CL Platano

Looks good, but still would take Acura over Pontiac.

bigman

I put the 911 and vette in there because a comment was made as to why anyone would want a car that was on every corner. And in most areas, vettes and 911's are a dime a dozen, meaning that they are pretty much on every corner. But i would still buy one because i would enjoy it. And my TL wasnt a lemon, because many members on this forum with stock and modified TL's and CL's have had one ore more transmission failures. The problem i had with the TL was with how the trans always decided to quit on people. Most of the time it died with a random downshift while doing highway speeds. twice i had to be evasive because of someone almost hitting me from behind because of the downshifts sudden slowdown.. I still love acura though, and plan on buying an acura in the future. And i am glad that you dont have your head up your ass and would actually give the vette a chance unlike some other people. And as an enthusiast, i can appreciate the Elise. It may not have the comfort or amenities, but it serves it's purpose as a drivers car. If you drive one, you'd love one.

bigman

That was an error on my part because i left and came back to finifh typing. I didnt re read what i had said. What i meant to say was: Dude, the current FWD Grand Prix GXP can out run the TL-S, not by much though because of the limitations of FWD and so much torque.

Why would i mod a nice car? For the same reason that thousands of Vette, Porsche and Ferrari owners mod their cars. For the same reason that many members here mod their cars. I'm an enthusiast, and i especially love to turn my own wrenches. As was stated in a previous post, people sometimes dont want to have the same thing as everyone else, so what enthusiasts do is make their car stand out. Some make the car look better, some make their cars faster, if you dont mod your vehicles you will never understand.

Cary

Now it makes sense, and I agree. The GXP would be faster than the TLS if it could hook up better. It's possible it may be faster by a tic now but it depends on a lot of external factors. And if you are a modder then tit for tat would be in the favor of the V8. I guess I was a modder back in the middle 90's with my Mitsu GSX, we increased the boost and such. That car was pretty quick but when it got hot outside the power dropoff was awful. Same with my Volvo S80 I6 Twin Turbo.

Donte99TL

Man how could you let her throw away all those mags. I feel for you.

Plus my comment wasn't meant in a negative way. More of a joke.

Cary

Thanks, well I couldn't stop her. She had threatened for a couple of years to do it, and all of the shelves were warping under the weight. It was nice reference material; when I saw a used car I was interested in I would go home and pull piles of mags out. I would pull at least 1 year before and 1 or more years after the year of the vehicle and scan for reviews. I told her they might be worth some money but that didn't even slow her down once she started tossing them. I think she gave them to the goodwill or something. Damn women just don't understand..

bigman

Yeah, those turbo cars hate the dry summer heat. I went with an all motor stroker setup on my Trans am. This summer i might throw a 200 shot at her since she is built for it and the intake manifold already has the spots in place for a direct port setup. But even for an all motor guy like myself my cam will "cam" out on me in the heat and almost stall the car out.

bigman

I fell you. From about 1988 till now, i have saved every car magazine i ever had. I loved them as a child and kept them. They were my "comic books", my "baseball cards." But when i left home in 03/04 my mom told me to take the stash in the basement. I said yeah ok and just left em there. Sometime in 05 i wanted to start to retrieval process and move them over to my place. Next thing i know, they were all gone. My mom threw them all out.

ck123

tl-s anyday...acura > pontiac

daemonicus

this thread is pointless. until a magazine or person publishes some real comparisons between the two cars, nobody is going to know. it's like "racers" when they say "well i could have beat him if i had xxx or a xxx on my car". nobody knows so it's pointless to assume. honestly, i have high expectations for the g8's performance but i'm not going to start saying it'll outrun the tl-s because i dont know and neither does anyone else.

hey let's start talking about who's gonna win between the GTR and the NSX.

pimpin-tl

I don't care what anyone says. The G8 will smash the TL-S, G35, IS350. It has the LS1/LS2 V8 and I use to own a car with that engine. It is a powerful engine. If anyone even thinks the TL-S will have a chance then I think you need to wake up from that dream.

Mokos23

Aside from racing the TL-S vs G8, how about the reliability of Pontiacs and resale value are they any good?

CLpower

Holden is renowned for their quality. the GTO's resale wasn't the best (that said, it's been better then my first gen CL was). But the biggest problem w/ the GTO was it was an 8 year old design.


The G8 should be much better.

bigman

Acura does > Pontiac, but this convo is not about Acura > Pontiac it's about the TLS and the G8.

The G8 will be well built, if it is built anything like the GTO, expect the interior materials and fit and finish of the car to be excellent. It probably wont pass the TL as far as inside materials, but with the Aussie's building the car, you can expect one hell of a well built machine. And performance-wise, the current GXP runs with the TLS, the G8 will absolutely slaughter it.

Cary

One thing I will share with you is the GTO could almost not be given away here in Indiana. They slashed several thousand from the stickers, and gave away extended warranties and people still wouldn't buy them. That scared me cause I kinda wanted one. Once they had crammed that 6 liter under the hood it got my interest! Alot of people at the dealership were kind of whispering that I should pick something else out due to issues with the GTO..?? Anyone know what they could have been talking about? I believe that the G8 will have a similar drivetrain, I could be wrong. When you are talking about winging out 30k I tend to be very careful so I passed. I hope the GTO is a TLS killer, it will be good for our economy!

CLpower

I'd love to know what "issue's" there were w/ the GTO. None that I know of other then an overblown issue of "strut rub" that's fixed w/ an alignment. It's definately nothing out of the drivetrain (same T56 in the viper)

mclarenf3387

THe G8 doesn't have an option for a LSX motor, the GT will come with a L76 V8 engine. Granted the two motors are very similar with almost the same torque specs and the LS2 motor making 40 more HP slightly later in the power band.

youngTL

You can't really complain about reliability issues before the car is even out. Just because a company has a bad history doesn't mean all future products will be bad.

