The Volt that was the subject of last week’s COAL entry certainly did its job for GM. It brought me into the showroom to look at cars that I’d not even considered previously, as my memories of GM cars were from the distant past. When I was looking for something to replace the IS250 at a much lower price point, my first stop was the Chevy dealer.
As I had alluded to in previous entries, we had actually looked at the Malibu when it first came back on the car scene in 1997. We considered both the Malibu and its badge-engineered brother, the Olds Cutlass (a somewhat sad last gasp for a storied nameplate). At the time, I’d judged these cars to be perfectly fine transportation modules, but perhaps a bit rough around the edges and a bit too expensive for what you actually got. I recall that one of the big selling points was the small indentation next to the console mounted shift lever where you could store a pen. We bought a Camry instead (and some would argue rightfully that these were also transportation appliances). I didn’t give GM cars another thought until leasing the Volt, which favorably impressed me with its quality, styling, and overall ownership experience.
When I was seeking a low-cost replacement for the Lexus, I was looking for something that would be reasonably reliable, acceptable to look at, and reasonably well equipped. Since I was still spending most of my commuting time sitting in traffic at 20 mph or less, the car didn’t have to be super fancy or handle the Nurburgring in seven minutes flat. It just had to be cheap to lease, and the Malibu filled the bill. Thanks to aggressive lease deals, I could get one of these for less than half what I was paying for the Lexus every month, and insurance was cheaper too. At this point in my life, that was what counted most.
The Malibu I picked was the volume leader LT model, one step up from the fleet favorite LS and the vehicle of choice for many a rental car company. (Ironically, although I was traveling quite a bit for work during the time I owned this car, I never ended up with a Malibu rental car, oddly enough.) The specific car I picked was in refrigerator white with a gray interior – I am surprised the car didn’t come with rental car barcodes already in the window. It did come with a relatively large color infotainment screen with iPod connectivity and voice activation, so the dash didn’t have an embarrassingly tiny LCD screen that reminds you about how little you paid for the car. Oddly enough, the car came with a power driver seat but only for the height adjustment – the fore and aft adjustment was still manual. Other features were the usual expected amenities for any car today – ABS, air conditioning, traction control, automatic headlights, 6-speed automatic, etc.
The engine was a naturally-aspirated 2.5 liter 4-cylinder making 197 hp, perfectly adequate for a car of this size but a bit noisy when pushed hard. Handling was inoffensive and the electric power steering was somewhat light, but ride quality was good. Contemporary reviews of the car made note of the somewhat tight rear seat legroom, but since I was coming out of the IS with virtually no rear seat room and fairly constricted front seats, this car’s accommodations presented no concerns for me. The interior was functional but certainly not opulent – the seat cloth was sturdy and the bolsters were vinyl, as I recall (the first car I’d had with any vinyl seating surfaces since my Monte Carlo). I could have done without the obviously fake woodgrain, but it gave the car that ‘70s Malibu Classic vibe. The instrument shape was what some called a “squircle” or a circle inside a rounded square – the same shape was picked up with the taillights, generally. I liked how the car looked inside and out, but it certainly wasn’t going to be picked by a valet to park right up front at a fancy restaurant.
I’d love to give CC readers an exciting description of my three years with this vehicle, but I’m afraid nothing that memorable comes to mind. The car got me back and forth to work every day, took us on several trips, and presented us with no problems in 36 months and roughly 30,000 miles. I didn’t get into any accidents but was certainly confident that the car would do OK based on my Volt experience. The biggest unscheduled expense was a replacement tire, but that was because we moved into a new house in a newly-constructed neighborhood toward the end of my ownership period, and the builders could be a bit lax with getting scrap nails and staples into the trash bins. At one point I got a message on the information center display that the electric power steering was faulty, but cycling the engine on and off made that warning disappear and it didn’t return. The only other complaint was that the infotainment system couldn’t deal with my 160 GB iPod Classic – it couldn’t catalog the 20,000+ songs on that device, something that the Kia and Lexus vehicles could do. (First world problems, to be sure.)
