Despite Oprah, the G6 is a sales flop

[esjones]

Article from the Detroit Free Press...Quote »As evidence of the car's meager performance, auto experts note that the world's largest automaker has dramatically ramped up rebates on the car just to get it selling at modest levels. The automaker offered more than $3,600 in incentives on it last month, and it sold less than half of what the Grand Am was averaging per month. http://www.freep.com/money/aut...2.htm

[kostby]

Hmm. Let's see now... Generous Motors replaces a car that's out the door well equipped around $19,000 (Grand Am), with one that's out the door well equipped around $23,000 (G6)... and then they need $3,600 in rebates to move them off the lots.Just because GM moved the price and standard equipment level up by $4,000, doesn't mean the potential customers instantly have $4,000 more to spend on a car! Oh yeah, they aren't selling many of them to rental fleets, either, because they wanted to 'move upscale'.

[Mase]

Is the G6 GTP out yet? 3.9l V6, 240hp/245tq...maybe people are waiting for that? I think there's even supposed to be a convertable and a 2-dr.

[SGT]

I am sorry to those here who like it, but I think the G6 is rather bland looking. I know I am in the minority here, but I kind of liked the cladding on the Pontiacs when it was done well and not overly cladded. It is plastic, yes, but it offered some protection from the idiots who open their doors on your car in a parking lot and it gave the Pontiac some degree of differentiation.Speaking of differentiation, I have mistaken a G6 from the back a number of times since it came out and thought it was a Neon. That scares me that anything Pontiac would resemble a Neon. Pontiac needs to dress up the back and maybe even bring back the (fake) dual exhaust.

[ToolGuy]

Yep and Cobalt may not do well either...

[Raven]

Quote, originally posted by MiVibe-ToolGuy »Yep and Cobalt may not do well either... I don't know about that. The Cobalt has pretty nice styling and decent horsepower in my opinion. In fact I probably would have bought a Cobalt GT if they were available at the time. cor. Yea I mean an SS.

[Pablo1669]

Quote, originally posted by Sunny » I don't know about that. The Cobalt has pretty nice styling and decent horsepower in my opinion. In fact I probably would have bought a Cobalt GT if they were available at the time.you mean an SS?I really like the G6's, and in fact am probably going to get one.

[Mavrik]

I really like the G6 to and if I had the choice on another car and I'd buy a GM, it would be a G6.

[tnpartsguy]

Cobalt isn't doing well because GM doesn't have the cars they are advertising! The 2 door SS is still MONTHS away, and we just started getting normal 2 doors cars, yet every ad you see (Sibling Rivalry with the 'vette; and Playing Ball to name the 2 most popular) star the 2 Door SS, which you can't even get yet! I'm probably in the minority on this, but the G6 looks like a mismash of cars, from the (removed) it looks a lot like a 1st Gen Neon, from the sides it has SOME Pontiac, but the front looks very Europeon....say Opel?

[kharman]

you are not in the minority, this is my wife's G6, which i had initially bought for myself...then promptly gave to her and took over the vibe...i got the better deal...Quote, originally posted by SGT »I am sorry to those here who like it, but I think the G6 is rather bland looking. I know I am in the minority here, but I kind of liked the cladding on the Pontiacs when it was done well and not overly cladded. It is plastic, yes, but it offered some protection from the idiots who open their doors on your car in a parking lot and it gave the Pontiac some degree of differentiation.Speaking of differentiation, I have mistaken a G6 from the back a number of times since it came out and thought it was a Neon. That scares me that anything Pontiac would resemble a Neon. Pontiac needs to dress up the back and maybe even bring back the (fake) dual exhaust.

[kharman]

ok, that didn't post for some reason

[redlava]

They are saying that consumers bought a little over 7,000 cars in February. According to the sales figures on the front page of this website the Vibe has only sold that many in one month once. Does that mean that the Vibe is a flop as well? I think that GM is overestimating how many they can sell. They are bringing a brand new car into a segment that is already flooded with cars that have been around for years. It will take time to get where they want to be they need to be patient.

[kharman]

personally i don't like the design...the rear-end looks displaced...but my wife loves the thing...as for performance, the engine is strong (claimed 200hp and 200 ft lbs of torque), but there is a severe hesitation in the shifting of the automatic tranny...a problem that the automotive press has harped on also...