I have no doubt that a V8 FR setup will be faster than a V6 FF setup. I don't know why people are questioning that. This isn't 1996.

I'm curious to see the mass of the G8 and also feel what the interior is like. I suspect with that much power, the real world fuel economy will be lower (RWD cars tend to get lower fuel economy in general anyway). There's no free lunch.

Furthermore, I'm curious about the price in Canada. The TL-S is 47.7k with the manual tranny and freight/PDI included. If the G8 turns out to be a lot more expensive, it probably won't have that many buyers. I could barely afford a Honda Accord EX V6 6MT. I know I'm not going to be able to afford either of those cars.

kobi2002

It called a trend. If they made bad cars for twenty years, you are not going to forget that in two. i use to love chevy and pontiac, but because of all the issues I've seen, I would never buy it agian. Honda, toyota and most of your jap cars have been making good cars from the start. No car maker will ever make a perfect car, but after my issues with american, I can deal with a rattle or two. Would you fly an airline that had a bad safty record for 20 years and decides to shape up now. Same with cars.

mclarenf3387

The car has been out for quite a few months now as the Holden VE Commodore. It even won the Wheels magazine Car of the Year.

bigman

OK, so Honda had a bad reputatuin fro grenading trannies from 98-03 with it's j Series motors. Should people look at that and never buy Honda again, no. How about VW and their electrical gremlins, or Lamborghini and their spontaneous combusting motors? Their is a reason why the Pontiac Grand Am is one of the top selling sedans in america. There is a reason why rental companies use american cars in their fleets. 1 is their cheap cost and 2 is their reliability. GM's cars may not have the best quality but they have excellent and reliable powertrains. I for one can attest to that.

bigman

The only issue the GTO had was strut rub, which can be easily fixed with an alignment. The LS powerplant is as reliable as an engine can get. I have plenty of HARD miles on my LS1 and it has never let me down. My friend has a track driven daily driver LS1 with over 200k dipping into 10's now. His motor has excellent compression and he sprays it all the time. The G8 will have a L76 which is derived from the LS power plants which, like i said is extremely reliable.

You are right, for some reason the GTO was not a sought after vehicle and was given away at huge discounts. My dealer has an LS2 going for 24,995. i for one think the car is amazing, and anyone who gives it a chance and drives it comes away impressed. I still think if the car was marketed as a different vehicle and not named the GTO, it would have sold a lot more. But with the name, people wanted the retro-ness that the Mustang went for.

kobi2002

honda has been out for longer than 98-03. What I am saying is they have a great track record from the 70's. when you look at all the good cars honda made over the years, people tend to forget a few bad years verse a few good years on the american side and the rest bad. That is way alot of the american companies are in trouble with sales. And i did say no company is perfect, just the japs try to be and that is what counts.

kobi2002

GM and reliability should never go in the same sentence. I use to work at dollar rent a car in high school and they did not have those cars because of reliability. believe me it was not reliability. .

daemonicus

oh man...are you kidding me? i dont care what sales say, the grand am is one of the absolute worst cars around for reliability, coupe or sedan. dont confuse that though with the grand prix which is a very reliable car, even though it's still cheaply made.

i have very high hopes for the G8 though. i cant wait to see what's it's really like.

bigman

My mistake, i actually meant to say the Grand Prix. That 3800 series V6 is one of the most reliable motors ever built.

bigman

I hear you, but GM is taking a step in the right direction with offering a well built RWD V8. I wish honda would step up the Acura brand and at a bare minimum, slap awd in the TL.

kobi2002

I believe they will put an awd on the 4 gen TL's. I hope anyway.

youngTL

That's really their only issue right now. Honda has a slight reluctance to build V8 and RWD. When you buy a Honda, you're basically buying a reasonably priced car, with reasonable to good fuel economy, good reliability, and a reasonable, ergonomically sound interior. Honda was never about fun first, and that might be hurting them a little bit now.

bigman

A little fun won't hurt Honda. Look at the new Camry. It looks great and performes quite well. Honda's problem is the fact that they use the accord's chassis for the TL. they need to either make a new platform that can accomodate rear/awd or give acura a new fresh chasis. I bet they would save the same amount of money if instead of using the accord as a donor for the TL, they made an all new platform for rear/awd and shared it with the TL and RL. It could be the type of platform that stretches when needed as well. Shit they can use that platform for the TL, RL and MDX. I love Acura, the Legend was my favorite car, but Pontiac is offering a well built car that will perform like a beast and i cant seem to get away from it. BTW, Young, i havent seen you in a while, or am i just not catching the threads you post in?

ck123

civic si? integra ls, gsr type r? crx? del sol si? nsx? s2000? prelude? these are all sports car...

are you sure honda was not meant to have fun? imo even the civic and accord are fun because they have good suspension and handling

RWD cars dont make as much money as FWD..you know why? some areas in the US have tons of snow fall and rwd cars arent suited for that. iono but this maybe why honda decided to stick with fwd with most of their cars.

bigman

I don't know man, i live in the north east and there are plenty of happy Bimmer/Mercedes/Charger/300 owners out here.

daemonicus

i highly doubt honda builds only FWD cars just to cater to the few states that get snow. that'd be like honda building right hand drive cars for the US because of a large japanese population.

mclarenf3387

I see BMWs and Mercedes everywhere by me. A set of snows and you're better off than your average honda on the road who is running shitty stock all seasons.

pimpin-tl

I agree. We had two 1996 Grand Am's, one a SE and one a GT. Both blew up by 30k. Headgaskets. We got rid of them.