2009 Pontiac G5 Review
Hi I'm Kelsey Mays for Cars.com. The Pontiac G5 is a sort of car your kid neighbor
might have work all summer at the burger bar and saving up money for, or the one you
rented on your trip to Florida last weekend. Either way high gas prices might have you
thinking Pontiac again because in some trims the 2009 G5 gets up to an EPA estimate at
37 miles per gallon highway. The secret is Pontiac’s 4 sonar engine that’s shared here
with the roughly identical Chevy Cobalt. Both cars have a special XFE trim that stands
for Extra Fuel Economy this year. They use a especially calibrated five-speed manual
transmission and low rolling resistance tires to get 25/37 miles per gallon city highway.
It’s a pretty good increase over last year. Driving the XFE you’ll notice that you can't
really have your cake and eat it too.
The car does have a very low final drive ratio and that means it takes a little bit longer to
wind up those gears. There's more low in power than the Ford Focus, the Honda Civic,
the Toyota Corolla manage. They have smaller force on their engines. By the time you
get up to highway speeds the advantage isn't really Pontiacs anymore. There is a shift
light on the gauges that tells you when the up shift. It comes on a little bit early before
you really hit the engine strut but if you stick with it, it will help you get better mileage.
There's lower resistance, 15-inch tires don’t provide a whole lot of grip so you want to
take it easy on those highways off ramps
I suspect the way this car’s handles will have you feeling the same way. There's plenty of
body roll and the steering has very overly assisted sort of almost newly feel at lower
speeds. At higher speeds it settles in with and even balance but the car is very susceptible
to highway wind gas and the stereo response at times can become twitchy and really
uneven. It’s also a lot of wind noise overhead. If handling is more your thing there is a
G5, GT model it’s got a sport tuned suspension. It also got a Goodyear 17-inch tires.
Unfortunately if you get the automatic with that you give up as much as five miles per
gallon in highway mileage.
Either way, I like to think with the fact that the G5 like the Cobalt is one of GM’s oldest
existing models. The current car is due to be replaced soon and it doesn’t hold a lot of a
peel. The dashboard has a lot of hard shiny plastics. Panel fit is uneven in certain places.
Those sharing a car with someone of different size but we want to note that the levers to
adjust the seat back rest and lifts the seat up and down to see how to gesture or kind of
cram into this narrow area down here. The steering wheel tilts but it doesn’t telescope
like the ones and a lot of competitors do and the parking break as you lift it up bangs
right into the center console. The owner’s manual suggests that you lift the console first
before accessing the parking break, great.
The trunk has almost 14 cubic feet of space that’s pretty impressive and this segment
actually. Unfortunately, there is a high lift over and pretty narrow opening overall stands
in contrast to things the G5 actually gets right, areas like a high quality with its headliner
overhead, instead of the typical mouse for you to find and one of the easier to use stereos
in the segment.
Appearance we also note in back there are three sets of child seat anchors including one
in the middle seat. Those cars only have them in up board seats, the middle seats actually
the safest spot for kids.
GM should have no trouble at all selling XFE Cobalt and G5 simply on the prospect of
37 highway miles per gallon. That doesn’t necessarily make this an appealing choice. If
you're going to spend $15,000.00 or $20,000.00 on a compact commuter there are better
ones out there. You merely get 34 or 35 on the highway but at that level the differences
are less than you might think.
For additional information on this car or any other go to Cars.com in our blog
KickingTires.
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