My son and I just spent a glorious weekend in Florida for his 21st birthday taking in Yankees spring training games in Tampa. We also saw the Mets play the Marlins near his grand mother's house in Jupiter (west coast about two hours north of Miami) so that meant we had to rent a car to traipse across the (quite challenging to navigate) state of Florida. With an upgrade to a "full size" car, we got to choose between a gaggle of CVT Altima's and Chevrolet Malibu's. Slim pickin's. Since I can't stand CVT's, I begrudgingly threw our bags into the half-open trunk of this Malibu.
I had previously blogged about the at-the-time all-new Malibu and in retrospect, I was on point with 99% of what I wrote. Especially the styling which, just like the latest and from what I understand last Impala's, still hasn't grown on me. Still, with considerable wheel time behind one, I now have the additional perspective of real-world experience to expound upon.
I won't bore you with a long, drawn-out flowery story and I'll cut right to the chase - this car is awesome. Too bad I still find it so ugly.
This little spaceship can do it all and it does it all very well. Handling, braking, acceleration, fuel economy, solid build, ease of operation. Every. Thing. It does everything well except look good. If only Malibu's of yore could do anything half as well as this modern Malibu I'd probabbly use one as a daily driver. Old Malibu's, though, can't hold a candle to this thing. For the record, when I say "old Malibu's", I'm referring to anything made between 1966 and 1977 with special emphasis on 1966 and 1968-1972 Malibu's.
It's not perfect, though, although any foibles above and beyond styling I found had to do with "current automotive trends". For starters, the Malibu has an incredibly raked windshield and "A pillars" making the darn thing harder to get into than a Corvette. I haven't banged my head on the roof of a sedan as much as I did this past weekend since I rented a Volkswagen "CC", Comfort Coupe, several years ago. Like the "CC", the Malibu is all about "coupe styling". Well, this coupe guy and his son would have rather had a coupe. We never opened either of the rear doors so I can't speak to how spacious or not the rear seating area is. They charge a fortune in FLA for specialty rentals like Mustangs and Camaros. Yes. We looked into it. Ridiculous. Besides, with the Malibu's ability to pull G's, what would be the point of a sports car on a weekend getaway anyway?
I also wasn't a fan of the blasted "auto stop" that turns off the engine when I came to a stop at red lights. Take your foot off the gas and the engine magically springs back to life. Really annoying. It was rough and quite obtrusive although it probably helped us get the incredible range we got on little more than a tank and quarter of gas. Take that, hybrids. Ford's I've driven with this feature were much smoother. I've heard you can disable "auto-stop" but I didn't look into it.
TV screens in dashes are clumsy looking and until they start putting these things in front of the driver so the driver can toggle between the speedo and navigation screen, they're going to continue to look out of place. I've yet to see a modern dash with a screen that's either in the dash like this or pops up that looks any good. On our rental, it looked about as good as I think these things can look. Nice job, Chevy.
The infotainment system hooked up easily to our iPhones and were even able to use both of our phones through the car at the same time. My son supplied the tunes while my phone was used for navigation. All the while we were able to use the hands free to call people. My son's playlist being muted when we did so. Pretty cool. This might be everyday to you already but to a family that has a fleet of automobiles with the least old being a 2006 Tahoe, this is Buck Rogers, flying car awesome.
As good as the Malibu is, though, it's apparently not good enough to stem the tide of people moving to cross overs. In a market segment that's shrinking, despite automobiles themselves in general having never been better, Malibu sales are off from last year at this time as are sedan sales in general. Blame a down year after several years of booming sales - car sales are cyclical to a certain degree - and what remains of the sedan segment being brutally competitive. Cross shop the Malibu against a Ford Fusion or the myriad Corolla-Altima-Civic's that are out there and you'll go cross eyed. They're all fantastic albeit, like out Malibu here, as generic as a Bosch dishwasher is compared to a Kitchen Aid. In the end, they're all the same.
If there's anything good coming of the Malibu's compromised market position, after all, it's still a Chevrolet, it's that on used car lots, you can get a gently used, late model Malibu for relatively little. For instance, our rental here is a Malibu 1LT that comes with almost everything you'd want in a modern car and it stickers for around $30,000 brand new. A gently used 2017 with a scant 1,600 miles on it can be had for $18,000.
That's big value and makes perfect sense for a lot of people who want nothing more than a transportation conveyance that will take them from point A to B. And that's fine. I just happen to be not be one of those people.
I won't bore you with a long, drawn-out flowery story and I'll cut right to the chase - this car is awesome. Too bad I still find it so ugly.
This little spaceship can do it all and it does it all very well. Handling, braking, acceleration, fuel economy, solid build, ease of operation. Every. Thing. It does everything well except look good. If only Malibu's of yore could do anything half as well as this modern Malibu I'd probabbly use one as a daily driver. Old Malibu's, though, can't hold a candle to this thing. For the record, when I say "old Malibu's", I'm referring to anything made between 1966 and 1977 with special emphasis on 1966 and 1968-1972 Malibu's.
I could pick on the little 1.5 liter turbo engine's lack of linear power but for most driving situations it was fine. I still prefer a larger non-turbo six-cylinder engine. Larger turbo fours have more power but they're frenetic. They make big power but they also use big gas. What's the point of that?
The infotainment system hooked up easily to our iPhones and were even able to use both of our phones through the car at the same time. My son supplied the tunes while my phone was used for navigation. All the while we were able to use the hands free to call people. My son's playlist being muted when we did so. Pretty cool. This might be everyday to you already but to a family that has a fleet of automobiles with the least old being a 2006 Tahoe, this is Buck Rogers, flying car awesome.
As good as the Malibu is, though, it's apparently not good enough to stem the tide of people moving to cross overs. In a market segment that's shrinking, despite automobiles themselves in general having never been better, Malibu sales are off from last year at this time as are sedan sales in general. Blame a down year after several years of booming sales - car sales are cyclical to a certain degree - and what remains of the sedan segment being brutally competitive. Cross shop the Malibu against a Ford Fusion or the myriad Corolla-Altima-Civic's that are out there and you'll go cross eyed. They're all fantastic albeit, like out Malibu here, as generic as a Bosch dishwasher is compared to a Kitchen Aid. In the end, they're all the same.
If there's anything good coming of the Malibu's compromised market position, after all, it's still a Chevrolet, it's that on used car lots, you can get a gently used, late model Malibu for relatively little. For instance, our rental here is a Malibu 1LT that comes with almost everything you'd want in a modern car and it stickers for around $30,000 brand new. A gently used 2017 with a scant 1,600 miles on it can be had for $18,000.
That's big value and makes perfect sense for a lot of people who want nothing more than a transportation conveyance that will take them from point A to B. And that's fine. I just happen to be not be one of those people.
You always say what needs to be said. Thanks for writing this.
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