With $150m in their pockets, Chevy's ad men are touting the new Malibu as "The Car You Can't Ignore." Apparently the dealers can ignore it, though. I went to not one, not two, but three dealers in search of the new 'Bu. At the first, Performance Chevrolet in East Meadow, NY, they don't have any in stock. "We will have more by the end of the month." Uh, that's almost a month away. At dealer two, Robert Chevrolet in Hicksville, NY, neither the front space facing the street nor the showroom had a new Malibu (although they did have a Corvette sitting next to an Aveo). Around back they had a Malibu LS tucked away from public view. But the salesman couldn't find the keys to unlock it. "You can look in the window though." Gee, thanks. The third dealership was the charm. Charm as in lucky; the dusty dealership has all the charm of the DMV. East Hills Chevrolet Oldsmobile, in Roslyn, NY, had several Malibus in stock. I was even allowed to sit in one (Egad!). Just goes to show: it doesn't really matter how good the car is when the dealers bite.
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I’m going to give GM a little credit here. Although, I’ve never driven one (though, I may do soon), it looks kind of nice. I’d certainly pick it over a VW Passat. Dare I say it, maybe over a Toyota Avensis? Though, to be fair, the Toyota Avensis is a great car (reliable, etc) but it is styled so blandly! It’s like a coma on four wheels.
I don’t think I’d have it over a Honda Accord, but I’d say 7/10 for GM. Good effort.
Now if only GM could whip their dealers into shape…..?
Here on the west coast this kind of thing is a big problem at Chevrolet dealers. They are loaded to the gills with trucks, but stock very few cars. Considering how many Japanese sedans are sold here they are not going to put a dent in that market without a strong dealer presence.
Go to the largest Chevrolet dealer in San Jose, CA and you will be lucky if you find 5-10 Malibus or Impalas. Go to the Toyota dealer and you will have over 100 Camrys to choose from. Ditto for Honda Accords.
Ford has the same problem. Only the Chrysler/Dodge lots seem to have plenty of ‘merican cars on display, but that might be because of Chrysler’s infamous pipeline stuffing strategy.
Why don't you try using a third party site like I don't know, the .com of Cars and do a local inventory search. There are dozens of new Malibus in Chicagoland of all trim levels. http://www.cars.com/go/search/search_results.jsp?numResultsPerPage=50&makeid=9&dgid=&pageNumber=0&zc=60647&cid=&mdnm=Malibu&amid=&certifiedOnly=false&sortorder=descending&ddrd=30&criteria=K-%7CE-%7CM-_9_%7CD-_92_%7CN-Y%7CR-30%7CI-1%7CP-PRICE+descending%2CDISTANCE+ascending%7CQ-descending%7CZ-60647&modelid=92&rd=30&tracktype=newcc&sortfield=PRICE+descending%2CDISTANCE+ascending&aff=mother&dlid=&mknm=Chevrolet&ct=157&cname=&largeNumResultsPerPage=0&searchType=49&aff=mother A lot easier than hitting lots IMO. BTW the Malibu went on sale officially last Thursday. They sold around 40 nationally the first day, obviously without all dealers having full inventory. Oh and for your last line please explain Toyota’s sales when their dealers are notoriously …ummm…not good.
I find this line of ads strange. Are they saying that the older Bu was the car that you could ignore? Because, I sure did…
Joseph,
Yes GM admits the last Malibu was not so good. They’re entire aim with the advertising is to get the name of the car back in front of buyers’ minds. We’ll see if it works.
The “Car you can’t ignore” doesn’t necessarily refer to the previous Malibu, it’s more of an indictment of the rest of the overly-bland, midsize family sedan category
I finally had the misfortune of seeing the new Malibu TV ad (I watch very little TV) and the jogging woman slammed into the side of an Oldsmobile Cutlass – built on the prior-prior gen Malibu, not the prior-gen Malibu, basis.
I know, I know, nodoby even has seen a Cutlass of that era…. ha.
