Goodbye Torrent, Goodbye Pontiac!

This post is a little overdue, but it does explain and lead up to some of our experiences and hand-wringing this past Summer. In April, the lease on our Pontiac Torrent ended. We really struggled with the decision to walk away from it. After all, on many dimensions, it was the best vehicle we had ever owned - versatile, roomy, safe, and it delivered great performance - it put the "sport" in SUV. The downside was that our family had grown by one just months before and two car seats took up almost the whole back seat. Combined with the poor gas mileage and the announcement that Pontiac was going out-of-business, the fate was sealed on our near-flawless experience with the car.

Let's not forget that in a last-minute pinch, it towed several tons of our belongings 12oo miles! Here it is at the 1/3-point in Columbus, Ohio.

Or that Daniel rode in his first "big-boy" car seat in this car - here he is forward-facing for the first time at 14 months (peeking out!).

We only ever got one flat tire, in our driveway even, which Daniel promptly fixed!

Here's our big boy on our final day with the car - peeking out again, but much bigger now!

This was actually a minor "tragedy" for Daniel. When we first told him that we were taking the car away and saying goodbye to it (about a week before we actually did, to prepare him), he immediately burst out crying! "That's mama's car! I'm really sad!" (He's always been great with using adverbs.) He kissed the car goodbye at the dealer, and we hurried out of there, as the sales vultures descended - "What kind of car can I put your family in...?" NO!

In the final analysis, we were quite annoyed at the inflexibility and arrogance of Pontiac (along with GMAC). We had been among the first to purchase this model back in January 2006, and this was our 4th Pontiac. It was obviously a guess when the dealer in Rochester set the end-of-lease residual value. For instance, when we threatened to walk away, suddenly the payment was dropped by $40 per month and the residual was raised. So, why 39 months later were they sticking to that residual? This was a phased-out model of a closing brand of a bankrupt car manufacturer - 2009 models were selling for just $7,000 more, retail! Yet, they insisted on $14,000 for it. Ridiculous. We told them we'd buy it for Ten. The dealer in Macon told us they would love to sell it to us, since there was no market for it, and it would likely be auctioned off to a wholesaler at an incredible discount. VERY irritating way to treat loyal customers.

Thus, we spent the better part of Spring and Summer, as a family of four in a Pontiac Vibe hatchback. Keep in mind, Macon has NO reliable public transportation (not even decent taxi service). More on this in a future post!