One of the first things my wife and I did with the G6 was take a couple of longer trips. The main trip was for a couple of weeks to Myrtle Beach, about a 17 hour drive from our home. The car handled great, everything worked, the sun roof was a blast, although somewhat noisy when open and the car carried everything we needed with lots of room left over.

Gas mileage was generally good although it dropped off as expected through the mountains in West Virginia. The only complaint I had was that the steering tracking was a little light, probably caused by the electric steering assist on this particular model. I understand the GT is better with hydraulic assist, but the electric supposedly gives better gas mileage. A quick trip to the dealer cured this after they adjusted the alignment slightly.

Now, a great deal of my driving is around town. Once we returned from our holiday, we settled back into 5 to 10 km trips, shopping, back and forth to work etc. The car worked great but the gas mileage dropped off again. Generally on the highway I experienced gas usage as low as 8 liters per 100 km. Around town, in Winter and using the remote start periodically is was down to about 10.5 liters per 100 km.

A number of people mentioned how mush they liked the look of the car. My 18 year old daughter really loved driving around in it. Quite frankly, the colour (ivory) grew on me to the point where I think it is the best colour for this model.

The car handles well, to the point that is probably the most fun to drive car I have had since the '72 Datsun 240Z I owned and modified.

Complaints

The trunk does not pop up very far when you use the remote release. Good if it is windy, but otherwise a bit inconvenient. Without the rear spoiler, it could be quite annoying opening the lid. Also, the trunk opening is small, although it does hold a lot, it can sometimes be a struggle getting larger items through the opening.

After about 15,000 km, the disc brakes started to thump a bit when applied. It got particularly bad after driving around town for a couple of months and then out on the highway, hitting the brakes would give a really good shudder through the car. The dealer told me it is the rotors, that GM won't replace them, but they would pay for them to be machined up to about 30,000 km, Too bad! This is the same problem I had with the 2001 Malibu which really sucked on brakes. Maybe there is some after market products out there. Any one know?

Summary

What can I say. It's a cool car, typical of GM. You either love 'em or hate 'em. I have it for 4 years on a lease so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime, it is fun, it feels safe, it looks good, it has reasonable gas mileage, and it's not an expensive car to run. Well worth considering in my mind.

Updates

Here I am coming up to the end of the 3rd year on a 4 year lease. As expected the maintenance starts to mount up. Fall of 2007 I took a good long look at the tires and knew they weren't going to last to the 96,000 allowable km on the lease. My solution was to buy only 2 new tires for the front, allowing Winter traction for the next 2 years. I kept the tires taken off for future use. I would expect that if I leave the existing rears on the car and stop rotating the tire, I may have up to 20,000 km per set of rears. When the current ones wear out I will install the ones I kept. Cost around $600 for the tires. My dealer also seems to like me to do routine "recommended" maintenance which costs from $65 to $125. The service rep tells me this is important to protect the warranty status.

At 59,000 km (about 40,000 miles) my rear disk brakes, liners and rotors needed replacing. Cost about $600. Reason, the rear rotors had rusted and the pads were shot. Here's the rub; although the manual excludes brake pads, it does not exclude rotors. The dealer tells me they are a normal wear item and not included. I disagree. I have contacted GM Canada and I am waiting for an answer from them. The service manager at the dealer has not returned my call.

May 16, 2008

After waiting approximately 2 weeks to hear back from GM, I called them back. They had promised to be back to me within 48 hours, but they did not follow up. Nor did the service manager at the dealer. The upshot was that they consider rotors as wear items and therefore do not warrant them. My rotors on the rear rusted out in 59,000 km. I guess rust is wear....news to me. I had occasion to check out Honda's warranty and rotors are covered under their warranty program.

Once again we see, that although GM has great designs, you have to resign yourself to putting money into them. I would also question the value of any lease beyond 3 years.

End of Lease

The end of the lease is now imminent and I have been checking around for what to do. I have driven a GM product for 35 years but since their recent problems and the fact they no longer lease I am looking at other products. Another consideration is that the Pontiac line is being dropped, meaning in my estimation that any Pontiac I get will really depreciate fast.

My current G6 has developed a lot of rattles and just is not much fun to drive any more. I think it would take some serious work to make it feel safe again. GM made me an offer on the buyout, but I am just not into sticking with this car. The drivers seat has lost its fit and was always a problem with no lumbar support.

I found it interesting that they were selling the base model out at $16,995 which is a good deal, but the dealer did not even want to talks about it. Not really sure what that means but I guess they have lost my business or are not really interested in it.

What is really strange is that in spite of all the car industry problems, automobiles seem to me to be more expensive now July 2009) than they were even a year ago when my daughter bought a Honda Civic. I went to the same dealer and looked at the same car she got and the deal cannot be matched. In fact, it will cost me about 30% more than she paid.

I also checked out Ford who want 13% for leasing a Fusion and really weren't very anxious to deal. Neither was I at that rate.

Next was Mazda whose cars are nice but drop an option on them and the price goes up big time. Minimum for a nicely equipped Mazda 3 was $550 a month. (nothing down 48 month lease).

Toyota has a really nice car in the Corolla and it can be equipped heavily for around $420 a month. Drives nice but just a touch small. You need to go to the LE with Moon roof to get lumbar support and that is driver side only. Good thing is it is built just down the road from me

Nissan's Altima is a good car. Everything on the base model and $400 a month for 48 months, not including the 4th year warranty. No lumbar support here either.

Lots of my friends drive Hyundai but I can't see anything that really appeals to me in my price range. The Genesis is cool but more than I want to spend.

So,  what does a 37 year GM man do? I went to the Volkswagen dealer and found some really cool cars. Stay tuned for what I bought.