Wonder how GM managed to find one? Maybe there was one sitting around NOS (new old stock) unsold (eight, nine years old) ?
As for the Malibu, well, phoey. Good luck to any buyers of GM products. You’ll need it, if past experience is anything to go by.
Yep, after 30 years of bouncing from AMC, to Chrysler, to GM, to Ford and all around – I’ve moved on 5 years ago. Hyundai and Toyota, perhaps Honda in the future. Maybe Subaru.
Anything else? Nah. I want to get where I’m going and not constantly have to face the p*ss poor service desks and evaporative warrantees of the Detroit 2.8 dealers/corporate “culture”.
I’m really wondering if the new ‘Bu is really THAT good. Early buzz sounds unusually promising. Please review.
Yes GM admits the last Malibu was not so good.
Seven years from now, when the next Malibu comes out, GM would say the same.
jakemonO :
I’m really wondering if the new ‘Bu is really THAT good. Early buzz sounds unusually promising. Please review.
Tomorrow. And we’ll have more than one take on it, eventually, as well.
This is the same problem with the Camaro and Astra.
How long have we been hearing about how great these cars will be, and how they are key to turning around GM before we actually get to DRIVE one.
Tired of Chevy commercials on TV, tired of being teased by the Camaro, tired of hearing about the Astra being the best small car GM (read OPEL) has ever designed.
I’m tired of the General’s lip service, put up or shut up.
Ironically, the Malibu/Cutlass featured in the ads was actually the first GM midsize in awhile to at least be competitive. So it was actually good from the relative standpoint of prior GM products (Corsica, GM10 anyone?) I remember even C&D at the time being impressed with the attention to basics that was noticeable absent in other same-vintage GM models.
Dead ringer for a Jetta. Let’s hope it’s more reliable.
I can’t find any locally to look at either. All the dealers around me just have trucks and SUV’s so I thought it was just my area. The Chevy dealer down the block has an ocean of trucks and SUV’s but only 2 Impala’s and 1 Cobalt, no Malibu’s.
The car can’t save the company if no dealer stocks it. Of course gas guzzling SUV’s are still the rave around here so why should the dealer stock the cars.
I'm a Chevrolet dealer in Florida and am eagerly awaiting my first shipment of Malibus. Dealers all around me have already received at least one or two and I have yet to receive my first. Do we as dealers have any control over this? Unforetunately not. The ordering process for cars is much more complex than you might otherwise think. Every consensus period thus far that we've been allowed to order Malibu's I have requested 20. The first month of orders I was awarded 3, last month 5. Consensus (the arcane ordering/inventory system that GM uses) takes place later this week and I plan to request 20 more, but have little doubt that I will only be given 4 or 5. The truck situation you mention works inversely – I usually ask for 15 and am given 20…
I don’t get the ads one bit, aren’t they showing the old Oldsmobile clone in some of the ads, like the bank robbery one.
Car’s you can’t ignore, genius marketing.
Is this a function of dealers choosing not to order, GM not shipping in volume, or the car selling as soon as it hits the lot? The last would be an astonishing turnaround for GM…
Wasn’t the previous gen Malibu Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1997 or something?????????
Obviously, it wasn’t THAT bad for the time….and certainly not any worse that the other midsize FWD boremobiles trundling around the burbs.
@chevydealer:
I understand better where you are coming from now; thanks for the explanation. Consensus is very much to blame, but much of what I witnessed was the dealers’ faults.
The GM machinery has no excuse for keeping dealerships waiting. Why should you have to sit and wait for a vehicle when other dealers have several and when they’ve just hyped the heck out of it for the past several weeks?
As for the dealer I went to where the car was around back and they didn’t know where the key is, that’s unacceptable and it IS the dealer’s fault. If you want to sell cars, they need to be in front of the dealership or on the showroom floor. And people need to be able to sit down inside it. Yes, even casual passersby.
I don’t so much have any issues with the third dealership since I was, in fact, able to check the car out at length. They do need a good Swiffer-ing though, and it’s embarassing that the Chevy website lists them as “Chevrolet Oldsmobile.”
