Rental Car Review - Pontiac G8 GT

For this last trip to Boston, I tried out National Car Rental. National's Emerald Club let's you pick your own car from anything on the lot when you reserve a midsize. So when I arrived, I got to check out the lot and decided to take the new Pontiac G8 GT they had waiting.

The G8 is Pontiac's full size sedan, and the GT comes with a 6.0L V8 generating 360 hp through a 6-speed automatic transmission to the rear wheels. As you might expect, this car gets full marks for power! The interior is nicely appointed, and very comfortable.

However, there were a few things that bugged me in this car.

1. The handling really isn't that great. Unfortunately, this is par for the course in my experience with domestic cars. While it was light-years above the Mustang, it still feels a little skittish in the corners under speed.
2. The window and mirror controls are all in the center console. While this gives the car a certain cleanness of lines around the door, it also makes it very inconvenient to try to roll down your window while holding something - like toll money or an id badge.
3. The large LCD display is set low in the center dash. While this isn't automatically a bad thing, there is a large low-res LCD that display battery voltage and oil pressure in the top of the center dash. I'd much prefer my radio and clock displays be higher up so I don't have to lose sight of the road to check the time.
4. The car I drove only had 3000 miles on it, but the tire pressure sensor in the right front wheel was faulty. It would read fluctuating values between 90 psi and 1 psi, and contantly beep to alert me... very annoying! Unfortunately, this is another incident of "Pontiacs break down a lot" stereotype appearing true.

So, overall, I thought the G8 was an excellent rental car, and I won't hesitate to take one again if given the chance... But it still falls short of a car I'd be willing to buy. Which is really too bad, because Pontiac has all the elements of a great sedan in this car, if they could just follow through on the little things.