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Pontiac GTO
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The GM employee/retiree goes to the http://www.gmfamilyfirst.com website, and logs in. One of the menu options there is to assign a GMID certificate to someone. Each employee can give away 2 certificates per month, and the certificates are typically good for 6 months.
There are two things that the GM employee needs in order to assign a GMID cert. The first is the Date of Birth of the intended purchaser of a vehicle. The second is the last 4 digits of this person's SSN. I can understand people's privacy concerns, but those are GM's rules.
Once the GM employee enters this info, hits Submit, and confirms it and hits submit again, a 12-digit GMID number is assigned (XXX-YYYYYYYYY). This information is then emailed back to the prospect, who should print it out and bring it to their GM dealer.
What is pricing like? Well, this is equivalent to supplier pricing - it is not the same as employee pricing (typically, supplier/GMID is 4.5% more than GMS (GM Employee)) pricing. One advantage to GMID is that it's typically compatible with many incentives (conquest, GM Card, etc.), unlike most GM employee/supplier deals.
You can get pricing from the http://www.gmfamilyfirst.com website without having a login, by surfing there and then selecting "GMID Pricing" from the "Vehicle Shopping" pop-up menu.
How do I know this? My mother-in-law is a GM employee and I typically give away her certificates each month. Oh yeah, one more thing: GM employees can get into big-time trouble if they ask you for anything (other than DOB/last 4 of SSN) in order to get you a certificate. There is no additional compensation from GM either.
Hope this helps,
--Robert
Yeah, I tried to save the world but damnit, Bush just won't listen to me. My advice is start filling sandbags.
Anyway, just replaced the back tires today. They only had 16,000 on them. I wonder why they wore out sooner than the fronts. The fronts both had wear on the outer edges, and the right front had the worst wear. Got a 4 wheel alignment so I should be good to go.
How is the supply of body parts? Am I in for a long wait before I get my Goat back- if it's repairable? I don't have the strut problem, as my car was built in Aug 05 as a 2006. Car has 9800 miles on it, and I dearly loved each and every mile..............
As an aside the car had no problem reaching 140 miles per hour. Although I had a radar detector in operation I did not encounter a single speed trap on the entire trip.
GM is well aware of the issue: the factory intentionally aligns with negative camber. this makes the handling rather amazing but is not great for long highway drives - result is exactly what you observed.
it was a problem for my vehicle even though there was no "strut rub" on my car. your dealer can fix it but it requires replacement of some "consumable" bolts. it took the local dealer one week and about $200 labor cost to align my car. later GM HQ actually insisted to pay for this even though it was after the new-car/12k/12-month warranty. (15000 miles in my case - after a drive from MA to FL and back).
in my case i don't think struts or strut bushings were replaced as they were reportedly not damaged. i did not ask GM to replace the tires - they were ok enough that proper alignment & rotation got them to 25000 miles - at that point i replaced them on my own dime and do not think that GM owes me for that. i understand that some folks have gotten GM to pay for tires too and that may be appropriate in your case.
Again, thanks for your help.
-mike
The salesman(who is being quite good so far) has quoted me a price of 29,117 for this car including the 18 inch wheels. He has also mentioned that his dealership is aware of the front strut issue and also that this particular vehicle was built in late June,06 and therefore shouln't have a problem with the struts.
My questions are these;
1. Is the price being quoted high or reaonable?
2. Does his story about the struts make sense?
3. If you had it all to do over again, would you still buy this car?
Thanks everyone
2. yes, as far as i know.
3. YES. only caveat is that i thought 05 GTO was going to be a "sleeper" vehicle compared to a Corvette. It's not. If I were to remove the spoiler & put on a 2004 ventless hood, it might be more of a "sleeper" but I've dropped my plans to do that.
I like em both!
speaking of gas mileage, i guess we'll never know how the goats would do on the revised epa tests... if there had been an 07 goat, maybe it would have ended up with a gasguzzler tax on the 6spd too, and maybe the automatic gasguzzler tax would have gotten much larger! hmm, maybe there will be lots more cars with gasguzzler tax after the new EPA ratings are established ...
Dealer offered me a 18" 6sp 2006 GTO for 27580 + tax,title, etc. Does it sound like a good deal. If it matters, I am in central NY, and I do own a non-gm vehicle, i.e. a toyota corolla. Orange w/ black interior.
Thanks!
-udham
BTW, whomever's dealer told them their GTO was built in "late June" was wrong, as the GTO ceased production in Australia on 6/07/06. What may be confusing to many is that the "build date" stored in the GMVIS (vehicle information system) is the date the spoiler is put on at the port in Benecia, CA (5-8 weeks after final assembly, i.e. after boat transport), not the actual production date in Australia. You can get an idea of the assembly date of your vehicle by looking at the build plate underhood, or the sticker on the driver's door - should have the month/year listed.
