In Defense Of: The Pontiac Aztek

Andrew Dederer
by Andrew Dederer

Automotive history is littered with titanic failures. For every hot-selling Mustang, there’s a hatful (hateful?) of Vegas, Pintos, Excels, Yugos, Edsels and, of course, Azteks. From its introduction until its timely demise some four years later, the Pontiac Aztek SUV was the subject of journalistic dog-piling and a thousand weak jokes. But really, does it belong in this infamous company? The answer is a bit complicated; the Aztek was certainly a failure, but not exactly in the way you might expect.

First, let’s look at the Aztek’s indisputable failure: sales. Pontiac aimed to sell 75k Azteks a year. In its first model year (2001), GM shipped less than 10k Azteks to private buyers, dumped quite a few thousand on unfortunate middle-managers and sent the rest to the rental fleets. After an emergency re-style, a price-cut and deep discounts, sales climbed to around 25 – 27k units per year, and stayed there until the car’s demise.

The Aztek may have been a car lot pariah, but it was no Chevy Vega. There were no major recalls or horror stories involving melting engines. The model was as reliable as any GM vehicle of its time, cutting edge in many ways (CAD-CAM designed, red light dash, optional heads-up display), outdoorsy (could be converted into a camper, complete with built-in air compressor for your air mattress), lifestyle-oriented (racks for bikes, canoes, kayaks, etc.) and beloved (high scores on “CSI" owner surveys). Despite abuse from all quarters, the Aztek earned itself a group of passionate devotees.

Even so, it bombed. So who exactly gets the blame for this so-called fiasco? Again, there's no denying that the engineers didn’t make it pretty, but they made it well. The UAW also gets a pass; GM built the Aztek (and Buick Rendezvous) in Mexico’s Ramos Arizpe plant. No, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of GM's bean counters. That’s because the Aztek’s biggest problem wasn’t its confused looks (though they didn’t help). It was price.

The Aztek was designed for younger couples and families who didn’t want a great honking SUV. Pontiac priced the Aztek in the region of $25k to $30k. Unfortunately, the price was well into premium minivan and three-row SUV territory. The Aztek offered Versatrak all-wheel drive and a lot (a LOT) of cladding, but it fooled no one. The vehicle its makers labeled “quite possibly the most versatile vehicle on the planet” was priced at least $5k above its logical, non-SUV competition.

Given that most of the Aztek’s technology was off-the-shelf, and south-of-the-UAW labor costs were low, why was the initial asking price so high? When the Aztek was designed, Pontiac had no high profit SUV’s. When their line finally got an SUV (ok, a proto-crossover), Pontiac’s brass were hungry for big profit margins, despite the fact that the Aztek was a more-expensive unitary design. So GM cut production costs as deeply as possible and then set the retail price to deliver big profits while still undercutting Chevy’s mid-sized SUVs (Trailblazer). Great in theory, poison in practice.

Even so, why did GM/Pontiac think they could sell 75k Azteks? Of course, missing a sales target is hardly a novelty in the car industry, especially at General Motors. Even though the domestic automaker pays thousands of researchers huge amounts of money to find out how many people want (or think they want) what, no one has quite cracked that particular nut. The market research leading to the Aztek is locked away, deep inside GM's vaults. Did they ask the wrong questions, or simply draw the wrong conclusions?

GM certainly was on to something with the Aztek's manufacturing system. Like Honda's Odyssey/Ridgeline twins, the Mexican plant could switch between Azteks and Rendezvous. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough demand for either vehicle to make the so-called "flexible" system work. In fact, GM has had some terrible luck with plants capable of making limited production runs, such as the now-closed Lansing facility (Reatta, EV1, SSR). As a result, the majority of GM's business is still built on big runs, with the “extra” (i.e. surplus to retail demand) units going to fleets. The company is still not set up to profit on small volumes for niche markets. Which is exactly what today's fragmenting market demands.

Now that it’s gone, many want to write off the Aztek as one of the great all-time automotive disasters. On the face of it (should you be able to look), it was. But in many important ways, it wasn’t. Again, the model broke new ground in many areas. The epitaph should not be “GM’s Edsel”. Or maybe it should. Edsel Ford was hounded by his famous father and ruined by the stress of holding a disintegrating company together. The Aztek died because it was forced to carry the hopes and dreams of an entire division, when it was just a decent, homely little people-carrier.

Andrew Dederer
Andrew Dederer

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  • Geozinger Geozinger on Oct 15, 2011

    It's very entertaining to read this article almost 5 years after it was published. Most of what I read here is the same stuff that I heard back when the car was still on sale, it's ugly. Very few folks ever criticized anything else about the car, although outside of the styling, it was pretty conventional. We had a 2001 1SC and a 2004 Rally. For whatever reason, my wife loved them. Of course, at that time, we had two young children and we did all of the soccer, scouts, church camps, etc., and this car was great for that kind of thing. At first I was put off by the styling and the fact that it was a little less functional than a minivan (which is what I wanted). But it was functional in other ways I hadn't expected. Not having sliding doors wasn't that big of a deal and the two piece hatch had some advantages. The 2001 had some reliability issues intially, but were resolved by our Pontiac dealer quickly. The dealer gave us a very sweet lease deal on this car. During the time we had the 2001, the dealer was purchased by a mega dealer and the level of service changed, no longer as friendly as the original dealer. In 2003, my wife saw pic of the 2004 Rally and decided to get one. I was OK with this, as the 2001 beyond the initial teething issues, was rock solid. We got a 2004 Rally like the ones in the pictures in this posting. The 2004 had all of the 3.4 V6 issues along with all of the wheel bearing and a/c issues the U body is known for. The deal breaker for me was the catastrophic failure of the torque converter. I no longer trusted the orange Aztek and we traded it for a Malibu Maxx in 2006. So, 5 years later, and I can see the end of days coming for my daily driver. One of the potential cars on my replacement list is an Aztek. Why? Even with all of the stuff I know about them, I have not driven a car with the same kind of utility for the size footprint that car has. It's big enough not to be cramped, but not so large as to be a liability in downtown parking situations. (I work in a downtown location, sometimes street parking is my only choice) The fuel mileage is not punitive, and it will carry most everything I need. The problem is, now these are pretty old cars, I don't know if I want to spend the time troubleshooting one to make it a daily driver. I may have to go with my second choice, another Malibu Maxx...

  • NEStriple NEStriple on Dec 12, 2012

    Unfortunately, my wife and I no longer have a love of this vehicle. We finally had enough after $10K in repair costs between 2004 and 2010 on our 2003. Leaked oil directly off the lot, and took three repair sessions to fix. Blew head gaskets TWICE, once directly after having the transmission replaced in 2010. Bad rocker arm issues, and then had constant overheating issues. We loved it for its versatility, but hated it for the huge hole it dug in our wallets. Our 2008 Highlander has been MUCH more reliable.

  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
  • CanadaCraig I would like for this anniversary special to be a bare-bones Plain-Jane model offered in Dynasty Green and Vintage Burgundy.
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