pretty reasonably for a GM vehicle. All in all they corner like you'd expect a regular SUV to, the moment you attempt to try anything rash you'll notice it really is just a regular SUV.

My Score: 6/10 - Not bad, but nothing outstanding.


Interior: All three use very similar interiors, there are minor differences but they're pretty negligible and do not affect the operation of anything in the SUV. As SUVs they offer quite a lot of space as 5-seaters and also offer pretty good trunk space. The materials used to construct the interior are of mediocre quality, you can't really say they're good because they look quite average but they're pretty solid. The colours inside also vary, the Suzuki offers a lightly coloured interior while the Pontiac is pretty dark inside. The A/C unit is pretty powerful so in the heat, this vehicle is quite comfortable. Build quality in these SUVs seem to be pretty good making it much better than the Trailblazer/Envoy. All of these SUVs are built in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.

My Score: 9/10 - Spacious interior, good A/C unit and pretty good build quality

Styling: The Torrent and Equinox are basically the same aside from the grille. They're pretty generic looking SUVs. The XL-7 is actually the different one but I thought it looked pretty odd from the rear and I didn't think the grille looked very good.

My Score: 5/10 - The Torrent and Equinox look generic, the XL-7 looks weird.

Value for money: Both Torrent and XL-7 have ended up being terrible value for the money due to Pontiac being cut as a brand and the Suzuki selling so poorly. The Equinox is the best deal of the three however, despite the power I didn't really notice anything particularly outstanding. I didn't even drive the base vehicles making me wonder what exactly is the selling point. They're just a bit too generic in my mind.

My Score: 5/10 - Generic Crossover SUVs, the Torrent and XL-7 only have worse resale rates.

My Score: 34/50 - In the end there's nothing particularly bad about these SUVs, they have a good engine although I'm struggling to think of what makes them different.

2007-2008 Pontiac Grand Prix

Oi, it looks like work hasn't slowed down very much and this month is no different. Here's another big batch of reviews hopefully I finally covered all the retired cars or soon to be retiring vehicles from my workplace fleet. Here's one that will certainly retire very soon.


Introduction: The Pontiac Grand Prix is a very old nameplate for the Pontiac brand. Its also one of the last surviving actually named vehicles before Pontiac started using the G names like G5, G6 and G8. The original Pontiac Grand Prix didn't change very much in terms of its size since every single Grand Prix is a full sized vehicle. However the earlier RWD Grand Prix were merely just large 2-door coupes, which were pretty common back then. It wasn't until 1988 that the Grand Prix switched from RWD to FWD, it also no longer remained just a 2-door coupe it also was a 4-door sedan. Since its entry as a FWD vehicle it also was given forced induction for power mostly in the GTP trim levels. The last Grand Prix dropped the 2-door coupe body style and had two additional trim levels from the GXP supercharged V6 and the GTP was given a V8. However due to poor consumer sales GM decided to replace the Grand Prix with the Australian RWD Holdon Commodore called the G8 as a Pontiac.

I wasn't expecting all too much from the Grand Prix, I never knew anybody who wanted or considered this car. It however is a pretty big car and seemed pretty cheap compared to everything else non-GM.


Performance: The base Grand Prix is given the Series III 3.8L V6. This particular engine produces about 200 hp and 230 lb.ft of torque, from these numbers this engine looks kind of pathetic considering its a big V6 and that many 3.0L V6s produce these numbers. Well...oddly enough these numbers seem to lie to my senses when I drive this car. This is the most savage V6 I've encountered in the company...its this savagery that makes me actually like this engine. The very first time the light throttle made me spin the car out, kind of embarrassing but fun at the same time. It roars, its rough and it due to its large displacement it manages to move the heavy Grand Prix pretty decently about 8 seconds to go from 0-100 km/h. The engine's savagery and its decent acceleration does make it feel faster than it is, so despite its bad numbers I don't consider it bad.

My Score: 10/10 - Its not efficient by any means, but the surge of power you seem to sense when push it feels fantastic.

Handling: Oh dear...you definitely feel the Grand Prix's weight and you also start to realize that big powerful FWD cars are more flawed than their RWD counterparts or smaller FWD cars. The Grand Prix is not exactly a soft rider like its Buick cousin but due to its not so great suspension and extremely front heaviness its handling is pretty poor. The only good news is the Grand Prix doesn't really roll as much as other cars but it doesn't matter your, turning ability worse than regular family cars. Steering feel is also pretty decent for GMs of this time, but it accurately tells you the handling ability of this car is poor. The Grand Prix still seems to fit the stereotype of American cars doing well in a straight line.

My Score: 3/10 - Doesn't roll much but its cornering ability shows the suspension is deeply flawed.


Interior: The Grand Prix mostly have black interiors, I was not impressed with this interior very much. The very first thing is the inadequate seat, I just cannot find a comfortable enough position with this seat and I don't seem to be the only one. The materials in the car are easily noticeably cheap, the door handles inside for instance are plastic and just merely painted in a tin foil colour. I didn't like the steering wheel, its just way too big for any car. I didn't find the Grand Prix to be made all that well, these cars are manufactured in Oshawa, Canada. The good news is the car is very spacious and has a very generous trunk.

