If each dealership was making changes to the cars at customer requests in order to sell the cars, then it's anyone's guess of what "original" means.

For example - my friend bought a car and wanted a certain color of wheel not offered on his particular colored car. The dealership swapped the rims on both vehicles, so that now both cars were being sold new with "options" that were never factory options. 20 years from now if someone wants to restore the car to original, then there's not really documentation there about the swap.

Now think if they start swapping engine parts from one car to another, or had a bunch of extra parts in their service area. A person could buy a new car, request different options be added to the car, and then the history of how the car was originally purchased gets "lost" over the years.

I'm still going to get the PHS on my car when I get off my lazy butt - I think they have some valuable information about how the car started life. I just think it's incomplete, due to the dealerships messing with the cars before selling them.

As for Amervo's point about sales volume - yes, I worked for a dealership (in sales) for a while. Basically, think of it as a volume discount. If they sell 1,000 Pontiacs, they get them say at a 20% discount. But if they sell less than 1,000 they only get a 15% discount. That 5% difference can really add up if they've sold 950 cars. They could give the last 50 cars away just in order to get the higher discount from the factory - and still come out better. That's why you see dealerships making crazy deals on some cars say at the end of the year, or usually, at the end of the month. They'll give you a great trade in value, or throw in free options, etc etc just to move a vehicle in order to get their sales numbers up.