People – at the time – made fun of the Pontiac Aztek. They made fun of it as recently as 2008, when Breaking Bad debuted. Times have changed. We don’t know how good we had it, once.
But we can look back, in order to remember.
When the Aztek came out in 2001 it was derided on account of how it looked. It was easy enough to focus on that because we took everything else for granted. Which we did because everything else was similar and so there was nothing perceived as unusual – let alone exceptional – about the Aztek’s running gear. Which consisted of the following:
A 3.4 liter V6 paired up with a four speed automatic transmission.
Back in 2001, neither of these were – as the saying goes – anything to write home about. Because almost every crossover/family car either offered a V6 or came standard with one and automatics with just four speeds – and so just one overdrive – were just as common. Because one overdrive was all anyone needed.
It was expected – back then – that you’d get at least a V6 in anything larger than a compact-sized economy car or an asking price higher than $25,000.
Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find a V6 in anything with a price less than twice that much. Family sedans such as the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord no longer even offer V6 engines – and $50k-plus mid-sized luxury sedans such as the 2025 Mercedes E350 and BMW 530i come standard with 2.0 liter fours, which are the type/size of engine one used to expect to get in a $12,000 car back in 2001.
This no doubt explains why neither Mercedes-Benz nor BMW have adjusted their model designations to reflect the underhood diminishment. The Mercedes, for instance, ought to be the E200 rather than the E350, just as the BMW ought to be sold as the 520i rather than the 530i. Both of those models’ designations used to reflect their displacements; e.g., a Mercedes E350 used to come standard with a 3.5 liter V6. Similarly, a BMW 530i used to come standard with a 3.0 liter inline six.
Back in the day when they did, you could also get a V6 in a Toyota RAV4 – a crossover about the same size as the Aztek that today comes standard (and only) with a 2.5 liter four paired up with an eight speed automatic transmission.
What is the benefit of those things?
The 2025 RAV4’s little four – which is relatively big by current standards in that most 2025 crossovers come standard with sub-2.0-liter fours and a few come with 1.5 liter threes – produces an advertised 203 horsepower, which is slightly more than the Aztek’s V6 advertised 185 horsepower – but the V6 made more torque (210 ft.-lbs. vs. the current RAV4’s 184 ft.-lbs.) and that probably explains why the Aztek came standard with a 3,500 lb. max tow rating while the Toyota isn’t rated to pull more than 1,500 lbs. – half the towing capacity of the Pontiac.
But how about fuel economy?
Surely – with only a little more than half the engine (in terms of displacement) and eight rather than four speeds (and several overdrive speeds) the ’25 RAV4 offers much better gas mileage.
The Aztek advertised 17 city/24 highway; the current RAV4 advertises 27 city, 35 highway – a gain of about 10 miles-per-gallon overall. So there’s that.
But at what cost?
There’s the diminished towing capacity, for one. But how about the cost of less? The Aztek’s V6 was an overhead valve V6, meaning it had just one cam operating the valvetrain rather than at least two (as in an overhead cam engine of the “V” type). It had two rather than four valves – and no turbo because it was large enough to not need one to make adequate power to move the 3,779 lb. Aztek and allow it to be capable of pulling as much as 3,500 lbs.
It also had a timing chain that never needs regular replacement, unlike the timing belt used in most OHC engines. And it had a cable actuating the throttle, as opposed to a computer (via drive-by-wire). It did not have two fuel injection systems – direct injection to feed the engine and port fuel injection to prevent the engine from crudding up from carbon formation caused by the direct injection; more finely, by the lack of solvent (gas) keeping the stems of the intake valves from crudding up. DI equipped engines often have dedicated PFI circuits just to spritz the backsides of the intake valves.
That 3.4 liter OHV V6 was one of GM’s great workhorse engines. Many of them are still in service even though GM stopped offering them right around the same time that it stopped offering the Aztek (2005 was the final year).
The four speed automatic was likewise simpler and so inherently durable. Both also cost less to fix when – if – they needed fixing.
But perhaps the most under-appreciated aspect of the Aztek is that you got a V6 for the money. As opposed to what your money buys today – even when you spend a lot more money. Back in the early 2000s, the V6 was a middle class engine that many working class people could afford to own. Today a V6 is a lot like what a V12 was back in the early 2000s in that very few working and middle class people can afford a vehicle with a V6, which makes owning one kind of “exotic.”
As pathetic as that is.
Another way to look at it is that if the 2005 Aztek were offered for sale today as a brand-new vehicle, it would be exotic, at least in terms of the size and prestige of its engine.
And that’s a way to remember just how pathetic things have become.
. . .
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How far we’ve come. Ah the Aztek…not so bad after all. Yeah you can still keep it tho.