[21Rouge]

Quote, originally posted by redlava »I think that GM is overestimating how many they can sell. It will take time to get where they want to be they need to be patient.But I am not sure how much patience the 'General' has these days. There must be a great sense of urgency at GM with the very poor financial results released in the past week.

[esjones]

Quote, originally posted by redlava »They are saying that consumers bought a little over 7,000 cars in February. According to the sales figures on the front page of this website the Vibe has only sold that many in one month once. They were comparing sales to the Grand Am, the car which the G6 replaced. If your new entry can't even match the sales numbers of the aging model it replaces, that is considered a flop.

[SGT]

Quote, originally posted by redlava »They are saying that consumers bought a little over 7,000 cars in February. According to the sales figures on the front page of this website the Vibe has only sold that many in one month once. Does that mean that the Vibe is a flop as well? I think that GM is overestimating how many they can sell. They are bringing a brand new car into a segment that is already flooded with cars that have been around for years. It will take time to get where they want to be they need to be patient.I think GM may be over estimating as well. However the Grand Am was really Pontiac's big volume selling car. I think that they hoped the G6 would take up where the Grand Am left off. I don't think the Vibe was ever meant or expected to sell in super high volumes like the Grand Am did. However, I will say everytime I turn around here in the Chicago area I see a Vibe lately.

[ragingfish]

The car has only been out a few months...And it's been stated NUMEROUS times that one of the biggest failures of GM was, after the G6 was majorly plugged by Oprah, people ran to the dealerships, to find nothing was to be had. If you plug something with such huge effort, you need to have the product for people to get! Having the car 6 months later doesn't do jack, and Oprah became a waste.That being said, we have a G6 GT and I think it is an AMAZING car. Sure, it has it's quirks, after all, it IS a first model-year car. Just ask Nick -- the first model year of any new vehicle is going to be trying...Give the car a chance to get noticed...Took the Vibe a good year to really start taking off...And to answer the above question, the GTP will be coming out in the summer sometime.

[redlava]

Quote, originally posted by ragingfish »The car has only been out a few months...Give the car a chance to get noticed...Took the Vibe a good year to really start taking off...Exactly the point I was trying to make. Personally I think they are making a mountain out of a molehill with this story. Lets just see where they are at one year from now, hell, even six months from now there will probably be a noticable difference.

[MJN2]

The one major thing that bugs me about the G6 is the price tag. The sticker price of one at the Chicago Auto Show (G6 GT with a pretty long list of options) was $28k and some change.There was a Grand Prix GTP sitting near that G6 with a very similar price tag.For me, if I walked into a Pontiac dealership and had 28k to spend and had my choice of the two vehicles, it'd be a no-brainer. I'd take the GP every time.(Actually, I'd wait for rebates to come out for a Dodge Magnum RT, but that's not the point )

[Pablo1669]

I ordered my G6 GT in the GM PEP program and now all I've got to do is wait.I can't wait to lower my payments by 130/month for a nicer car.

[Kari]

My uncle was supposed to be getting a PEP G6, but it ended up only coming out with like 1,000 miles on it so there wasn't much of a discount. Hope it works out better for you...

[Pablo1669]

Quote, originally posted by Kari » but it ended up only coming out with like 1,000 miles on it so there wasn't much of a discount. Yikes, someone wasn't driving their car very much. Even if that does happen, I can reject the car and keep my name on the list. The good news is that 12 of them just became available this morning, so I should hear from them soon.

[Kari]

Yeah, that's what he did, I think. He was wanting something with more mileage on it to make it more worth the discount; with only 1,000 miles, he might as well go buy a new one.

[Pablo1669]

yeah, that would only qualify for PEP1, which is next to nothing. I would like to get a PEP4, which is like 7,000 miles, and that would get my monthly payments to about 170 bucks/month

[Kari]

Geez, I need him to sign me up! LOL At that rate, I could afford a second car.

[joatmon]

GM's March '05 new vehicle sales datahttp://media.gm.com/servlet/Ga...13554for Pontiac:Bonneville 1,096Firebird 0G6 9,565Grand Am 7,959Grand Prix 10,036GTO 1,375Sunfire 4,855Vibe 6,297So, it looks like the G6 sales were 50% higher than Vibe sales. If the G6 is a flop, then Vibe sales must be a disaster, especially when the 6297 in a single month is the 5th best month ever (5th out of 39 so far) for Vibe sales

[sylvainber]

it's all about expectations. GM is hoping the G6 will pick up the GrandAm business. The Vibe is filling an entry level slot (which often is considered a stepping stone into the brand)

[michaelgt]

GM has sales projections for every vehicle that it produces. The sales goals for the Vibe was around 50k a year in 2003. The other interesting item is that GTO sales was revised down from 15k for 2005, and at the March Sales rate it may exceed that target. I guess the additional 50hp, hood scoops, and dual exhaust exiting each side of the car made a difference.