I actually like the ads. I think they’re funny and they acknowledge and make fun of themselves for their past efforts.
Wasn’t the previous gen Malibu Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1997 or something??
At that time, Motor Trend had a “Car of the Year” and “Import Car of the Year” award. So during 1997, when the Malibu won the COTY, its only competitors for the prize would have been cars from other GM brands, Chrysler and Ford. A “contest” with only three entrants.
Also, the COTY has been awarded only to cars, not trucks, and then only to models newly released in the year that the award is given. So its competition would have been reduced even further to whatever cars were first introduced in 1997. I’m not sure what came out in 1997 from Detroit, but there probably wasn’t all that much competition.
“As for the dealer I went to where the car was around back and they didn’t know where the key is, that’s unacceptable and it IS the dealer’s fault. If you want to sell cars, they need to be in front of the dealership or on the showroom floor. And people need to be able to sit down inside it. Yes, even casual passersby.”
As someone new to the automotive retail industry – and a car nut, I have been shocked by how little fellow salespeople and managers know about or care about the cars they sell. The cars just become another “unit” to them. Many don’t even know all the vehicles’ names, let alone features.
You should have gone to Avis. I’ll bet they have plenty of the little darlings.
Burned many times by the Diminishing-3’s execrable products and ethically challenged business practices, I am nonetheless rethinking the issues. We may need them more than they need us!
I watched the PBS serial The War last night. Not to understate the courage and sacrifice of millions of brave soldiers, it was America’s financial strength, engineering prowess and manufacturing might that defeated our WW2 enemies.
Today I was delighted to read Autoextremist publisher Peter M. De Lorenzo’s high regard for the new Cadillac CTS.
I love the new Cadillac CTS. Poised, competent and genuinely fun to drive, the CTS is without question the finest sedan ever built by GM – which means it’s the best sedan built in the company’s entire history – and that’s saying a lot what with GM’s Centennial year coming up in 2008. One retail customer I spoke to told me, “It’s the first domestic-built car I’ve driven in a decade after driving a series of Audis and Benzes, and, I have to say – I love it.” It’s about gaining one customer at a time for GM through the positive word-of-mouth buzz that goes with well-executed machines like the new CTS. A long slog ahead for GM to be sure, but meaningful progress nonetheless.
I abandoned domestic cars for European then Asian vehicles nearly two decades ago. If the new CTS, Enclave and Malibu are as competent and salable as some respected authorities suggest, and the local manufacturers have discovered integrity, the home team may have earned a second chance – or at least a look.
Autoextremist
Gardiner,
The new CTS does look very nice and I’d like to drive one soon. As for De Lorenzo, he became a homer about the time he started consulting for one of the Detroit automakers. Besides his praise for the CTS he’s also heaped the most lavish praise possible on the Chevy Equinox and Pontiac G6 so I can’t take him too seriously.
Oh and can’t wait to read about the new Malibu tomorrow. It looks like a hit for Chevy.
Good luck to the General trying to sell a “new” model that is sharing its name with a former car that was just about the worst thing that graced Americas rental fleets for the last ten years.
Come on this thing needs to live down the image of the last malibu and the POS Mailbu/ Malibu Classic that came before it.
Sometimes a name change is in order. The Malibu name is a very bad choice. Remember the game here is to win back some import buyers. How the hell does GM expect to do that with a car name that has been the antithiesis of Accord/ Camry for over ten years!
By naming this new car Malibu GM/Chevy is inadvertantly making a joke out of what might possibly be a good product. Trust me here anyone that has spent time in a Malibu Classic or newer Malibu rental in the last several years will NOT be interesting in buying anything named Malibu.
chevydealer…
What are your objectives like? I have dealers with 10 to 15 orders in the prelim tab, a good amount of them are already sold orders, and they will be lucky to see ONE Malibu by Christmas.