Built on a minivan platform but with less space than the minivan.
Didn’t it also cost more than the minivan?
Blow Me!
These Aztecs always seemed cool to me and had a lot of great features. They got a bad wrap because some deemed them as ugly. With everyone piling on the bandwagon making fun of them, GM could not sell these Aztecs.
My sister drove hers for 15 years and nearly 200k miles. Her grandson took it over and drove it another 50k before wrecking it.
It looked funky but some people like something a little different.
GM probably should’ve waited another 20 years, put an electric motor in the Ass-tek, and had Muskrat to endorse it. THEN it would’ve been the “best selling vehicle of all time”! lol Just take a look at the Cyberfuck…er, “truck”. Nobody else could get away with selling such a HIDEOUS creation! Oh, but it’s MUSKRAT’S creation, so that apparently changes everything! Because “multi-billionaire ph-ill-anthropist GOOD, everyone else BAD”!
My, how times have changed, and definitely not for the better!
Good point, bluegrey –
And in the Aztek’s defense, it’s not a bad vehicle at all. Very useful and reliable and long lived. It has an 18 gallon fuel tank and so 400-plus miles of highway driving range and can be refueled in about three minutes or so. What is the Cybertruck useful for – other than posing?
It took this many years for the shit boxes to start making the Aztek look like a decent option. We have stumbled off the edge and into the abyss. How long before clean Plymouth K Cars are going for six figures?
Say what you want about the Pontiac Aztek, but it looks like NOTHING else on the road! You can tell what an Aztek is from a block or two away.
Ya sold me Eric. I’ll hold onto my prestigious 2012 slightly rusting, 283 HP Pentastar V6 Ram C/V. “They don’t make ’em like that anymore,” literally. She’s got slightly over 98,000 on the clock and still scoots like a scalded cat. Plus more load floor space, enclosed, than my ’12 Ram regular cab (don’t make ’em like THAT anymore, either) 5.7 Hemi with the 8 ft. bed.
I think my 2013 grand cherokee has the same or similar engine. Pretty strong pushing 300 for just a v6. I personally liked the torque of the 4.0 I6 of older grand cherokees, but the pentstar is proving to really scoot compared to the mass market new cars and has no problem cruising at 90 all day. If I was buying it new, I would have preferred the V8 or diesel, but the pentstar in mine is also flex fuel so I could in theory distill my own fuel of needed, so thats pretty cool too
Yep I have the pentastar in my wife’s Grand Caravan, it’s just a great engine, powerful, efficient, and strong. 28mpg at 70 in a van in decent weather. It has a couple serious weaknesses, mostly the plastic all the idiots stick on engines these days, but these are remediable.
From majestic to pathetic perfectly describes the West and US. From Peaceniks to warnicks.
Sitting here remembering, when as a young lad freshly married buying a Plymouth 74 Sport Fury with a 318 for $3000. In today’s nanny state one cannot get any new car with the features this car had 50 years ago,,, its simplicity and V8 engine without paying mucho inflated fedbucks. Back in that day we made less per hour but had a far better economy. Government has run off the manufacturers,,, started in Calipornia and has spread across the nation like a dark cloud of soot. Destroyed the money and today the US/West makes Sodom and Gomorrah look downright virtuous. Everything , everything(!!!) that’s happened was/is caused by excessive out of control government and a apathetic citizenry.
Only a deep, deep depression has even a slim chance of fixing it. Will America survive? Doubtful. Already the noose is around its neck and it is standing on a teetering stool. Classical economics will call in the mountain of debt and Americans won’t like it.
Back in the before times, your money was worth more, even if you were paid less, gold was $35/oz or so, and $15-20 for groceries enabled eating like a king for a week….
Will the Trumpster turn things around??? We’ll just have to wait and see…
Stay tuned to this channel for regular updates, film at 11pm!!….. LOL
I’d noticed my mpg’s were a little lower than normal in the beloved 2014 Mazda3 2.0L, so I took it in to a local business, HHO Carbon Clean. They use Hydrogen-Oxygen gas to help remove built up carbon. Call it snake oil if you want, all I know is that my mpg’s are back up to usual and the zoom-zoom is back. I didn’t even realize that it had been a dog until they serviced it.
‘They use Hydrogen-Oxygen gas’ — Gary Morgan
Hope there’s a NO SMOKING sign in the shop.
I would stay at least 100 yards away until they call to say ‘job done.’
The smokers at the local medical care facility wouldn’t allow indoor tobacco use. They all sat outside the oxygen tanks next to the building.
Apollo 13 had an oxygen tank failure, had to use the LEM to survive in space to make it back to earth. Oxygen is an important element, especially for human survival.
I’m sure the astronauts celebrated with some tobacco and a Sufferin’ Bastard or two.