[PhillyVibeGT]

Yesterday while getting my oil changed I was out on the lot looking at the rows and rows of G6's they had. They had four GT's, they were nice, I liked them alot with the exception of the radio/ radio controls,looked very plain and cheep, and the 28,000 price tag!

[ragingfish]

Looks can be deceiving! The radio is nice...I like the controls...

[ToolGuy]

I do not hate this car but it is not all the exciting. Plus you cannot sell a car based off of a three panel sunroof that resides outside the roof (old concept). Oh and remote start! Wow! Makes me want to go buy one!!!!!The G6 reminds me of the change from the Chevy Celebrity to the Lumina. Sure it was different and new but nothing exciting.Do not get me wrong, I like the G6 for an automobile but it is not the hit expected. And historically if a car does not sell well at launch, it will be hard to recover and is usually discounted to move sales up. And no I do not buy the well it is its first year! Nope, look at the Crossfire, Sprinter and Pacifica... Sure the people that have G6's love them that is great. I am not discounting that, again it is not a bad car and has some cool features. Here is some text from the LA Times, Dan Neil writer...Title - The Pontiac G6 is a sales flop "Honestly, it takes some sort of perverse genius to make the Grand Am, the car the Pontiac G6 replaces, look like a showroom winner, but the G6 is selling at about half the volume of the unloved and unlovely Grand Am, which dates to the 1980s. Ah oh!!!! Even a multimillion-dollar giveaway of G6s on "Oprah" in September wasn't enough to fire up sales of this car.Six months into its life, the G6 has thousands of dollars on its nose and analysts are calling it a flop. Last month, Pontiac offered more incentive money as a percentage of MSRP than any other brand, a full 16%, according to Edmunds.com.The G6 is not an awful car. It's entirely adequate. But plainly, adequate is not nearly enough. I agree...Exterior styling: The G6 sedan, based on the same stretched-wheelbase platform as the Malibu Maxx, has its wheels in the right place, nicely quadratic and corner-wise. There are a few odd proportions that add up to a kind of visual consternation: The car's front tapers around the headlamps like a school eraser; the rear deck is more a rear bustle, with an arm's length of sheet metal over the rear wheel wells; and wheels and tires themselves seem small when, at 17 inches in the GT package, they aren't really. Agreed...Meanwhile, the detailing of the bodywork makes the skin of the car look eggshell-thin. I wonder how many buyers look at this car and wonder what is behind the billboard?Interior styling: The GT comes with comfortable leather-lined bucket seats, nicely bolstered with heaters. I like the soft grip on the hand brake. That exhausts my praise for the interior.The center console is a plastic fantastic with the now-familiar stacked boxes of the audio head and climate controls, and we know what comes with familiarity. This is pretty much a style-free zone in a larger moor of monochromatic plastic and vinyl.The G6 does have a couple of fun features, both optional: an oversized moon roof that folds back in sections so that, lined up on the roof, the car looks solar-powered; and a remote starting function.Some options are less fun: Side-impact and curtain air bags, four-wheel anti-lock brakes and traction control are all cost-extra options on the base model.Performance: The GT model I drove had a 3.5-liter iron-block V6 under the hood, good for 200 horsepower and no surprises at all. And ? though I can't believe I'm writing this sentence in 2005 ? this pushrod six is mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. Agreed... It is because of this powertrain that the phrase "thrashy and unrefined" has become the hackneyed cliché that it has.The electric steering is numb and oddly weighted. Though I thought the ride was very nice, the handling is pushier than a mortgage-refinance telemarketer. The car has zero appetite for hard driving. You want excitement from the "Excitement" division? Try to get this thing to turn in a sharp corner.Bah." (end text)

[Pablo1669]

so my G6 GT is coming soon. My dad will be driving it for 3 months, then I take it over from there. We are going through the PEP program, and he will drive it instead of just getting some random exec's version.This baby is going to be sweet. Black GT with the 17" chrome wheels, panaramic roof, 6-disc monsoon stereo. I opted for the cloth interior as I don't really care for leather. Remote starter. Sticker price is 26,700 +/-.