My Score: 3/10 - Cheap materials, uncomfortable seats, disappointing build quality but is very spacious.

Styling: The Grand Prix has a pretty aggressive appearance from the front. Much of the styling actually does fit the nature of the car, looks pretty savage and with its engine its acts that way. The rear is kind of bland however, generic American car styling. Despite its aggressive appearance it doesn't look all that great in darker colours, Pontiac also offered an awful orange colour. Overall its a pretty nicely styled car.

My Score: 8/10 - Aggressive front end, a forgettable rear end unfortunately in the end does fit the nature of the car pretty well.

Value for money: The Grand Prix particularly the base car is not a good value for money. Few people bought the car brand new and due to annoying problems they're not known for reliability. Its not rare for these cars to lose 50% of their value within a year of purchase. Chevrolet also has a car that does everything the Grand Prix does well at but with less of the problems, the Impala. The Grand Prix with its rough edges has to convince young buyers since older buyers will go with the Impala or Buick, unfortunately for Pontiac a big, heavy, spacious sedan is not the dream, attainable vehicle in most young buyer's minds.

My Score: 2/10 - The value of the Grand Prix is cannibalized by its GM siblings. As a used buy its fantastic value but as a new car its a money drain.

Overall: 26/10 - The Grand Prix has a fantastic engine and pretty good looks, but is lacking everywhere else. GM unfortunately realized this way too late.

2008-2009 Chevrolet Malibu LS

Still a lot of cars to post up, I'll see how many I can do today.


Introduction: The Chevrolet Malibu is one of GM's older names the first Malibu was introduced in 1964 until GM canceled it in 1983. The Malibu name was later revived after the demise of the Corsica/Beretta in 1997. I'm not sure why GM had to retire the Corsica name since I've never heard of this one being a horrible car like its predecessor the Citation was. Anyways GM brought back the Malibu and unfortunately for GM it was a pretty weak effort to combat the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, I remember seeing the return of the Malibu...and the car was pretty dull and the interior was very disappointingly cheap...like you'd expect from the Cavalier. Turns out that it ended up doing only well as a fleet car which is a failure unless the car was designed for fleet sales only ie. Ford Crown Victoria, Toyota Crown Comfort, etc. Finally someone at GM seemed to realize the Malibu had absolutely nothing to convince you to switch from Honda or Toyota and decided the whole car needed...a reasonably budget the result is the newly designed 2008 Malibu.

When I was given the opportunity to drive this GM car...I knew that GM had to do much more than a mild improvement to even think of challenging the other mid-sized sedans. Up until I drove the Malibu, all the GM sedans I've driven were pretty disappointing and generic. With all the US media hype over this car I had to look at this car more critically to see whether GM finally understood what its been doing wrong for nearly 30 years.


Performance: Well I've only driven the LS model which is the base model and has the not nearly as strong 2.4L 4-cylinder. Its nothing like the first Ford Fusion which had a horribly matched engine but this is not a very powerful car with an engine like this. It only produces 169 hp and 162 lb.ft of torque which is not all that great for acceleration making from 0 to 100 km/h in 9.6 seconds. The engine is refined enough to be quiet enough unlike a Dodge product so in some sense its not all that bad.

My Score: 6/10 - The engine isn't all that powerful, the V6 in terms of power is much better.

Handling: One of the annoying things about American cars has always been the fact they are made purely for the highway, the old Taurus was like this and as a result the handling was often terrible. The new Malibu fortunately avoids this problem, the handling on the Malibu while not being that great is not terrible as one would expect. The big problem here for the car however is its weight, at 3500 lbs its heavy and you start to feel this once you make the corner. Unlike what Toyota has done, the steering for the Malibu isn't vague it actually does feel connected which is a massive improvement over other older GM products.

My Score: 7/10 - Decent handling, good steering feel but the car is noticeably heavy


Interior: This used to be GM's anchilles heel...in the 1990s you jump into a GM car and can see the awful sea of grey, dull plastic. It was so uninspired and very cheap at the same time that you hoped it was a rental or one of the cheapest cars you've bought. The VP of GM by the name of Bob Lutz noticed this and was willing to basically say the GM interiors back then...were crap. The new Malibu made it a goal that the interior had to look like someone actually spent time and money styling it instead of before just throwing cheap parts from a Cavalier and hope the buyer was too dumb to notice. Mission accomplished, there are some noticeable neat looking styling items like the gear shifter with its neat lights, the much much nicer dashboard(a fake digital by the way) and a general inviting atmosphere of the interior. I liked the implementation of this interior. Its not the most beautiful interior because of the plastic but these days, nearly all the interiors of cars are plastic. As for the build quality its made in the USA and so far...I haven't seen a major defect, only a minor misalignment which Toyota these days has.

My Score: 9/10 - Very very good effort, if it didn't have to use plastic it would have been perfect.

