And I know for sure, because this is my brother’s driveway.
Actually the real Vibe lover is his father in law John, who is the designated finder of low cost transportation for this family. Left to right is John’s Vibe, my nephew’s Vibe and my brother’s Vibe.
The Vibe is the preferred car because of it’s utility, quality and cheap price. John has become quite an expert at hunting down inexpensive Vibes in stellar condition.
This is the back of my nephew’s. No, I don’t know what it transforms into.
It’s a great car for a college aged kid, like a shrunken minivan, perfect for moving a student between home and school. He’s also a certified Vibe enthusiast, and while I was doing my epic trip to the CC meetup in Detroit he was doing an epic trip to the GenVibe meetup in Louisville KY.
The last Gen1 Vibes were made in 2008, so the window is starting to close on Vibe ownership for my brother’s family. I wonder if they’ll all be driving the same vehicle in 2027, and what will that be?
Related Reading:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2005-pontiac-vibe-a-conditional-love/
For being in Michigan those sure are rust free Vibes! When I left New York five years ago some of these were already in the junkyard or driving around with substantial rust. Who knows what they will be driving in the 2020s, however I suspect Vibes/Matrixes will be extinct in Oregon since right now they are pretty rare.
Not Michigan cars, those are Ontario cars. I think they get a rust preventative treatment every few years.
Missing in the photo is my sister’s Vibe, although my shorty Caravan is in the background. I guess I like my shrunken minivan less shrunk.
In Vermont I rarely see a rusty one, even the prefacelift ’03-04s, and they’re popular here. I’m surprised they’re rare in Oregon since Eugene seems to be populated by the same kinds of cars bought by the same kinds of people as Burlington on the newer end (our old stuff tends to be of the red Muschallengamaro summer-toy variety since road salt means no ’60s-80s daily drivers)
It’s a shame the NUMMI experiment couldn’t have continued. The NUMMI Chevys and Pontiacs offered Toyota-level quality at GM prices. But even they had issues, too (the weak 5-speed transmissions).
I guess that was the problem: GM thought they’d be able to get Toyota-level prices for their NUMMI vehicles, and it just wasn’t going to happen thanks to decades of foisting crap on the auto buying masses.
Good thing that the NUMMI plant is still busy, busier than ever it seems, putting together Tesla cars.
Another aspect are the parts prices: Toyota spares for the Matrix are a lot less expensive. I have a couple of Matrix VIN’s ready to order Matrix parts for my Vibe.
What a nice surprise, DOUGD!
Thank you for referencing my COAL on the Vibe. That gives me an opportunity to update on it: 125000 miles, no trouble at all. I gave the headlights a cataract treatment. I still enjoy it a lot.
For some trips we took my wife’s 2010 Ford Focus. (Jason Shafer’s take: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/future-classic/future-cc-drive-report-2010-ford-focus-se-providing-clarity/ ) The Focus’ ride is a little more comfortable and it uses even less fuel. It has better air conditioning and heat. However the seat causes a pain in the butt and I wish for more lumbar support. For that reason it is a toss-up between the two.
I just bought a 2008 Vibe with 17k original miles on it for $4700. I couldn’t turn it down for the price!
The Vibe is a very good daily driver and seem to hold up better than most cars after years of salt-laden winter roads.
They seem to hold up well in Maine too.
WHAAAAAT? dang. I wish I could find a deal like that on one of these!!
Ah the Pontiac Vibe. I had a 2009 Vibe in Mystic Blue Metallic(aka Teal) and loved it for the year i owned it. It was a manual transmission version. I only got rid of it because at the time I only had one car and I hurt my left leg in a fall and it was painful to drive it. That got me thinking that as i get older that a manual trans car should not be my primary car.
I miss that Vibe. With the back seat down, I was able to get so much crap in it(including a washing machine to go to the dump)
I see your nephew is a member of Genvibe? That is a cool forum. My Vibe was featured as the Vibe of the month for July 2012.
As Wolfgang mentioned, I also got most of my Vibe parts from the Toyota dealer (and ebay)
The resale in PMW area is quite high, 2k for a 245k mile example, 4.4k for 112k miles, around 150k mile examples seem to go for around 3.5k dollars. These are all private party offerings, BHPH lots 6-9k! (easy financing forever….)
From the high miles on these cars for sale Vibe’s do have the have the Toyota Corolla durability as you would expect. Doug’s brother has it down on keeping a reliable family fleet on the road for low cost, especially if he is mechanically inclined and/or has a good independent mechanic. I bought a ’95 Prizm for $750 about a year and a half ago (200k miles), only needed a $40.00 u pull dist, front tires, pads and rotors. Has been problem free so far.
I would think parts won’t be much of an issue for many years to come, at least as far as drivetrain goes.