One could gather from this rather short entry that I wasn’t a huge fan of this car, and I probably wasn’t. On the other hand, since it wasn’t any sort of dream car I felt fine with leaving it outside all the time to save room in the garage for the Thunderbirds, and didn’t get too concerned during a period when we had to live in a temporary apartment with less-than-optimal parking while we waited for the new house I mentioned to be completed. It did its job well, it never left me stranded or annoyed me with any odd quirks, and still looked reasonably good when I turned it in at the end of the lease. I guess as I get older I worry less about what the car I’m driving says about me, and I have plenty of fun with my old Fords anyway. We’ll see in the upcoming weeks that the ‘Bu’s replacement was equally inoffensive but represented a bit of an achievement anyway. More to come…
“Contemporary reviews of the car made note of the tight rear seat legroom,”
No, contemporary reviews of the car (especially that other autoblog site) absolutely obsessed over the supposedly tight rear seat legroom, to the point of deciding that this car was the worst POS in the western world ever. And nothing else about the was that was right was allowed to override this damning proof of complete GM incompetency, which only went to show that the company was still completely incapable of doing anything right. Again.
After the previous generation Malibu, which had amazed the auto publishing industry of actually being (for that moment) better than any of its competition (how unlike GM), it was as if there was a desperate need to put GM back in its place as a constant purveyor of uncaring incompetence. And the bloggers went overboard.
I’ve never driven or ridden in one of these. My total memory of the car is an eyeball-rolling, “Oh, here we go again.” every time the car came up on some auto site.
It was mighty dumb of GM to bring out a new generation of sedan in this highly competitive class with less leg room than its predecessor or its competition.
What else were the reviewers supposed to say? Its other characteristics were all ok.
You do realize that GM chopped 4.5″ from the wheelbase of this car in comparison to its predecessor? Which came out of rear leg room. And its successor gained almost all of that back.
Who the hell thought it was going to be ok to cut that much wheelbase out of it?
My issue was when they chopped the rear of the car the price Gap between this and a cruze was hard to swallow. Having had both several times as rentals I could almost confuse each other while sitting in the driver’s seat. Add to that I think the Cruze actually drove a bit better.
Syke, I’m inclined to agree with both you and Paul. Cutting the wheelbase so much was a fool move by GM but it really did seem like automotive websites blasted the Malibu as being bottom of the class when it was a roundly competent car.
It’s like how the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Avenger were regarded as bad cars, even after their extensive mid-cycle enhancement. They weren’t bad cars at all (although they were inferior to the Malibu) but it seems everyone needed a whipping boy…
In an extremely competitive market segment like this one, and trying to come from behind, anything less than being at or near the top is not good enough. And the sales numbers confirm that, roundly.
Who’s saying it’s a “bad car”? Not me. But the bar is very high here, as set by the class leaders.
And the Dodge Avenger was still not competitive after any refresh. Sorry.
What do you want the automotive media to do? Look the other way and say it’s wonderful?. Keep in mind that the predecessor Malibu was quite well received by the press, after generations of dud Malibus. So don’t say it’s anti-GM bias. They identified a weak point, which is their job.
Oh, you think the 200 wasn’t bad, eh? You think it was unfairly maligned, eh? Well, I think you’re exactly wrong. I had a thoroughly disagreeable ’16 Chrysler 200 with low miles on it as a rental for about 750 miles and five days in the winter of 2016. I’ll give it this: the driver’s seat is supportive and comfortable for long trips. The analog speedometer is easy to read. That’s where the praise ends.
The electric power steering feels like it’s on a toy kiddy-car (steering wheel not connected to anything).
The controls are clumsily designed: you get turn-dials of almost identical size, shape, and feel, and all located close to one another, for the blower speed, radio volume, and gear selector (Shifters don’t need to be sticks any more because they’re just selector switches, but the dial-a-gear shifter is dumb. Okeh, I get it, they were trying to ape BMW. They failed.)
A random selection of the HVAC controls are poorly-labelled buttons; the equally-random rest of them you have to navigate through multiple menus to access on the touchscreen. None of it is at all intuitive or thoughtfully configured.
