Pontiac Solstice Details And Review | Was The Pontiac Solstice Gone Too Soon?

[Music] hey guys welcome to today's vehicle visionary I apologize for not having put much content out as of late and it's obvious why with all the issues with the Cova 19 and all the problems and restrictions that that's created it's been a little bit harder to get to some of the dealerships and do what I normally do but thankfully a friend of mine has loaned me her 2009 Pontiac Solstice and we're going to take a look at this really interesting cart today and something I had never really paid a lot of attention to until she picked this up and I've been able to work around it and look at it and drive it and it's actually a very interesting little car with a very interesting history I hope all of you are doing well right now tell me in the comments how you're doing and what you're doing to stay sane so to speak if you're stuck in the house are not able to go about doing your normal activities hopefully this video will help provide some release from some of the stress and strain that maybe you've been dealing with I appreciate all that you guys and hope you're doing well so let's talk about the Pontiac Solstice that was produced for the 2006 through 2009 model years and when it was initially released for order you would have thought that it would have lasted a lot longer that and I'll tell you why if you don't already know why this car was eventually not built anymore after just a few short years but here's the interesting start that this car had when it was initially made available for order within the first 10 days of that availability there were 7,000 orders made and throughout the next few months there were another 7,000 or 6,000 orders I should say total and so the car took off very quickly and it is obviously a great looking little car it has some very nice racy looking lines and it's fun to drive I'm going to take you on a test drive later on today and show you how well this little solstice actually hugs the road it's very very impressive so with such a strong start so many orders what ultimately happened why was the solstice only produced for just a few years basically starting with the 2006 model year through 2009 which is what this one is well it all had to do with the housing crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that was experienced as a result and as you probably know General Motors of course closed to the Pontiac division basically did away with it and that is why this car was not produced any longer than it was I have to wonder would GM still be producing the Solstice what would it be like today what would it look like what kind of horsepower would it be putting out speaking of that let's open the hood and talk about the two engine options that were available if this was something you wanted to pick up back when it was available new there are a lot of positives about the Pontiac Solstice but there's also some negative quirks if you want to put it that way it has great styling it handles great and it accelerates somewhat well the car weighs a little under 2800 pounds so acceleration definitely is not a problem even though the horsepower numbers are not ultra impressive although back in the timeframe when this car was built you didn't have as many vehicles making such high amounts of horsepower as we do right now so some of the negatives about the car are the fact that the top is a bit finicky to handle and I'm going to show you how to put it down and put it back up as far as this convertible top goes storage space is very minimal and a little bit awkward you have to be a creative person to maybe fit more things into the trunk that in and of itself is a little awkward to deal with because the trunk lid opens in the opposite direction of what you would expect kind of like the hood here does on the front end speaking of the hood under the hood of this particular model is the 2.4 liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder that puts out 177 horsepower and 166 footpad of torque this model is mated to a five-speed Automatic transmission but you could have a 5-speed manual mated to a two liter turbocharged four-cylinder and it made 260 horsepower and 260 foot-pounds of torque so obviously there was going to be a different driving experience if you had the more powerful of the two engine options and keep in mind this car does not weigh a whole lot but overall it is a pretty interesting little car and it's a lot of fun to deal with that is until you start trying to put the top down let's take a look at that and I'll show you this interesting process okay let's talk about the steps to putting the top down and storing it away here in the trunk it's not that terribly difficult necessarily but it is something that is not automatic at the same time it's all done manually and you're supposed to lower the windows on these doors just a little bit if not all the way the way I have them here although I have discovered that you can actually lower the top down with the windows all the way up just depends on what you want to do but the manufacturer recommends that you lower the windows just a little bit it is what it is I've discovered that that's not necessarily true so once you've done that you will have to open the rear trunk up and that releases a couple of pieces on each side that allow you to actually move the top and store it into the trunk area itself but of course there is one latch on the top itself just above the rearview mirror that you're going to have to move out of the way and you're supposed to actually store it with that latch undone don't put it back in place there's a hook that actually sticks out and that could get damaged or maybe do some damage to the top or other areas of the interior of the trunk there if you leave that exposed so make sure to leave that open in that open position after you unlatch it and then it's just as simple from the inside of the outside there's a little bar on the top itself here that you're supposed to use to actually move it and so you can push on that from the interior or just reach in through the window and move that the tops not that heavy and then you just store it down in place but there's one more thing you're gonna want to know about once you have it removed the top and put it back here to store it it's still not all the way down in fact you have to press down on it good little bit to make sure both sides are down I'm doing this from one side but you can walk around to the other side to do that and don't ever put the trunk down the trunk lid down from one side or the other so let's talk a cargo space I said that was definitely lacking in this particular car and it ranges between 2.1 cubic feet and 5.6 cubic feet and honestly it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the way the rear truck here is configured but obviously with the way it's set up and everything is configured back here there's just not a lot of space one thing I do find rather interesting and whether or not I could fit in this trunk I don't know I haven't tried that and I don't know that I'm going to you'll find out on the screen here in just a minute if you see me trying to get in here and if I fit or not but I will say this there are a couple of interesting items to note back here one being the fact obviously there is no spare tire for this car so there is a little repair kit you can air a tire up if you need to right here and that's available it just has its own little compartment back there where you can strap that in make that stay in place that's available if you need it now what would happen if somebody got stuck inside the trunk area here with the lid closed well hopefully their head would be facing toward the left-hand side of the car because that is where