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AWDReport.com - A Buyer's Guide to All Wheel Drive Cars, Wagons and Crossovers
Under $20,000 | $19 - $21,000 | $20 - $23,000 | $22 - $25,000 | $24 - $27,000 | $26 - $29,000 |
      $28 - $30,000 | $29 - $31,000 | $30 - $33,000 | $31 - $34,000 | $32 - $35,000 | $34 - $38,000 |
           $36 - $40,000 | $39 - $42,000 | $41 - $44,000 | $42 - $45,000 | $44 - $47,000 | $45 - $48,000 |
               $46 - $51,000 | $49 - $53,000 | $51 - $57,000 | $55 - $60,000 | $60 - $69,000 |
                        $66 - $73,000 | $69 - $79,000 | $78 - $92,000 | $88 - $125,000 | More than $120,000 |

  All Wheel Drive Report

CarsDirect.com
2009Pontiac Torrent

Pontiac

Another crummy FLASH site. This one looks like a 17 year old designed it when he just found out there was an application called FLASH that he could use to create all kinds of highly stylized effects. (Ok, a precocious 17 year old...) The home page is marred by the idiotic marketing slogan, "Pontiac is CAR.". What they really mean is "Pontiac is G8, G6, G5 and Solstice, because Vibe is a Toyota, and Torrent is a crossover." The Torrent "Model Overview" page (movie in FLASH parlance) has no overview of the models. Just a single image with 5 blue balls floating around it. And if you go to "Key Features", you don't get any features, you get... OPTIONS! But at least there is a low speed version link at the very bottom of the site that I will use. This site is so bad that on the Torrent "built it section, there is box for the base Torrent priced at $25,515. Checking off the AWD radio button changes the itsy bitsy image, but not the price! Yet mere inches below that box, base Torrent is listed at... $28,105! The AWD Torrent is shown at $31,435. Then, when I clicked on "Compare Trims Side by Side", I got... Key Feature Highlights of the base only, which... lists OPTION packages! The subsequent tabs are, however, good for side by side comparisons. Just bring us there first! This is the most confusing automotive web site I've ever seen. It's even worse than Toyota's was in 2008.

Pontiac AWD Choices

2009 Vibe AWD The 2009 Pontiac Vibe with AWD has a 158hp 2.4 liter inline 4 cylinder motor with a 4 speed transmission. The hoped for manual transmission option is not there for the AWD version. This car is a sister to the Toyota Matrix, and shares that car's Corolla based platform and driveline. This as close as anyone is going to get to an AWD GM car. Although its still called a compact SUV, to me, its a compact wagon. Because it is a joint project with Toyota, it is not shared across the rest of the GM lineup. The baseline AWD Vibe starts at $20,475.
2009 Saturn Vue Pontiac's 2009 Torrent; a 5 passenger compact SUV, comes in 2 AWD variants. The base and the GXP. Torrent sports the traditional Pontiac grille configuration which sets it apart a bit from the Vue and the Equinox. Like its Equinox brother, Torrent's base power comes from the 185 hp 3.4 liter V6 connected to the 5 speed tranny. . The GXP gets the 264hp 3.6 engine and the 6 speed. Again, I find no mention of climate control or air conditioning on the Torrent pages or movies Not even on the Torrent specifications .pdf. I can't even find a way to add it to my Torrent on the "build" section. I guess its not important up near Canada... AHA! I found that A/C is standard only by accessing the GM media website, which I did because I coulnn't find a decent list of standard features... The baselineTorrent with AWD starts about $900 higher than the Saturn Vue at $26,815
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