Every consensus period thus far that we’ve been allowed to order Malibu’s I have requested 20. The first month of orders I was awarded 3, last month 5. Consensus (the arcane ordering/inventory system that GM uses) takes place later this week and I plan to request 20 more, but have little doubt that I will only be given 4 or 5.
There are just too many damn Chevy dealers for all of you to make profit. What is so hard to understand.
If a dealer is only going to have 3 new Mailbus how the hell are they supposed to compete with the local Toyota and Honda dealers that actually have a “Real” stock of about 15 to 20 Accords and Camrys.
Does GM actually expect potential customers to travel to 4 or 5 Chevy dealers to find a car they like. Or is GM planning to using it old take it or leave it approach to selling cars?
Does GM expect folks to wait for cars to become available when there will be hundreds of equally good or betters car available right now?
I have seen the ads as well and for me it was only the cherry on the top of the I’ll-Never-Buy-GM cake.
We actually (yes call us crazy) owned a 99 Cutlass/Malibu clone for several years. For what it was, it was “just” OK – got the errands done. It was pretty dependable overall with reasonable maintenance and a new intake gasket, but not a standout in the crowd – OK we got that part. But basically, it got the job done.
What really put me off was NOT the car – it was the horrible dealer service and support. They could have cared less about doing ANYTHING without whining and trying to find a way out. And don’t even start me on the intake gasket issue – that was the final nail in the coffin.
So now the SAME company that was happy to sell – but not service – the past model is also happy to make fun of their past product and of course anyone foolish enough to have bought it, meaning their past customers.
Fool me once ……
We are in the market for another car – current choice is an Infinity G35. Would never even consider another GM and I can guarantee that I am not alone on this.
They must be admitting past Malibus were bland. In their TV spot, the one where the police ignore the getaway car at the bank heist…that’s an Olds Cutlass…aka a Malibu with a different grill.
So now the SAME company that was happy to sell – but not service – the past model is also happy to make fun of their past product and of course anyone foolish enough to have bought it, meaning their past customers.
PRICELESS!
@whatdoiknow1 you're totally right about the Malibu name. i live in southern california and pretty much everyone outside of Malibu doesn't want anything to do with the place, and no one in Malibu would be caught dead driving one. it's just ridiculous. as far as the commercials, i think they're hilarious in and of themselves. i highly doubt that the average viewer can tell that the non-descript car begin "ignored" is an older model cutlass. the point of advertising is that people remember the commercials which obviously many do. whether that is enough here is more than doubtful. Also, it's entirely possible that chevy had to use one of its own models in the commercial. if they had placed a competitor's car in the ad without their consent, they would likely be opening themselves up to liability for some sort of tort. appropriation (using another's likeness for advertising purposes) false light (portraying another in a highly offensive manner), etc.
In today/s Toronto Paper the Globe and Mail the authors of the Auto section say that the new Malibu is ahead of the new Honda in Power! Its just not as well known for quality and buyers are going to need a lot of convincing to want to purchase it, you could always want to see how this new Car stands up over the years as compared to a Honda Accord! For my money I would take the Honda over the Chev product having been stung with Gaskets problems on my last two GM products that was not covered by there warranty.
If only this wasn’t the only model introduction where GM has consistantly failed to back up the adverstising with actual product in inventory.
Just try to find a Pontiac G8 on a dealer lot, despite all of the print ads that would lead you to believe that the car is available.
There are more sad year-old CTS holdovers on lots than new 2008 CTS sedans – in fact, I couldn’t find a single CTS when the product placements and ads started in earnest a month or two ago.
GM has wasted $150 million on advertising a car before it was readily available for sale – but maybe wasting $150 million isn’t such a big deal at a company that can takes a $39 billion “write down.”
Nobody in their right mind is going to bother with a factory order for a 2008 Malibu and many buyers will walk away rather than wait a day or two for a dealer trade. GM has missed a narrow window of opportunity, irritating the few consumers who might actually have been interested in a product that borders on adequate.
@Jayhawker
I was under the impression the G8 isn’t going on sale until January or later. No?
