Talked to Dad yesterday and he told me that his consensus for the G8 is not unitl December and he does not expect them to hit the ground until late 1st QTR 08, so that translates to late Febrary-March.

Have any of you guys heard anything different from the Pontiac Dealers near you?

I asked them "what do you know about the G8?" All they knew was it was rwd, duh! I was anticipating that since no order window seems to be forthcoming and that the possiblity exists that production and shipment of the first boatload will take place prior to open ordering that early 1st 1/4 could still happen. What I do think I know is that contrary to the GTO, shipments during the 1st 1/4 will be primarily to sunbelt states such as CA, AZ, NM, TX and FL and not to rustbelt states such as MI, PA, NY, OH, (alluded to as a mistake not to be repeated) although that is when we need to see whether the car will handle winter and if we need to look at all-season tires and snow treads as opposed to summer 19's and snows.

I did some searching on line this weekend. It looks like there are definetly good options for all season as well as snow tires for 19's. There were a few manufacturers that offered them in the stock size including Blizzaks.

Did anyone else notice that there is no spare tire on the GT, just the reinflate kit?

Here is more information about Launch from GM:

First Consensus is planned for December 2007.
Vehicles expected to arrive in late Q1 2008.
G8 Order Guide, Order Workbench, and AutoBook now available.
G8 "tease" spread with "coming soon" is featured on pages 2-3 of the new 2008 Pontiac product catalog (available now).
G8 intro ad spreads will appear in November issues of select enthusiast magazines including Motor Trend, Automobile, Road & Track, Car & Driver, and Autoweek, most dropping in early October. Be on the look!
First G8 IDL broadcast featuring product and marketing highlights/updates is scheduled for late November 2007. Stay tuned for date and times.
28-City G8 product training tour planned to start in early 2008. Stay tuned for more details.
G8 pricing will be announced soon. Stay tuned for more details.
New launch updates will be made available via Pontiaclaunch.com by Friday, October 5th.

My dealer said they expected there first 'Unit' / demo in January soonest.

Similar story from my dealer...begin building in December and arrive here late first quarter.

What part of the country are you guys in?

Florida

I think they are calling it an 08 just to get the thing in on showroom floors and bring out the real model for the 09MY.

This can go two ways. 1) The uptune for 2009MY or 2) They detune to increase fuel economy or emissions output. I was reading some pretty scary stuff in the paper last night that CA is trying to sue EPA to force the auto industry to lower emissions for the 2009MY.

CA may be able to bring about changes like that, in fact, GM has said that nothing new that doesn't show a significant improvement in fuel mileage is being put on hold until a time that an increase can be made. All this to bring their corporate fuel economy numbers up... something those green pansies in CA pioneered. Luckily, there's no way Cali. could bring about change that fast. be afraid. but not about the 2009MY

They could for their own state by not allowing vehicles that dont already meet the requirments to be sold. Isnt that how the original CA emissions started?

Many more states are jumping on the CA emissions over Fed, including PA. Eventually CA will by default be Fed standard.

There was an arcticle in our local paper that CT is going to join the CA lawsuit along with PA and a bunch of other states.

My question is what is next? Should the goverment pass a law that you must live within 10 miles of your work place? That would cut down on fuel consumption and emissions wouldn't it. Oh wait, to make it like the rules that car companies must follow, the Feds would have to make it a law that Real Estate Agents can only sell you a house that is within 10 miles of your workplace. Or would that only be an average of 10 miles based on their annual sales. "I am sorry sir.. to make our annual milage average I can only sell you a house 1 mile from where you work"

How aut a rule that if you live in a CA compliant state you cannot drive your car into a non-CA compliant state? And of course the already on-board blackbox will know when that happens and remotely shut down your vehicle at the border. Of course I am joking that it would happen, but the technology is aleady in place.

I think that you have it backwards.
If you have a non-CA compliant car you could not drive it into a CA compliant state.
Just shuts off at the border...

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no offense and I hate to change the subject but it's funny, we'll shut the border on non-compliant emission cars but illegal immigrants (undocumented drivers) have free reign.

Maybe we can issue illegals collars that shock them at the border when they try to cross, like an invisible fence.

That's so true!

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I just negotiated fleet pricing from my dealer and tried to place an order. This is what he later emailed me:

When I attempted to place your order into the system it rejected. When I contacted my GM Dealer Assistance contact I was informed that GM does not intend to have the US dealers place specific orders for this model as we do with domestically produced vehicles. Instead GM will determine the build specifications then produce vehicles for the US market and ship the vehicles to a US port for distribution. The US dealers will then draw from this pool of assembled vehicles.

Initial production is currently scheduled to take place in the first quarter of 2008 so we may not see product on the ground at dealer sites until sometime in the Spring.

I am not sure how this will affect our ability to acquire a vehicle that exactly matches your preferences. On that basis I am reluctant to accept your order and deposit until I know that the prices are static and that I can actually match the specifications for the vehicle you want out of the product that is made available to us.


This sounds crazy that they'd build them however they want, send them over in boats and then let the dealers pick what they want from whatever is at the port.

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'05 GP GXP
'08 G8 GP (hopefully)
'93 Supra TT

Like I said. The delaers don't even perform their consensus until December, then I think they are going to use this information to decide what to build, then in early 1QTR they can see how many units they are allocated, and what the constaints will be and place orders against what is available. I think if they wait to build based on what orders they take they won't make it. Of course they should just start taking orders now and they would know.

Taking orders would make sense - that's why they won't do it. Look at the bright side, there are so few options that are even available factory installed taht chances are very good there will be something for everyone. Other than exterior color you have a choice of cloth or leather, and two patterens of leather. If you choose the premium package the cloth choice disappears. Then you only have choice of sport package on GT, comfort and sound on V6, and sunroof, and all-season tires if you don't go Sport.

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Mike,
What exactly is this Dec. Dealer Consensus??? Is that when dealer's submit their "wish list" to GM?

The G8 distribution model seems totally different then what I've seen before from GM. Will the dealer's even have a say as to what they get or will GM stock them how they want to??

It sounds like the dealer's can't do anything until the first boat arrives.

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'05 GP GXP
'08 G8 GP (hopefully)
'93 Supra TT

Consensus is how many of a certain model the dealer wants to have for a three month, I think, planning horizon. It is a really general estimate of the number of units. Then they go through "allocation" where GM tells them what they got and then they order against it. There are all crazy rumors of how they decide who gets what, from previous sales volume to geographic location. The other thing is GM can constrain what they order. For example, when the 2007 GMC Denali's came out, they had a constraint on Navigation systems because the supplier could not provide them. So, at one point, they could only order Denali's without the Nav.