Chevrolet Malibu 7th Gen- 2008
6MEN241 - that was the registration plate for the Chevrolet Malibu awaiting us in the car rental lot in San Francisco airport.
Great. Not that we drove it very far that week. Jetlag will do that to you. You know, not wanting to do much of anything.
It did take us down to Monterey though, to the awesome aquarium, and to the Embarcadero, to catch the ferry to (the very awesome) Alcatraz. In between, some cruising around along the PCH, Golden Gate Bridge, Google campus and the Lego store. Even past the headquarters of fledgling company Tesla.
Impressions of the car - I was ready to be disappointed. GM had grown a reputation for producing sub-par machines, but the Malibu was pretty good. Plenty of space (hey child-safety car seats) and luggage. material quality felt pretty good, and the car was reasonably quiet. It was the absence of get up and go which marked the car most. I guess I had been expecting 6-cylinder power, which seemed to be missing somewhere. The car felt like it had too little torque (217 Nm), too much weight (1,549 kg) and not enough gears (4AT). It turned out the car was only a 2.4L 4-cylinder, and there were higher output engine available, but not fitted to our rental.
The Malibu rode on the LWB Epsilon platform, shared with the Saturn Aura, Opel Signum and Pontiac G6. Though GM was about to enter bankruptcy (partly as a consequence of poorly executed product), it was clear that the Malibu was an example the GM could build good cars that were affordable. Sadly, the market had already voted and was shopping Japanese and Korean.
Chevrolet Malibu 7th Gen- 2008
6MEN241 - that was the registration plate for the Chevrolet Malibu awaiting us in the car rental lot in San Francisco airport.
Great. Not that we drove it very far that week. Jetlag will do that to you. You know, not wanting to do much of anything.
It did take us down to Monterey though, to the awesome aquarium, and to the Embarcadero, to catch the ferry to (the very awesome) Alcatraz. In between, some cruising around along the PCH, Golden Gate Bridge, Google campus and the Lego store. Even past the headquarters of fledgling company Tesla.
Impressions of the car - I was ready to be disappointed. GM had grown a reputation for producing sub-par machines, but the Malibu was pretty good. Plenty of space (hey child-safety car seats) and luggage. material quality felt pretty good, and the car was reasonably quiet. It was the absence of get up and go which marked the car most. I guess I had been expecting 6-cylinder power, which seemed to be missing somewhere. The car felt like it had too little torque (217 Nm), too much weight (1,549 kg) and not enough gears (4AT). It turned out the car was only a 2.4L 4-cylinder, and there were higher output engine available, but not fitted to our rental.
The Malibu rode on the LWB Epsilon platform, shared with the Saturn Aura, Opel Signum and Pontiac G6. Though GM was about to enter bankruptcy (partly as a consequence of poorly executed product), it was clear that the Malibu was an example the GM could build good cars that were affordable. Sadly, the market had already voted and was shopping Japanese and Korean.