Ummm… Even with a Honda-esque heft in the wheel…

Ya still looking at DIRECT competition from its brother.. THE AURA.

Beefer steering?
6spd manual tranny…
And improve the materials on the door panel?

Thats all you got?!

I hate to tell ua… I am A D R I V E R. (That means I dont spend my time at 60mph, with my left hand on the door, falling asleep to Barry Manilow). That involes putting the car through its paces, taking corners tightly at speed, it involves actually working the wheel, the front suspension and the CVTs. It also involves being agile and moving around the behmoths (Tahoe, Expedition, Burban, TB). My Accord isnt just a scooter. She is one screamin DEMON! I do 138.6 mi A DAY commute, and the ABSOLUTE last thing I want, is to be stuck in some vehicle where it just drones on.

How bout ya lighten the weight by about 500-100lbs.
Cancel EITHER the AURA or the Malibu (ya got each other to pick up the slack, not to mention the Impala) and really start giving it to the competition.

And.. SS Malibu, is never happening. They destroyed that brand by giving it to every HACK out of GM. All the while stifing PONTIAC with SS competition.

Face it.

Malibu cant hack the midsized game, while being over shadowed by Impala AND its brother the AURA.

If GM really wanted conquest sales from Camcorders, give the people a Hyundai-esque 10 year/100k mile powertrain warranty, while you’re at it, Chevy.

It’s a smooth and quiet commuter scooter with 4 doors and a pleasant enough interior.

Coming from a fun running SVT Focus, I can attest to the novocaine like ride. But it’s a long commute, the roads are crap, you all know the drill. I didn’t buy this for fun. I bought it to cushion my aging posterior on the Chicagoland roads.

I even bought it in what I call “Appliance White”. It blands right in to the lemminglike bustle on the roadways.

Strippo said:
“As someone who drives a properly configured Miata,”

Zero degrees toe all the way around with you in the drivers seat while the alignment is done? Hell yes. Someday I’ll do it again. :-)

Ummm, didn’t you get the news…

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention enough to the GM warranty deals. Are you telling me that all GM products now include a 5 year/100k bumper to bumper warranty as standard, at no additional cost, like Hyundai used to? A warranty that covers every single component on the car?

I can tell you that the Chrysler Lifetime warranty is very specific about only covering a few components.

Short sighted? Maybe. Or maybe I haven’t been looking too hard after one too many bad experiences with GM products and dealers.

I’m willing to rent one using taxpayer dollars, but not buy one using my own.

Hmm American Taxpayer dollars, official government travel, renting an American vehicle, but would rather buy euronese I bet….

And we wonder why we are in the situation we are in… from a government employee nonetheless…

GOOD JOB!

I recently rented a Malibu on a vacation to Maui – first impressions were literally “holy crap, this is a Chevy?”

It was a decent enough drive to schlep family around the island. It drove well through the twisties on the way to Hana, very controlled, no floaty-ness. On the way back up, I was pushing hard to get back quickly, and pretty much was able to pass everything else on that twisty, one-lane road occasional despite light rain. The only guy who passed me was a local in a Subaru.

The drive up the mountain to Haleakala was a little scarier – not as precise as you would need for a white-knuckle hill-climb through the fog. I sorely missed having a manual on the way _down_ – it was a pain to use the paddle-shifter to drop a gear on the downhill curves.

The interior was good to look at. Materials were cheap, and some of the finish was iffy – panels didn’t line up perfectly in a couple of places, but I guess that is par for this range (my daily driver is a CL550, so make an allowance for that).

Lots of room in front (I am 6 foot 1, and not thin); it was a little more cramped in the back seat. Big ass trunk, took all the luggage and then some.

Visibility was a minus – thick a pillars, huge c pillars, tiny rear-view mirrors. Not a good combo.

All told, I was pretty impressed with GM’s effort, but I think it is a bit late to save them now. If they do survive, this is the kind of car they will need to build – at a minimum.

To extend your decidedly short sighted “logic”, Chevy has 100k/5year warranty while Honda has 60k/5year. Moving up to an Acura gets you an additional 10k more worry free warranty miles and one more year to use them. BMW is 50k/5year. Toyota is 60k/5year. Volvo is 50k/4year.

Clearly Chevy is better than all of those brands since Chevy offers a better warranty…… by your logic.

What I want is a real 10 year / 100k warranty from GM. And not a BS warranty like the Chrysler Lifetime where they cover a handful of parts that would never break while excluding most everything else. The last thing I want is to feel tricked by basically a fake warranty. No, I want a real warranty where GM will fix any leak, parts failure, or electrical gremlin up to 100k miles.

I’ll do Mr. Montgomery one better and assume that the Malibu is much better than the Accord, Camry, and the other vehicles. That’s still not enough to get me to look at it. I’ve been stiffed by GM before and I need that 10/100 warranty or I won’t even slow down as I cruise past their dealership.

I just can’t understand why GM is not giving us the warranty if their cars are as good as they say. The only logical conclusion is that the cars aren’t that good.

This is Genius. Did you come up with that? or have you heard it before. Pecause if you have, my hat’s off to you… you have put in words what I always thought of myself. powered by the most complex non Piston/rotary powered engine in the world. now I know the true specs…..

keep those comparo’s coming, althought not scientific but truly relevant to everyday buyers…

I found myself in one of these as a rental and was really pleased that I was riding in a cheap, quiet, solid and comfortable American car. Kudos Chevy.

However, I have been continually dismayed at the use of the photos in all the reviews. It’s especially evident here, the reviews almost always use press photos or manufacturer’s photos, and not photos of the cars that were reviewed. This isn’t very “Truth about Cars,”, especially if you want to point out the cheapness of one trim interior over another. I’m sure the Malibu in this review didn’t have two-tone leather as pictured.

Many people have mentioned that the Malibu LS looks stripped-down compared to the other models, including the pictured LTZ. I don’t disagree, but I wanted to point out that there have been some improvements to the appearance of the LS model for 2009. For one thing, they got rid of the awkward looking 16″ steel wheels with ugly wheel covers that just seemed too small for the car. The LS now comes standard with the 17″ “fascia spoke” wheels, which may not be true alloy wheels, but are still more attractive than most other wheel covers out there. Another thing, the LS is now available with the cocoa/cashmere two-tone interior, whereas it was previously only available in titanium, better known as “rental car gray.” All that being said, if I were buying a Malibu I’d still want the additional features available on the LT model. But I’m not buying a Malibu, so I guess it really doesn’t matter.

don’t forget Hyundai…

also – for the original purpose of this comparo:
still missing the sonata.
For the cost conscious buyer, worth the look.

RIX:
check out the vw jetta wolfsburg
2l turbo, 6 speed manual, msrp ~ 20k.

If you can’t drive a fun, tossable car, then what’s the point of rowing your own gears? Wanting a manual version of a family sedan is kinda like being intrigued by the effort that would be involved in trying to kiss your sister.

Honda, BMW, Volkswagen, and yes, even Ford are willing to cater to those folks. For those of us who don’t experience dissonance in these attributes, it certainly affects which dealers’ showrooms we’ll patronize at car replacement time.