Styling: The exterior styling of the Malibu is not something I particularly liked. The good news is its not nearly as dull as the last two generations. The front has a nice headlight set up...but I think it was sort of ruined by how large the grille became, kind of like seeing a person with a massive nose. The rear just didn't really match with the front, they're definitely unique but don't quite have pronouncement that makes certain unique styling good.

My Score: 6/10 - They tried something different, I just don't think it worked out as well

Value for Money: This is really where GM has to fight its hardest, the midsized sedan segment is getting much harder to take on. Accord and Camry are extremely well established and haven't made the major screw ups compared to Ford and its ill fated midsized Taurus. GM has never been considered a major player here and thus needs to prove its better than the establishment. I'm not quite sure it does, the Malibu is several times better than before but I'm not sure it has done enough to prove GM will no longer resort to the old bad days of accountant designed rubbish. If your a American patriot, then yeah this is your best choice and unlike before you'd actually support a good product unlike the Chrysler Sebring.

My Score: 6/10 - In a very competitive market, there isn't anything truly outstanding to make it the new standard for midsized cars. I gave the Mazda 6 a great score because it did quite a few things other midsized cars wouldn't do at those that did, the price was much lower for a still high quality product.

Overall: 34/50 - A pretty fair score, its definitely far from being bad like the last Malibu but its still not quite that brilliant either.

2008 Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon

Time for a few new additions to the growing amount of reviews on cars. This update will include pick up trucks, keep in mind I have absolutely no idea what's necessary from a pickup truck on a farm, I assume power is very important and durability(which I can't test without being fired) all I can test are their road manners and whether its a decent idea(they get incredible rebates) or a stupid idea to get one as a road car. First one up, the Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon. I'll just refer to it as the Canyon since there's less typing...I didn't notice a single difference apart from badges.


Introduction: The GMC Canyon was introduced in 2004 to replace the old GMC Sonoma/Chevrolet S10 which was introduced since 1982 but unlike cars was only updated once in 1995. Facing increased competition particularly from Toyota and Nissan, the Canyon will likely be updated much more often than the old Sonoma. Something that didn't get transferred from the older truck was the SS edition for the S10s, neither Colorado or Canyon have any special performance editions.

When I saw this truck, I've driven the Dodges by that point and don't quite have a high opinion of them. So when I was going to drive the Canyon I sort of had a slightly biased opinion against it, despite knowing that GM cars are better than Chryslers...I still wasn't sure about pickup trucks and that driving one of these will clear this up.


Performance: The Canyon gets a selection of 5 engines...I've only had exposure to one engine being the 3.7L I5, yes I typed that right its a 5-cylinder. The other selections are 2 I4 engines, another I5(a 3.5) and the 5.3L V8. As a rule of thumb, the more powerful the truck the more useful and I'm guessing the I4s are best used as inexpensive farm transportation. For carrying and pulling things you'll need at least the I5s. I'm not sure why they didn't go for an I6 since the Trailblazer already uses that. The I5 is reasonably powerful moving a pretty small truck, although its not the smoothest unit due to the odd number of cylinders, so its not balanced. That said I've driven accelerates to 100 km/h in about 8.2 seconds. That's not great but its a truck so its heavier than a typical car.

My Score: 6/10 - The engine is reasonably powerful, but isn't smooth nor that quick.

Handling: I understand this is a truck and that handling isn't their strong suit. Driving one of these things was pretty stable and the ride quality actually doesn't suffer all that much. Its no luxury sedan but its better than what Dodge could manage. The wheel has very good feedback and turns feel pretty natural. Its ability to corner is pretty similar to trying to corner a big heavy car so you do know that is a good idea to slow down.

My Score: 7/10 - For a truck, the ride was decent and didn't seem as awful as I was used to


Interior: The biggest thing about pick up truck interiors is you shouldn't expect luxuries. The best you can hope for is something functional and not totally depressing. I guess the Colorado does this, the seats are decent and...umm it has power options. I can't really describe any more since its just so basic and what you'd expect. This truck is made in the United States, I haven't seen any faults in the build quality yet although there's little in it for the interior to go wrong. Since this is a smaller pick up truck its easier to get in it.

My Score: 5/10 - A basic interior, nothing more nothing less.

Value for Money: This one is a bit more tricky for me, the Canyon is about the same price as a Camry. If you wanted a basic rugged road vehicle and intend to go off-roading then you'll definitely want a pick up truck more than a 4-door sedan. Against the other trucks its got the best engine selection choice from I4, I5 to V8 so it is the more versatile.

My Score: 6/10 - Its good good engine choices and isn't too expensive to buy

Styling: I do like the way the Canyon looks in both badge forms, but somehow the GMC badge makes it a tad bit better. Maybe it goes better with the grille, I don't know. The headlight setup is actually quite interesting but the rear is pretty standard.

My Score: 7/10 - Nice headlight set up, on an otherwise standard looking pickup truck.

Overall: 31/50 - A decent pickup truck on the road, nothing particularly outstanding though other than having a V8 option.