Why did I go with a G8 you may ask? Well, I own one (a GT, not the bad ass GXP) and thought it would be cool to use as a race car for some of the events and to build up for fun.

On a side note, the Forza team did a good job rendering the interior of the car. The dashboard looks just like the real thing!

First relatively warm day this year in Chicago. After the blizzard that hit about a week and half ago and the frigid temps that followed this past week we had a nice mild winter day today.

Snow is starting to melt at an accelerated rate thanks to the mid 40s temps today. It was the perfect time to get the car all washed up. There was lots of salt and road grime building up on the car these last few weeks. Feels good to get it all cleaned up!

Works like a charm! Here is a video of it in action.

First time it happened, I chalked it up to the cold. It was freezing outside and after driving for a few minutes and the car got warm inside and started working. The second time was two nights ago. I was late in the night and cold outside. Similar conditions. Although, being I’m from Chicago, the cold is nothing new. We’ve had plenty of cold days here over this winter, some of them far colder than two nights ago. This morning, happened again. At the time it was 6:30am and I was trying too leave for work.

So I’m sitting at work fuming, waiting for the dealership to open their phone lines so I could call them up. At 9am I checked the car, door still would not unlock. I call up the dealership and they want me to bring it in on Monday. Great. What am I supposed to do all weekend? Shuffle in from the passenger side?

I begin bitching over the phone about not being able to get in my car all weekend and that it’s less than a year old. He suddenly changes his tune and says for me to bring it in as soon as I can and he might be able to squeeze me in today. Only, it still wouldn’t guarantee that it would get fixed, especially if they need to order parts. Also, he made sure to mention that my type of problem doesn’t warrant getting a rental for the weekend. WTF! What am I supposed to do?

I go and talk to my boss to let me leave for a little so I can go over to the deater and bitch them out in person. He agreed and as I go outside, I walk toward the passenger side, preparing to climb in.  I hit the unlocker and I see the lock move on the driver side.  Walked around, and sure enough, now it opens.  I tell myself, “what’s the point?”. I know if I go over there and it’s working, they are just going to send me on my way.  I decide to talk to my boss and told him next time it happens in the morning, I’m going to go straight there and throw a fit for a rental or loaner car.  Maybe they’ll be more sympathetic when I get out of my less then 1 year old G8, Pontiac’s flagship car, via the passenger door.

Ah, feel much better now letting it out.  Sometimes I wonder why the American car manufacturers are having such a hard time selling cars and are in deep trouble with today’s economic slowdown. These dealships seems to be employed by a bunch of uncaring individuals.

If only I had the money!  Two weeks ago I was at the annual Chicago auto show drooling at the cool cars there.  Being a G8 owner (I have a 2008 G8 GT), I had to go take a look at the new GXP.  If only it was in my price range…

No one can complain when there’s an LS3 V8 under the hood with a whopping 402-horsepower.  When compared with my car, they changed up the front fascia and rear diffuser, used bigger fog lamps, and added new side and rear badges to denote that the car is the GXP model.  This car also gets an optional 6-speed manual transmission that is not available on the GTs.

Performance wise, there’s no question that this car is a fast ass 4 door machine.  This car will blast off 0-60mph in 4.7 seconds, 0.6 faster than the GT.

In the car, another feature is available that us poor 2008 owners never had either, XM radio factory installed and ready to go if you use it.  Pricing isn’t set in stone, but I figure this car to come in around the $40K area, or about $8-$10K more than the GT.