A dealer that still has Olds in their name?! Wazup with that?
bleach- dead straight on DeLorenzo.
He’s a complete GM product troll. He’ll yell at the management but droll over anything they build.
Get’s freakin’ bent over anything Toy does.
And then slams virtually every auto journalist for being biased.
It’s sad.
There have been lots of mentions of the archaic dealer structure in Death Watches and other articles.
It’s really unfortunate now that now GM has a really good midsize car to sell, the distribution structure is impeding their success. Hope they sort it out soon.
As for the G8 – Pontiac’s website says it will be available in “Early 2008”, so let’s not pile on at least until then.
@Justin Berkowitz
The fact remains that magazines are full of print ads for the G8, despite the fact that the product just isn’t available yet.
The January model launch for a high-performance, rear-wheel-drive sedan seems to repeat the GTO disaster, despite the promises that inventory will be built up in sunbelt markets first, this time around.
Exactly how profitable is a Chevy or any other GM fanchise today? I am sure some are doing rather well but I bet many others are NOT.
If GM can sustain a quarterly loss of 39 billion why not just offer a significant dealer buy out plan. Come on, for a few million a piece Im sure GM could get quite a few of the dead weight dealers to close up shop for the benefit of the entire US auto industry.
I drove one Monday. A fully loaded model with V6. It’s nice. It’s up there with Camcordima as far as look and feel. Long term reliability – we’ll see.
Re: DeLorenzo
“I love the new Cadillac CTS. Poised, competent and genuinely fun to drive, the CTS is without question the finest sedan ever built by GM – which means it’s the best sedan built in the company’s entire history – and that’s saying a lot what with GM’s Centennial year coming up in 2008…”
Never trust anyone who says something is the best EVER.
“I have dealers with 10 to 15 orders in the prelim tab, a good amount of them are already sold orders, and they will be lucky to see ONE Malibu by Christmas.”
What kind of a brain dead organization launches a costly marketing campaign before the product is flowing through the pipeline? Honda has an all-new 2008 Accord out and is also supporting it with lots of advertising. The smallest local Honda dealer shows 11 2008 Accords stock while the larger Honda dealer shows 63 in stock on their website. That is how you support a major product introduction, not with drips and drabs.
How do you seriously compete in the family sedan category with 1-10 copies on the lot of a large dealership when right next door the competition has over 60? With over 60 to choose from, chances are a person is going to find the color, trim level and engine they want. But with only a handful of cars to offer it is unlikely the dealer is going to have the car that hits the That Is Just What I Want button with many buyers.
How do you seriously compete in the family sedan category with 1-10 copies on the lot of a large dealership when right next door the competition has over 60?
This is one of the disadvantages of having too many dealers. For a production run of a given amount, having a large number of dealers means having less inventory per dealer. And because those dealers are stuck with other slow moving inventory sitting on their credit lines, burning interest expense every day, they are less likely to order too many new Malibus until they are able to dump older inventory and can see some evidence that the new car will be in demand.
They could have saved money and possibly gained some traction by launching regionally (perhaps starting in the Southeast, for example), creating momentum in some market areas, and then growing it from there.
Am I alone here, or do I see this becoming the next Aura? More high hopes and hype, that ultimately fizzled out.
Funny how GM Canada can’t even bother with full specs or pricing on their website. Just a “coming this fall” (uh, guys, we’re halfway through the season already) and the usual marketing bumpf.
Not that I’d buy one anyway. Yet another car that doesn’t seem to offer a manual tranny. At least not in any of the (very limited) photo gallery shots.
Apparently Chevy’s ad agency can’t get their hands on one either. All of the TV ads I’ve seen where they actually show what the car looks like use computer-generated pictures of the car instead of the real thing.
No manual tranny, and a 4-speed auto mated to the 4 cyl … Did I also hear that that tranny is to be built in China (until a domestic plant comes on line?).
I don’t trust GM auto trannies to begin with; one made in the “Land of Misfit Toys” is even worse.