there is a release it's found right here just across from where your air pump is located your tire repair kit and so obviously if somebody got trapped in here well let's just hope their feet aren't facing the left-hand side of the car because they would never be able to reach anything over here maybe there should have been one on each side not that there have been a lot of reported cases of people getting stuck in the trunk area of the Pontiac Solstice now that I've made my way into the interior of the Solstice I'm 5 foot 10 and have a seat set where I would drive this car and the interesting thing about it depending on your height the owner of this car is a little shorter than I am she's I don't know what her height is but she's definitely not five foot ten and so in the position where I had the seat set right now she would be too low but when you move the seat forward it actually moves forward and up so there is an advantage to that if you happen to hop into one of these if you find one and you're interested in buying it she had the same experience that other people might have were the first time she hopped in it the seat was back it was lowered you know like I say those two things work at the same time simultaneously so she said I'm not gonna be able to see out of this car but then she adjusted the seat and it moved forward and up and she has no problem driving this car whatsoever you do actually have some steering wheel mounted controls things for cruise control or buttons I should say for cruise control adjusting the volume on the steering wheel you can actually answer and hang up on phone calls and there are a lot of bits of information you can run through on the dashboard on the right-hand side of the dashboard on the lower part of the tachometer that will give you a lot of information about gas mileage oil life things like that and it's really a pretty simple and basic interior with all of your buttons and switches here the air conditioning is controlled right here just under the two middle air conditioning vents and that has one big advantage to a smaller car like this if you're running the air or the heat depending on what's necessary it tends to work really well because you don't have a lot of cabin space to cool or to warm one thing I will say the screen for your radio with the clock and all the information on it right there depending on where the Sun is and how the light is shining it can be very difficult to see at times just a little something to consider here and there is a 12-volt power outlet right here and that is primarily for that inflation kit that I showed you in the truck that is powered through the vehicle itself it's not actually battery-powered which is a good thing we've got the Solstice out here on the road and I've better mind my manners because the lady who owns his car is holding the camera and so I better be good but actually I think she wants me to drive it kind of the way I know how to drive so we're going to get up here if you watch me regularly you know that this is my regular route when I'm out in this part of town and that means we've got some nice corners to go into and see how the Solstice handles now I will say if you're looking for a high-horsepower vehicle I know I gave the numbers earlier as far as the horsepower and torque it's not super fast but I'm going to tell you what the way it handles and the way it drives is like a go-kart I mean the steering is nice and tight we've spent so much time getting this car cleaned up now and everybody's moving their grass today here's another one we're gonna have to drive in the drive like I'm in England in the wrong lane there but anyway the handling of this little car is just incredible and being that it's an 11 year old vehicle the previous owner took very good care of it I believe my friend is the third owner of the vehicle and so but one thing you will notice there is some road noise so I'm going to step on it here a little bit a little bit of road noise but you know what for the way it handles I can't complain at all if you're looking for something that just handles well and drives well and responds to your touch this is a really good car I mean 177 horsepower is not much but being that this car weighs 2,700 pounds it's really fun you really don't know the difference in the lack of horsepower because of the fact that this little car handles so well the steering is really tight and part of that is probably the fact that this car has not been driven a whole lot so it doesn't have a lot of miles on it and so the steering is just super responsive tell me about about your solstice if you have one how how does it respond to your touch how many miles does it have on it and if it's a somewhat high mileage vehicle tell me how it handles so here we go into a pretty good little corner here not even letting off one little bit I'm cruising along pretty good and I mean this thing is just hugging the road that is absolutely incredible Wow I am very impressed I'd almost like to turn around and go and do that again just because that out of all the times I've gone through that quarter in different cars this has to be one of the absolute best handling vehicles I've taken through there and I'm not going to say how fast I was going but I was going a little bit above the speed limit to save at least and you can probably tell by the shot on the camera that really this car just didn't even hardly move there was no body roll in it I mean I could it kind of moved over just a little bit I could tell that it wasn't it we were in a sharp corner and part of the help there is the fact that the seats here are very well bolstered I mean for even when this car was brand new the price wasn't that terribly bad and there are a lot of cars I've driven in the past that were more high-performance sports cars then this one is that have the bolstering that these seats have so really there is just a great added advantage right there but of course the overall steering capacity and capability of the Solstice made driving through that corner super super simple somebody get out here and give you a little bit of an example of acceleration here hopefully there's no cars coming and that's good there's not so we can get out here and I can step on it a little bit of road noise but honestly that adds to the feel and the fun of driving a vehicle like this having that extra sound it's it's fun okay guys that will bring to a close my time with the 2009 Pontiac Solstice I really appreciate all of you for being kind enough to take the time to watch and for supporting my youtube channel here with vehicle visionary make sure to hit the like button if you enjoyed this video that tells YouTube that they need to put this video in front of more people to enjoy and share it on your timelines on social media leave me a comment and let me know that you were here tell me how you're doing tell me what's going on in your world during this time in our lives and if you haven't subscribed just yet please be sure to do so I would really appreciate that thank you all for your time today and I will see you next time on vehicle visionary [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Vehicle Visionary

Views: 36,744

Keywords: pontiac solstice, pontiac solstice review, 2009 pontiac solstice, can a person fit in the trunk of a pontiac solstice, solstice cargo space, vehicle visionary tom tompkins, 2008 pontiac solstice, tom tompkins vehicle visionary, 2006 pontiac solstice, solstice trunk space, vehicle visionary, solstice pontiac, pontiac solstice trunk, 2007 pontiac solstice, pontiac, solstice, mazda miata, sports car, saturn sky, In-depth review, in depth review, Pontiac trans am

Id: dQR6MEQa4VA

Length: 16min 26sec (986 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 30 2020