The transmission is sluggish to engage and kind of drunken in its shift quality. It’s a 9-speed, by the way. You feel like being on the hook for its overhaul when it fails? Me either, and Chrysler’s reputation in transmission durability is deservedly lousy.
The electric parking brake sometimes requires two switch pushes (pulls) to release (apply), sometimes three, sometimes just one.
The 4-cylinder engine idles with noticeable roughness, much more so than Chrysler’s 2.5-litre 4-cylinder of the ’80s and ’90s.
The blue lighting on the IP isn’t obnoxiously piercing like that on VW products, but the digital speedometer/message center is a damn pain. Push any button that affects it and you get to read all about how you’ve pushed that button for multiple long seconds until it remembers that oh yeah, the driver might’ve maybe kinda wanted to see the speedometer. The tachometer is pointless.
The rearview mirror is this pointlessly giant, chunky thing (it contains no compass, no auto-dim, no reading lights, etc) and it is positioned such that it blocks an unreasonably huge proportion of the view through the windshield. I’m sure the sideview mirrors meet the minimum legal field-of-view requirements…and I’m equally sure that’s all they only just barely do.
The headlamps aren’t abjectly inadequate, but they’re also a whole hell of a lot less thoughtfully engineered than they could’ve and should’ve been for no additional money: way too much foreground light and not nearly enough seeing distance on low beam; high beam almost marginally adequate. Taillamps are functionally pathetic.
But really, none of the above complaints matter at all. Know why? Because you CANNOT TURN OFF THE RADIO. There is no way to turn it off. You can mute it, but only until you next start the engine (or you happen to touch one of a fairly long list of buttons or dials), then it comes blaring back. I looked in the owner’s manual: not a thing on how to turn it off. I looked on Google: lots of threads in the forums with people saying “I just bought/rented a 200, how do you turn off the radio?” and the answer is uniform: You don’t. WHAT THOUGHTLESS CLUELESS BRAINLESS SENSELESS DILLWEED DECIDED AN OFF-SWITCH ISN’T NECESSARY?!!!
The cruise control switches are on the steering wheel…where the cruise control switches were on the Spirit/Acclaim of twenty-six years ago. Right place for them, but the ones in the 200 could not be operated by touch because they all felt alike—not like the ones in the Spirit/Acclaim, which, like that car’s HVAC controls but not this car’s, could be accurately discerned, selected, and operated without looking. Speaking of which, this car feels very much like a direct successor to the Spirit/Acclaim: competent, adequate, and not a bare shred more. Nothing about it is any better than it minimally has to be. It’s only better than the Spirit/Acclaim because people’s expectations, even the bottom end of them, have advanced in the last two and a half decades.
I cannot see buying this car ever having been a good idea. At best it was uncompetitive. For very similar money one could have a very much better Buick Verano, Chev Malibu, Hyundai Sonata, Mazda 6, Subaru Legacy, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, etc. Let someone else take the new-car depreciation, and for similar money you can get a bigger car—Taurus, etc—for comparable money.
(…or maybe I just had a sudden-onset need for a whipping boy…)
I loved the 2008-2012 Malibu. So stylish, quiet, smooth, modern, and roomy compared to the half baked, phoned-in efforts in the prior generations. I remember marveling the display models at the Detroit Autoshow as a teenager (IIRC this model was conceived in pre-bankruptcy GM, when they “couldn’t do anything right”, but this car itself was genuinely impressive). It was a seriously good looking sedan, and driving rental versions in later years only impressed me more. A couple of friends drive very battered, 10-year-old ’08 models, and they still truck along as quietly, solidly, and smoothly as any ’08 Camry does after 150K+ miles. When I was a little kid, the typical 10-year-old GM sedan (Corsica, Lumina, Custlass Ciera) had peeling clearcoat, mismatched hubcaps, horribly rattly interiors, cancerous rust around the wheel wells, exhaust scraping on the ground, sagging headliner, and was basically worthless… but these Malibus’ seem to be holding up vastly better, despite their relatively low status on the automotive totem pole.