Just be glad there is some space in space to be here.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
… weren’t allowed indoor use …
To make it less clumsy.
Remember all the LA smog clouds of the 90s?
Or when Pittsburgh was plunged into daytime darkness in the 80s because of industrial pollution?
Me neither, because when the Aztek was brand new, 95% of environmental problems due to the auto fleet were already resolved.
But government never sees a finality to any of their “problem solving.”
Mark my word, these lithium ion batteries that keep self igniting in perpetuity will become an actual environmental hazard very shortly – if not already.
Correct!
Thank you! Everyone seems to have a case of amnesia when it comes to government edicts.
compared to today’s cars, its not even ugly anymore. It has moved up to ‘unique’ status. But the perception still lingers brining the price of one down relative to the Buick crossover it was related to. That may not be true much longer though
10 years ago I was considering buying an Aztek, used. Bought a Malibu instead for my daughter to drive. Soon traded for a Subaru Outback, it was a good car with a V6.
A Falcon F7 is a cool car at 2785 lbs, 1100 ponies, made in Detroit.
I had no idea a car like a Falcon F7 even existed. Always something new and different.
If you have seen Musk in all of his glory and grandeur, it is a crazy show, dark and Gothic.
Uff da
If it was a good enough car for Walter White, it was a good enough car for me….
Although I always liked the Buick rendezvous version better myself….almost bought the 7 seater version, but the need for a minivan won out overall, due to carrying space behind all the seats.
“[2.5L four] RAV4 advertises 27 city, 35 highway ”
Gas, oil, or both?
We went from “small” V8s to tiny inline 4s. We went from 75 MPH to 55. When the national speed limit was removed and we went back to letting states decide we didn’t get the V8s back. We got the V6.
Even when the ratchet straps are loosened they’re never quite released back to where we started. That’s the essence of progressive politics. “Why would anyone want to go back?” is the cry from the progressive politician. Let’s say that somehow the suppressed science questioning the global warming narrative is allowed to take hold. What then? Will we get our V6s back? Or will we just get differently tuned turbo 4s forever?
Back in the olden times it towing an Airstream with a station wagon wasn’t considered anything extraordinary. You probably needed the 440 cu in engine, and air shocks in the back to keep the tongue level, but that’s about it. Try towing an Airstream with a modern V6 and you’ll clog up traffic for miles and miles. Tow one with a turbo 4? LOL.
“When the Aztek came out in 2001 it was derided on account of how it looked.”
I made fun of it here at EP Autos recently. It is ugly. But, the point of the article is well taken.
‘And that’s a way to remember just how pathetic things have become.’ — eric
Another word which suits is decadence, derived from decay.
Even twelve centuries after the high tide of Rome, its language and culture appeared near-magical to European villagers only recently emerged from feudalism. Humming cross-Mediterranean, ship-borne trade — and traversing the continent on magnificent Roman roads — were only distant memories. Most villagers never traveled more than ten miles from their place of birth.
How does an empire fall apart and recede into isolated villages, bereft of once-common technology, with scribes laboriously copying ancient books which no longer can be written or read by most?
Well, we’re finding out right now. Looks like the year 2000 may have been the apogee of western civ, which won’t even be ‘western’ in a generation or two, after population replacement. Who did this to us is beyond the scope of this post. But look around. Look at the composition of the just-departed ‘Biden’ vandal regime, which gave us a hard, malicious kick down the slope to ruin.
I’m not so sure about that. Yes, the globalists are hell bent on creating Somalia on the Thames and Venezuela on the Hudson, but people are figuring out what’s been lost. So far the boxes have been the soap and ballot, but the inevitable other box selection will come soon enough. Probably not in the United States though. The fact that “our” government has been taken over completely by the globalists is only because we haven’t been paying attention.
‘On a positive note: 100% of [Germany’s] 50 million votes, all on paper ballots, were counted within 8 hours. There was no strife.’ — blogger Bernhard at Moon of Alabama
Versus Arizona and Commiefornia, 2 to 3 weeks to finalize vote counts. This is the very definition of feckless, clueless decadence.
The fact that there’ve been endless historical accounts of the fall of Rome is encouraging. The idea that a message board about automobiles has contributors who mention Pax Romana’s decline and can explain the root causes is cause for hope.
One is reminded of the Catholic church as Europe emerged from the dark ages. Lip service was paid to the church, indeed much of the age of exploration had funding from the Vatican in exchange for providing passage for missionaries. Yes, of course Christianity, but only as much as it doesn’t get in the way of making a buck!
From ‘hope’ to ‘nope’:
https://tinyurl.com/47rzvpm2
Or to put it a better way: the Catholic Church built Western Civilization – Tom Woods.