Chevy Malibu

I have an '06 Maxx, and I really like it. There's enough leg/head room for me (I'm 6' tall) and my dad (6'4) and brother (6'6) have both driven it...though we're all legs, so it's slightly more cramped for them. It handles well. Good power (V-6). I love the manual gear during the winter (between that and the traction control, I had no problems in the Iowa winter). Decent gas mileage. The back seat moves back for more leg room, forward for more cargo room. Cargo room is comparable to small SUVs. My one complaint is the sight line behind the driver's seat...I have to be a bit more careful checking the blind spot.

 

The current Corvette's interior is nothing spectacular, but it's much, much nicer than the C5's.

 

In most GM products, the interiors have gotten markedly worse over the past 10-15 years. Count your blessings.

 

The manual is one aspect clearly in Corvette's corner. Who would buy one of these with a slushbox. I know one ... :

 

there's a huge difference between the older Malibus (older than 2007) and the 08 and 09 Malibus. HUGE difference.

 

Fortunately, the ZR-1 is manual-only.

 

Seriously? In what way?

 

When we first got married, my wife drove a 94 Cavalier. Nobody was going to mistake it for BMW, but it at least felt solid and substantial. The seats provided support, the steering wheel had some mass to it, the gearshift likewise, etc.

Several years later, we found ourselves needing to occasionally rent a car while ours was in the shop. That meant renting a mid-2000s Cavalier that felt specifically engineered to punish you for not having more money. The steering wheel felt like a cheap piece of plastic you couldn't reliably use in a game of Crusin' USA at the bowling alley. The shifter felt like a twig. Everywhere you looked was the cheapest, crappiest materials they could find.

 

Yeah, I rented a Cavalier in probably '05. It had no weight to it, and blew all over the road in any gusts. I definitely didn't feel safe in it.

 

I have to admit I noticed the Malibu commercial thanks to this thread -- and "Dr" J's enthusiasm for the product.

Judging from the accolades from experts I respect, the car's a good one afterall.

 

The platform GM introduced to the Malibu in (I think it was) 2007 is a good one and has been recognized as such.

 

The Cavalier has always been a shitbox. And the generation of the rental you had was introduced in 1995, so that's not exactly an indictment of recent GM efforts.