This car requires premium unleaded. Sure, you can run on lower octane, but the engine will pull timing, get worse gas mileage, and possibly knock. Why would someone buy a $30k vehicle and not spend the extra $105*/yr. to put the proper gas into it? Seems to me that's the definition of "penny-wise and dollar-foolish".
*Assume 15k miles/yr and 20 mpg, that's 750 gallons of gas purchased per year.
Multiply that by the 14 cent difference between premum and regular (here; may be different in your neck of the woods) and you're talking about $105/yr.
There is another comparable program available (offering supplier pricing for everyone), but I don't know the details... maybe look around http://www.gmfamilyfirst.com
Anyone buying a new GTO should be able to get better pricing than supplier (like, invoice less incentives - some are even getting the holdback taken off as well).
You might also want to ask the folks in the GTO Prices Paid & Buying Experience discussion.
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87 octane is especially great for winter driving in chevy V8s that are optimized for 91+. in addition to a few thousand goat-87-miles, i've put tens of thousands of 87 octane miles on various Z28 V8s over decades of winters - including a fall track run: 14.1 sec / 101 mph quarter mile with 94 automatic Z28...
i called 87 octane "poor man's traction control" for my 85, 89, 94, 96 Z28s. (my 00 Z had real traction control)
with 05 goat and 87, no knock, no noticeable power drop. it's fully supported by GM. USAtoday had an article a year or three ago - author interviewed reps from all the major manufacturers including ferrari/porsche/benz - bottom line is NO WORRY with 87 in any USA model car! the worst that can happen is 'reduced performance'.
obviously if the engine knocks that would be bad. never happens. i don't run 87 in warm weather though, too much *pinging* for me, and the power loss can be noticeable.
maybe we can discuss the difference between pinging and knocking. from what i understand, the ECM on all gassers adjusts the timing to try to get the engine to ping just the tiniest bit - audible to knock sensor but not to human ear - for best efficiency!?
well, maybe you think i've damaged my LS2 and previous Z28 V8 engines and would want to avoid buying a used car from me! (not to mention all the other reasons to avoid that).
happy new year from the GTO witness protection program, everyone -
(that program entails putting us over-ticketed GTO drivers into VW TDIs - apparently the 87 octane was not enough to slow me down.)
-mike
The motor will be making less horsepower so maybe it will also be using less fuel.
Seems fair to me.
Best way to save gas is just by controlling the right foot Of course I never do that but I don't mind burning gas though.
-mike
Do you think the valve timing would need to be changed too for top efficiency possible with the lower octane gas? And even if it does, these smart cars nowadays with continuously variable valve timing might also adjust that.
Compression ratio? Is that a problem? I don't think so.
Maybe if you don't press on the accelerator and brakes any harder with regular than premium you won't see any appreciable change in fuel economy? (But you won't get to your destination quite so quickly.)
I would think if you are not hard on the gas, and put 87 in you should be ok but when I get mine, I'll probably run 91 for the few pennies more it costs.
-mike
Anyone else keep careful records over a trip that long?
(not relying on trip computer numbers)
26.7 mpg is excellent mileage for a motor capable of 400 HP pulling a car the weight of the GTO.
I get that same MPG in a similar weight car with less than half the horsepower at 75 mph on the interstate.
What was your normal cruising speed?
(oh wait, that is "only" 350 HP for a 2004, right? Haha. Your mileage sucks!)
Chris
I've done 1237 miles in one continuous daylight driving segment, although that was with a TDI from chicago->rocksprings wyoming not GTO.
With 05 6-spd GTO (17" wheels) I've done boston->RTP->boston as well as boston->ftmyers->boston.
MPG ends up being between 23 & 24 mpg. Usually on these long trips the mpg difference between 91+ & 87 octane is sometimes not noticeable at all. Other times it seems to be 9% or less.
This week's autoweek has a photo of a test-mule Pontiac G8 and a Commodore SS. N I C E. Australia is awesome - I wish there was a road that went from Boston to there.
G8 will be here in 2008 model year, including 6-spd trans and a monster V8, upper 300s for both torque & hp. I bet it will have cylinder-shutdown too. I wish GTO had that for those loooong highway cruises - for me there's no doubt that a long trip is way more comfy in GTO than in a TDI.
btw, on GM or any vehicles with cylinder-shutdown, does it shutdown cylinders at idle too? thank you!
-mike
personally i'm thinking of trading my GTO & XC90 SUV for one of the three new D-C diesel SUVs. driving a GTO on US public roads might just be too frustrating for me - all revved up with nowhere to drive fast... waaah!
www.gtoforum.com
or
www.newsnet5.com/news/11003693/details/html
THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF
ENGINEERING DEFECT
P.S.where is robert ? we need him now? what should we due?
All GTO models?
Regardless of tire size?
Guess they'll all get re-shod with those little tiny low-rider tires the mexicans like on their Chevys?