Going on 27 years with the ’86 Jetta and most parts are still cheap and available. Being built from 1984 (Germany) to 2013 (China) has made it still easy and affordable to keep the old VW on the road. I do have a parts car I got for free after a family wrecked her ’89, should be good to go for a long time still. I do my own mechanical work, and MK2’s are easy to work on
It’s not impossible to imagine the Vibe still being on the road in 2027.
I liked my Matrix quite a bit. As mentioned above, would haul a ton of stuff: tall ceiling helped a lot.
There’s a used car lot on a back road near me that has about a dozen Matrix’s and half a dozen Vibes sitting around, all in very nice shape.
Boy, looking at that first picture it is not hard to see who the black sheep of the family is. 🙂 Maybe you need to ask the Vibe Whisperer to find the replacement for the Focus.
That might not work. The Ford whisperer is my father in law, so it behooves us to have at least one Ford at all times.
We can get away with the Caravan because Ford has abandoned the minivan market.
Lots of good vibes!
I have several friends who replaced their Geo and Chevrolet Prizms with Pontiac Vibes back in the day. A couple of the friends were able to use their GM employee/family discount on them. One of them bought the rare all-wheel drive version and claims that it is great to drive in winter.
I’ve owned two of the Toyota cousin to these, and they are great cars, full stop. I’d own a third, or a Vibe, in a minute.
For an almost 15-year-old design they don’t even look all that dated, especially with the matte gray flares and rocker panels for the CUV look that’s everywhere now. Only the taillights and side moldings really date it, or at least the versions built after the 2005 facelift.
Too bad Toyota messed up the 2009 Matrix redesign almost as bad as the xB. Almost. They didn’t mess up the car’s inherent virtues as badly, but they gave it a baffling steel-bullfrog look and there was some cheapening out.
I always thought the Vibe was the better styled of the twins, especially Gen I. Good, hardy cars for sure….
There was a very striking color called mystic blue on the Vibe that seems to be a Vibe only color. It doesn’t seem to have been very popular but every time I rarely see one it just grabs my attention. Just a nice break from a sea of silver and Grey but a variation of them at the same time.
There a number of special colors for short time available. Mystic Blue was one of them, there is also Fusion (orange) and Envy (green).
There was a very bright blue offered on both Matrix and Vibe (Toyota called it Speedway Blue) only in the last year or so of the gen 1 run.
I never liked the Matrix/Vibe twins, nothing seemed cohesive in both Matrix generations’s design and the original Vibe had too much cladding. The second generation Vibe was very attractive however in my opinion.
The design didn’t work for me either until I owned one and found out how roomy and useful they are.
Hi! Happy to see there are people out there who still love and talk about their Vibes. I got to say that the picture is absolutely lovely with all that Vibes in such a nice shape. Back in 2003 I fell in love with a white Vibe almost instantly after seeing them down the road. The combination of white and gray body cladding looked so damn nice! In 2005 I went to a dealer determined to bring home the object of my desires just to got knocked down by the salesman telling me Vibes won’t come anymore with unpainted body cladding. Now,it may sound stupid but I wanted it that way,not the one in monocolor. So that was a really sad day for me. We ended up with a white Caravan that drove us to nearly insanity levels. Now,after so many years,we needed a day to day econo-cute thing to move and I decided to find one. This time I settled for the 2005 white damn little thing and I must say I love it. Aside from the eternal leak in the transmission seal where the axle connects and one or two coils getting me crazy it is a lovely car. Always have felt the salesman tried to sell me the one available at that moment and that he was lying about the paint options. Please take good care of your Vibes so they don’t become extinct ?
My 06 has the unpainted cladding. Sorry to hear about the salesperson and your leak. Beaten and battered it simply won’t die lol
365,000 and running strong.
2005 with 274,000 miles and still running well!
Great cars, my only complaint about them is that the interior is kind of plasticky and contrived. A very accurate harbinger of things to come, though.
It’s a very good thing that Toyota had the 1ZZ-FE sorted out by the time that these came along. I had one of the first in a 98 Prizm. It ran well but had an unquenchable thirst for oil (one quart per tank of gas!), and got mediocre fuel economy thanks to a 3 speed (!) automatic. On the other hand, the interior was great – if I could’ve put it in a Vibe I’d probably own one.
Vibes don’t appear to Rust!!! I’ve personally owned 6 of them and have tracked their progress over the years. Some have been rustproofed, some not. It doesn’t appear to make much of a difference even though we go through tons of salt in Ontario. They also rarely require any maintenance other than Oil, brakes and tires.
Love them..
John,
“designated Vibe finder”
I bought one new in ’03 and put on roughly 90,000 miles with almost no problems. The third owner just replaced the clutch at 140,000.