Pontiac Vibe Owner's Manual

About The Vibe

One tends not to typically associate compact cars with domestic US car brands, but those who have seen the Pontiac Vibe will know differently. The Pontiac Vibe is a compact car first created back in 2002 for the 2003 model year. It is most notable for being a joint project by General Motors and Toyota, and manufactured at their joint site in Fremont, California.

The Vibe was one of the last cars ever produced by Pontiac as the brand was discontinued by GM in 2009, along with the factory in California where the Vibe was produced in. That facility was famously taken over by Tesla, of course. Despite not being the great success story of GM, the Pontiac Vibe did survive through two generations, the first from 2002 to 2007, and the last from 2008 to 2010.

This car was created to appeal to different market segments, with a budget-friendly base model, a mid-level model with an all-wheel-drive feature, and then a more powerful GT model. The powertrains were 1.8-liter gasoline 4-cylinder models paired with either 6-speed manual transmissions or 4-speed automatic transmissions.

Those who have noticed a distinct similarity between the Pontiac Vibe and the Toyota Matrix are quite astute, in fact. The Toyota Matrix — later the Corolla Matrix — was the Toyota equivalent vehicle made and sold in the US market. From 2002 to 2004, a right-hand-drive version of the car was made and sold in the Japanese domestic market, too, known as the Toyota Voltz. This model, however, was not popular and was discontinued after just two years of sale.

The second generation Vibe model of 2008 brought considerable change, including a sharpening up of the exterior image, which gave a cleaner, brighter overall look. A larger 2.4-liter engine was offered, and more modern features such as computerized traction control and ABS were added in.