I swear, some people. Ever notice how a lot of BMW or Benz owners think their cars are simply light years ahead of everything? Crap, we used to have drum brakes in back on the older cars, because the front was doing all the work anyhow, and you really don't want the rears to lock up on you.

I listened to a friend of mine brag about his 7 series bmw for a week. Then we went to Wisconsin for the weekend, and his fancy-pants 'ultimate' driving machine couldn't even keep up with my pontiac.

Excellent way to describe it. We have much more wide open, slower roads, and do not require such powerful braking. Most OEM brakes on any American car do absolutely fine in traffic.

Now, for the people that want to do more spirited driving, there are plenty of aftermarket brake manufacturers out there that can accomodate many different cars. For the most part, the general population doesn't need big brakes.

if someone slammed my brakes at 75 to a dead stop and said my brakes were crap, they would be walking home after being left in the woods somewhere

left in the woods to the sound of a banjo... "boy, you got a pretty mouth..."

I bet you wanted to get him out of the car and kick him in the *** and tell him his pants were insufficient to sustain the force of your big toe.

I thought he was joking! When I realized he was being serious I told him what I thought. I will say this. Driving in Berlin where it is constant stop and go, the brakes
do tend to "fade" just a little. But I am not a granny driver and I don't care if I do a few kack rabbit starts and have to brake. I'm sure I'll need a brake job sooner than most but that'* OK. I'm willing to do that. The car is still a blast here. I took a couple women home the other day and they were all excited to be in an American car! Of course I had to show them that "sound" too! Is that a Corsa exhaust we have on there?

Straight American GM exhaust.

Man, I'd give my left nut to have a GXP. That exhaust note!

That being said, I might actually agree with your German friend. For having 18" wheels and being as heavy as it is, I would have hoped that the GXP would have had bigger rotors and calipers. I understand that the driving conditions of American roads don't compare to open German roads (c'mon, I drive in Jersey), but I think that all components of a car should be rated to perform for the capabilities of that vehicle.

For example, my '95 SE is limited to 108mph (correct? I've never really tried it before). It'* not because the engine or tranny isn't capable of it, but because any faster and you run the risk of the tires exploding. GM can't have lawsuits over things like that happening, even if a person were illegally speeding. If the car is equipped with H-rated tires, then the vehicle'* top speed cannot surpass that.

Now take a look at the GXP with a 140mph speedo. If the car is capable of hauling its *** up there, I would hope that it would be capable of hauling itself back down in a timely fashion. Even a Ford Taurus SES looks like its front rotors have a larger swept area. If you equip a car with 300lb-ft of torque and give it a 140mph top end, you need to be able to sink away that kinetic energy when necessary, and personally, I don't think the GXP'* stock rotors have the appropriate mass to do so.

The one thing that I do think is bull from your German friend is that the car must have cross-drilled rotors. Cross drilling is known not to have any real performance benefits other than weight and cosmetics. In the old days when brake pads outgassed when heated, cross-drilling was necessary, but not today with modern pad formulations. Look at Formula 1, CART, IRL, and NASCAR - the fastest competition automobiles in the world and they don't use drilled rotors.

The only reason I could see the brake system being as small as it is is to reduce unsprung weight to improve the ride quality, but with a performance vehicle like the GXP, the tradeoff should be of small concern. After all, look at the CTS-V - its brake rotors are like pie platters.

I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything. I'm just trying to get away from the "it'* good enough for me" assessments and just look at it from an engineering perspective. I'd love to hear from anybody with a solid mechanical engineering insight as to why GM chose to equip the GXP with the brakes that it has.

Simple, it was CHEAP to do. I'm not saying that GM is into building cheap cars, but when the bean counters take a look at a Bonneville that has been primarily a performance family sedan and not a race car, why go through the added cost of upgrading the brakes so it stops like a race car?

I don't necessarily have an "engineering" answer but as a GXP owner I can attest to the braking power... for a $40K performance luxury sedan on US highways where speed is limited to 70mph legally, where the road quality and debris will most assuredly cause significant damage at speeds faster than 90mph (had a minor windshield rock chip/crack last week traveling at 65 on I-4 in central Florida), and where the skill of your fellow motorists limits you to a very apprehensive 85mph the car brakes really well. I don't think that many of the GXP owners here or on the road have the opportunity or inclination to sustain speeds in excess of 100mph... given the "limitations" any more brake would be overkill...

swartlkk, I would agree that a large motivation was probably cost. After all, GM bean counters are always forcing the engineers to make compromises.

chuckwi11, I mean no offense, but by your logic, the car should not be equipped with a 140mph speedo, 18" rims, or low profile tires if the average American would not be able to utilize their full capability.

I guess as a Pontiac driver and fan, I'm being a little harder on the company because I just want it to do well. With cars like the Aztec and the lackluster sales of the GTO, Pontiac really needs a killer product. Cadillac turned themselves around, and I don't see any reason why Pontiac can't do the same. If you took the STS chassis and reworked it into Bonnie form, and even made our GXP version equivalent to the V-series version, made it cheaper (since you can skimp on some of the luxury items the Caddy would have) it'd be the most kickass car ever made. What I personally don't think is the right track is sticking a hulking 5.3L engine into a front-wheel drive car and expect it to run with Bimmers and Benzes.