The 2013 Malibu wasn’t a bad car in any way, but it was the 1973 Ford all over again. A facelift to a popular and stylish model, only worse. Fat and bloated looking, but on the outside, and not on the inside. A warmed-over version of the prior platform, but with very few meaningful updates besides gadgets and the infotainment system. The shortened wheelbase, and the resulting criticism regarding the rear seat, was such a random and unnecessary decision. Why? The rear proportions just look worse, and it didn’t help trunk room any. I don’t dislike these cars, and they’re certainly capable appliances, but it did nothing to move the nameplate further. The 2008-2012 was such a sharper looking, roomier vehicle and these just seemed to coast off their reputation.
I agree. The prior version was an attractive car. This one, whatever its other merits, is not.
I’ll be the voice of dissent – notwithstanding any actual differences or negative changes in regard to space inside or other attributes, I find this version to be more attractive visually then the prior one which to my eyes looked too long and narrow. This one seems mor balanced. I’ve not driven one of these but had rented one of the prior ones in Hawaii. The prior one did have ample space in the back seat and drove well enough to escape remark, I’m sure this one drives good as well. If the rear seat space did shrink it was likely to protect/promote Impala sales. Is the rear seat space in this car actually bad or uncompetitive or merely worse than it’s predecessor?
And I’ll dissent with you 🙂 I thought this was a highly unfortunate retrograde follow-up to a car that had finally shown that GM could build a competitive car in this very competitive class, as well as a good looking one.
The wheelbase on these is a full 4.5″ shorter than its predecessor. In a class dominated by the Camry, which had a very commodious rear seat.
And the styling is ungainly from many angles; innocuous from others.
I had one of these as a rental in Iowa a few years back, during a major polar weather event. It ran just fine, and the interior (front) was pleasant. But the back seat was clearly not class competitive.
It wasn’t to protect Impala sales; it was cheaper to keep the same wheelbase as the Opel Insignia. In Europe, there’s not as much focus on really comfortable rear seats as there is in the US, which explains why most of the European sedans have shorter wheelbases, like our Acura TSX, which is of course a Euro-Accord, and its rear legroom sucks.
And of course the current Malibu got that missing wheelbase back. One cannot even hope to compete in this class in the US without a roomy rear seat.
I will dissent further. I live with this car and can attest that at my height, 6’0″, I can easily fit behind myself in this car. Admittedly, after 2013, GM scooped out the front seat backs for more apparent leg room, but if you spend any length of time in these cars, they are not as cramped as they were reported to be. I spent a fair amount of time in the back of a Ford Crown Vic, which was less than satisfactory for a car of that size.
What’s not been mentioned is that the original (2003-2006) Uglibu had the same wheelbase, yet no one back then ever complained about the leg room. The slow selling Maxx did have the same 112+” wheelbase (along with the G6 and the Saturn Aura), but no one was raving about any of those cars.
As I recall when the 08-12 Malibus were released, no one mentioned much if anything about the wheelbase. If we really want to be precise about this, the contemporary Camry had a 111″ wheelbase, compared to the 107.8″ for this gen Malibu. It just seems a like a p!ssing contest over 3″ of wheelbase. One can use scooped out seatbacks and shortened rear seat cushions to give the illusion of more room (i.e. Crown Vic). I’ve seen all of the YouTube reviews of this generation of Malibu, but no one ever actually measures or folds people into the respective back seats…
Something to remember about this gen of Malibu that unlike the previous ones, it was meant to be sold worldwide without modifications. So unlike the American Accord which is different than others around the world, the Malibu you would buy in Russia is the same as the one in Australia, as the one in Korea, as the one in Canada, etc.
I’m sure over all of those geographical areas, there are certain taxation and other restrictions, maintaining the “international” Insignia wheelbase probably made the car more sale-able in those areas.
But the missing three inches? Inexcusable.
Something worth noting, Paul, is while the ’08-12 had ample rear seat legroom, it was also quite a bit narrower. So the ’13 did lose several inches in wheelbase but it gained almost 3 inches in width.
I do agree with you on the styling. It’s… odd. Camry-esque from some angles but oddly disjointed from others. The ’15 refresh was a bit of an improvement but overall this generation looked tubbier and more awkward than its predecessor (and successor).
