Pontiac G8 2008-2010 - Looking at buying a G8 GT

Wife is ready to trade in her Traverse for a G8 GT after letting her drive my buddy's car. We are looking at an 09 GT with 26,XXX miles on it. It is located 500 miles from us, is there anything that I need to pay particular attention to, other than the normal used car buying tips?

From my understanding, there is the front control arm issue, strut bearings and soft shifts. Anything that I am missing? Advice? I have looked through a couple of pages on here.

Mods will be basic as it will be the wife's car for a couple years. Catback, intake and tune.

Is it possible to disable the DOD completely with a tune? Any negative side effects? I thought I seen somewhere about the DOD neg. affecting the lifters?

I am amazed at what they are still going for. Holding their value is an understatement.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Wife is ready to trade in her Traverse for a G8 GT after letting her drive my buddy's car. We are looking at an 09 GT with 26,XXX miles on it. It is located 500 miles from us, is there anything that I need to pay particular attention to, other than the normal used car buying tips?

From my understanding, there is the front control arm issue, strut bearings and soft shifts. Anything that I am missing? Advice? I have looked through a couple of pages on here.

Mods will be basic as it will be the wife's car for a couple years. Catback, intake and tune.

Is it possible to disable the DOD completely with a tune? Any negative side effects? I thought I seen somewhere about the DOD neg. affecting the lifters?

I am amazed at what they are still going for. Holding their value is an understatement.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Your pretty much spot on as far as complaints go. The tune will wipe the soft shifts out. I recommend heading over to the g8 forums... grrrr8.net and g8board.com for way more info on the car.
You can turn off DoD with a tune, however the crap parts are still in there obviously. I had mine disabled for 7000 mils with no issues, I have now put a cam in so I replaced all of the DoD stuff.

Have a look in my horror story thread. Got the car with 19k miles, certified pre owned. So far heres what we have had done under warranty:
All 4 control arms
Strut bearings and mounts
Caster arms
Multiple alignments
Replaced right side cat converter
Worried the tranny may have issues now


Moral of the story, look it over EXTREMELY well. If the car has any pops or clunks from the front and isnt perfectly aligned and drives straight, pass it up. Its nothing but headache otherwise.

Oh and dont buy it from a Stoops dealer in Indiana either!!

Tainted, I read your post last night before making the new post. I feel your pain as I had a similar story with Toyota. After 14 tries they gave up repair attempts and the last thing I heard from their Regional Man. was "Sue us."

What DOD are the weak links? I def wouldn't mind doing a mild cam swap later down the road.

The displacement on demand is the weak link in general, mainly the lifters. Next weak link is the rear. Either upgrade to a GXP or camaro diff.

My only complain is the DOD stuff mine is dissabled and been that way since right after i bought it i'm just now doing the DOD delete and other mods i have had no real issuse with the car i got 75K on it and its been a good fun ride this is my daily car and i wouldn't trade it for nothing

Awesome, we are looking at a Stryker Blue GT.

The G8 is a good car overall. I replaced the cam, suspension, and rear so I never experienced any of the common issues. I sold it with 52k on it and it was still going strong. It is a fun car. Definitely do the DOD cam swap, Pedders suspension, and Camaro diff. It makes it way more fun to drive. Stryker Blue FTW!!!

Steering wheel shake, front control arms, electronic issues.

Cylinder deactivation can be disabled with a tune. Changing out the specific parts for it with a kit like Livernois offers and a tune for premium fuel would really wake the car up.

Steering wheel shake, front control arms, electronic issues.

Cylinder deactivation can be disabled with a tune. Changing out the specific parts for it with a kit like Livernois offers and a tune for premium fuel would really wake the car up.


What are the electronic issues? I haven't read/heard anything about those.