Rear leg room is important. We all remember the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique, another “international-sized” car that suffered immensely because of its tight rear quarters (although, of course, the Malibu was quite a bit more comfortable in its back).
Something to remember about this gen of Malibu that unlike the previous ones, it was meant to be sold worldwide without modifications.
That’s news to me. Worldwide? What markets, pray? Europe? Nein. Japan? Are you kidding? China? That’s Buick’s territory.
Seriously, just what worldwide markets was this sold in?
As to the Malibu two generations back, let’s not even go there. That was of course a total dud, and not remotely competitive.
So GM recognized its mistake and scooped out the rear seats a couple of years later. Bravo! Classic GM. Get it wrong to start with, then trot out the quick fixes.
I’m sorry, but they screwed up, even if it’s in the realm of perception, which is a critical one. The sedan market is hyper-competitive, and anything less than Camcord level isn’t going to cut it.
Paul, this generation of Malibu was sold in Europe, China (where it continues to be sold alongside its successor), Australia, New Zealand, and possibly some other markets.
The Malibu was even sold in Western European markets such as, yes, Germany.
Was it successful? No, not really. But this was indeed intended to be a global offering, sold in as many markets (possibly more?) as the Opel Insignia.
William answered the question about the markets it was sold in. The revision to the seat backs was the next model year, 2014. Surprising agility for GM, I guess. The perceived lack of room was only here on the shores of the US.
Here’s a statistic from the website we love to hate:
“Combined legroom (the sum of official front and rear legroom numbers) for the “big six” midsize sedans are as follows:
Hyundai Sonata: 80.1 inches
Toyota Camry: 80 inches
Nissan Altima: 79.9 inches
Chevrolet Malibu: 79.8 inches
Honda Accord: 79.7 inches
Ford Fusion: 79.4 inches”
Whaaa???? A combined measure of 0.2″ difference? I’ll repeat the earlier statistic mentioned, a loss of 0.8″ in rear seat room alone. How many people can accurately gauge 0.8″ with their eyeballs? I cannot, and I have to work with .0625″ tolerances everyday.
Further down we have this statistic: “Here are the satisfaction ratings for each of the “big six” (front/back) (WRT to perceived spaciousness)
Hyundai Sonata: 96%/94%
Honda Accord: 96%/89%
Ford Fusion: 95%/90%
Nissan Altima: 97%/87%
Toyota Camry: 94%/90%
Chevrolet Malibu: 93%/90%”
Here’s the link to the full post: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/04/follow-up-legroom-in-midsize-sedans/ I’d say Ed did pretty good work with this. It was neutral and gave good statistics and explained the fuzziness in how these numbers were generated. I’d also say it was a wash concerning actual room and perceived room.
If you choose to believe these numbers generated seven years ago, I see parity between this car and it’s contemporaries. This reminds me of all of the YouTube reviewers who complain about a lack of rear seat room in these cars, they offer no actual measurements, they just parrot a line someone else started.
South Korea was also an important market for these, and was built there to boot.
The platform was Epsilon II, which was a global platform.
This is what MotorWeek had to say about the 2013 Malibu: “Despite a four and a half inch shorter wheelbase, most interior measurements are up. Front seats are wide, supportive, and comfortable, and you can feel the additional room in the cockpit, which is almost 3-inches wider. Rear seats are also comfortable, with over two inches of added hip and shoulder room, so just like the Buick Regal and LaCrosse that share the same chassis, there’s more room in Malibu than first appears”
I have nothing on this. I have never even been in one. At a minimum I am happy that GM is once again able to make a competent car.
Your picture with the Thunderbird in the background said it all. At some point many of us get a play car – something that really makes us happy. In my experience that is when the daily driver ceases to be much more than a pure appliance. Its job is no longer to be an extension of you or to tell people about you. Its job is to take care of business untill you can get back behind the wheel of what you really want to be driving.
I’ll “Plus 1” that comment.
I’ve observed too that those people who have an “exciting” or “interesting” car in their lives tend to be more likely to have a “transportation appliance” as one of their other vehicles.
Before I acquired my 67 Mustang, I would spend much time thinking about my next vehicle and what sort of driving excitement and engagement it could bring into my life. Now I think about my next vehicle in terms of monthly payment and resale value along with utility. (Or maybe it was just because I turned 40, lol)
IIRC the 08 Malibu was originally planned as an Impala. When the “new” (Epsilon II based) Impala finally arrived the Malibu had to shrink a bit. Coworker LOVED his 12 Malibu – when an accident totaled it the smaller rear seat ruled out the 15 Malibu he test drove – kids really didn’t like the tight seating.
What can I say? I pretty much agree with most, if not all of the previous comments. However, I will add that the current model does a good job of “picking up the ball” dropped by this model, even if it does look too similar to the current Impala to make you ask : why is Chevy trying to sell both the Malibu and Impala? Yet, the Impala is the (slightly) more striking looking of the two. Though that could be because it is a large car.
I got one of these in 2013 as a rental on a vacation trip to Banff in Canada. We picked it up in Calgary and then drove to Banff in it. I was curious about how ‘the new’ GM was doing, and so I looked the car over rather carefully. It seemed well screwed together and there wasn’t anything obviously ‘cheap’ about it.
On the highway west it was a very good car -smooth, quiet, fuel efficient, and comfortable. It was a fine car for the smooth open highways of western Canada. Score one for GM.
Them we got to sight-seeing in the Rockies and the limits of the car became apparent. We weren’t racing about or pushing the car; we were trundling along going “ooh” and “ahh”. Despite our modest pace, the car was soon overwhelmed by its tasks. The brakes got hot enough to smell, the transmission got clunky, and the engine was always underpowered. I assume was hot too, but there was no way to prove it. The answer was to periodically stop and admire the view and let things cool down.
My conclusion was that GM had built the car for “normal” conditions and that its limits didn’t extend much beyond that. However, after a little reflection, I realized that most people drivng under normal conditions all the time. To build capabilities into the car that most people would never use (or would even know existed) would be a waste of money – like using sheet music for the bottom of the parakeet’s cage.
On those terms I decided that GM did a good job with the Malibu and MdLaughlin’s experience seem to bear that out.
Assuming that nothing was wrong with your rental than your experience tells me that this Malibu is substandard. Normal driving in North America includes a long trip across the mountains and the car should handle this without needing cool down periods even with the AC on. I am thinking something was not quite right with the car they gave you.
I too am not a fan of this generation’s design…that front clip is so “nerdy” looking. The over-wrought Bangle butt doesn’t help things either. The 2008 – 12 Malibu is so much better looking than this.
I loved my 2012 Malibu, probably was dumb to trade in 2017. Looked at the 2017 (old body style like the 2013) but just not make myself like it. btw I think the current Malibu is wonderful.
For a GM product, the latest Malibu was a good car. When their back was against the wall, they put forth a solid effort in what is arguably the most competitive vehicle class (at least for cars).
The trouble is, based on the reviews (and comments here), there are still niggling compromises and issues to where the class leading Camcord still really has little to fear. If I were in the market, as has been traditionally the case with GM, it would still boil down to how much cheaper I could get a Malibu than the others. Even then, I might fork over the extra sheckels for one of the class leaders.
Living in snow country, the thing that I’ve noticed about this Malibu is that it plows snow with only about 4 inches on the ground. The ground effects belong on race cars. That alone knocks it off my list.
My only gripe with this generation is purely aesthetic, and squarely on the taillight treatment. Designers were clearly trying to throw in a Camaro tie in with them, but because of the proportions they ended up gigantic looking and ungainly. And when the .Camaro was refreshed for 2014 the novelty was no longer even there, in fact they made it look dated prematurely.
Other thing is the lenses themselves, they’re needlessly intricate, there’s a transparent red outer shell and the lense areas that illuminate are plain clear inserts, with red diffusers behind, and the overall effect is that they look pink, as if they faded. Oh yeah and the inserts bear a significant resemblance to an 80s G20 van, which I don’t think was intentional.
The rear seat leg room for 2012 Malibu’s is 37.6 inches, for 2013 36.8. Shoulder room is greatly improved as the car is wider for 2013. For 2017 legroom is up to 38.1. The Malibu was on a newly updated platform for 2013. The 2016 Malibu is on yet another new platform.
MD, gotta love those cheap GM leases. I’m currently (more like occasionally) driving my daughter’s 2016 Malibu LS. This had the same body as the 2013-2015 ‘Bus, not the new E2XX, but the Epsilon 2 chassis. I refer to them as Uglibu II, as I had a Malibu Maxx that I called the Uglibu I. She totaled her Equinox, was upside down after the settlement (miles over) and decided to lease another car. Ugh. The LS was the rental grade Malibu, but cars are so well equipped today that I would happily drive the car into the next decade. In fact, I wrote about it several weeks ago on here.
The thing that most people miss about that generation of ‘Bu is that it is incredibly well built. Those cars cure all of the ills of the Epsilon I bodied cars with more power, a stiffer structure, better sound insulation and far better build quality. For the cheapest Malibu you could buy in 2016 the thing is limo quiet, the doors and trunk shut with a nice thunk that I definitely could not get out of my Ep1 Maxx or my current Ep1 G6.
We drove it out to Colorado from Michigan about 18 months ago, it never missed a beat. It ate up the miles like a starving man at a banquet, the fuel mileage was impressive for a car loaded down with my kid’s worldly goods. We got caught in an ice storm in Kansas, the car never put a foot wrong. The seats were great for me, but I can imagine smaller or taller people than me may have issues. I have to laugh about MD’s observation about the power seat cushion but manual fore and aft adjustment; I had the same thing on my Maxx and initally thought it was idiotic. However, we had three different sized drivers in that car and I appreciated being able to quickly set the seat distance exactly where I wanted it using the manual adjustment. To each their own, I suppose, but not a problem for me.
Much and many electrons have been wasted criticizing GM for releasing a Malibu with a shorter wheelbase than a previous model. The practical reality is, the interior measurements between the seventh and eighth generation is tiny. Someone further up mentioned that it was 0.8″, not quite to the point where you’d have to break the kids legs in half in order to get them to fit in the back of the eighth gen car. I’m 6’0″ and easily fit behind myself in my kid’s ‘Bu. The back seat in that car seems to be more comfortable (especially the seat cushion) than the one in the back of a Ford Crown Vic. But hey, it’s GM car, something has to be wrong with it. Otherwise, no one would ever consider a Honda or Toyota, correct?
I’m still considering whether or not I’d try to buy the car when my daughter goes to turn it in off-lease. It’s probably highly unlikely that I could; they go to a Manheim auction for all of GM’s lease returns. I don’t know where this one would end up. Well, someone will get a well maintained base level car. I hope they take good care of it.
Something happened to the original pic I tried upload. Let’s see if this one’s better…
I was very impressed by the overall build quality and solidity of the Malibu I rented in ’15:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/new-cars/rental-car-review-2015-chevrolet-malibu-this-is-the-worst-gm-can-do-now/
They did feel a solid step-up from their predecessor.
Epsilon 2 or E2XX is probably the same by the time this car was built. It may had changed to E2XX when they did the MCA – new grille, seats, turbo engine, etc…
Zeta went through a similar convention. VE is Zeta, VF is Z2XX.
“As I had alluded to in previous entries, we had actually looked at the Malibu when it first came back on the car scene in 1997. We considered both the Malibu and its badge-engineered brother, the Olds Cutlass (a somewhat sad last gasp for a storied nameplate). At the time, I’d judged these cars to be perfectly fine transportation modules, but perhaps a bit rough around the edges and a bit too expensive for what you actually got. ”
You are correct, they are perfectly fine vehicles for going from point A to Point B.
A lot of folks diss this version of the Malibu but there are still loads of them on the road. I hardly see many 97-01 Camry on the roads around my way(they used to be everywhere) but I see at least 2 different 97-05 Malibu and Malibu Classics on the road almost every day.
I think of these as the legit successor of the A-Body for cockroach of the road title