Do you like vanilla? Sure! We all do! Well come here and observe the most vanilla of offerings during the Clinton era. This Chevy Malibu was GM’s answer to the automotive androgyny that was the Toyota Corolla. A car that could only be driven excitedly if you placed a catapult just so. Most enthusiasts hated the Corolla, but recommended it anyhow for those seeking a reliable appliance. As for the Malibu?
Rent: It was a ‘value’ proposition. The Malibu would offer you more equipment than a Corolla at a ‘good deal’ price. GM made this into a science back then. Offer more options than the competition at a certain price range. Subsidize the lackluster demand by inserting it into every rental fleet from Florida to Alaska. Finally and most importantly market the thing like crazy.
Lease: $159 / month lease deals. $199 / month finance arrangements back when the dollar meant something. Did we mention the features? GM was already trying to parts bin their ABS and traction control systems when the Malibu came out. But there was two choice ingredients that made Malibus irresistible to consumers searching for the deal of the day.
1990’s era ‘Power Packages’ were the 1990’s version of today’s Satellite Nav Systems. Put em’ in and folks will pay the premium du jour over a base model. GM threw this ‘loaded feature’ into most Malibu’s along with the (insert annoying car commercial voice here) ‘3.1 Liter V6 engine’.
A V6 Engine may not mean squat today. But back then it was a big deal and GM’s parts bin was happy to offer it in everything but a Metro or a Cavalier. The Malibu may still drive like a refrigerator. But the sound of ‘having’ a V6, even if it had the aural quality of a faulty compressor, meant you could always boast to your friends about how you have a powerful engine shared by only 12 other GM models.
Sell: Of course the unfortunate side of having an accountant inspired car is that you were nickeled and dimed to death. Intake manifold gaskets. Dexron related cooling issues. Axle and drivetrain issues. Steering problems. Cheap plastics. No, it was not all that much worse than a lot of under-engineered vehicles of the time. But the Malibu was no Corolla.
Keep: If a car could keep going with the occasional mild to moderate issue would you keep it? Of course! But it would have to inspire you. The type of car that you could grab the keys and look forward to driving as the morning commute beckoned.
That car is most definitely not a Malibu. It also probably isn’t a 1990’s Cutlass, Century, Grand Am, Grand Prix, Beretta, Corsica, Ciera, Lumina, Skylark or Achieva. The Malibu is probably a good commuter for the mechanically inclined who have ample spare GM parts and relatively short commutes.
So for those junkyard barons with 5 mile commutes and enough of those V6 engines to make Roger Smith blush, I recommend to you my own 2000 Chevy Malibu w/ 124k. Priced at $2500 it’s a steal. Honest!
Good grief, why even raise this question? Since you asked: Dump it. Immediately. Now.
Ditto. SELL. IT. NOW. 3.1+124k miles=RUN AWAY!!! TIME BOMB ABOUT TO EXPLODE!!!
Do you have to turn the ac knob to 3 before it will turn on? Every Malibu owner of that generation I’ve talked to had the same problem. Shit button. It was $75 to replace.
Our 97 Malibu was ok until it hit 110,000 miles. Then it pretty much fell apart, and the Firestone guys were telling me the engine block was going to crack anytime now.
I had one as a rental once. Worst. Car. Ever.
Everything was flimsy and felt like it wanted to break. The seats were horrible, the suspension was horrible. I wouldn’t take one for free. I’m not kidding.
It made me want my Chevette back.
Do what you have to, to get it out of your life as fast as possible.
I had the miserable things ALL THE TIME as rentals back then. Avis must have had a million of the nasty things. I think they are actually worse with the V6.
Thankfully, currently employer uses Hertz, and they have a FAR nicer selection of cars these days.
Wasn’t the Malibu at least intended to compete with Camry? The Corolla may have been the gold standard of commuter cars at the time, but it was near the small end of compact cars even then. A Malibu would have had real room for a family, and a midsized footprint. IIRC, the primary selling feature was moving the key from column to the dash, which failed to excite most observers. I do think it was also an effort on GM’s part to build a car packaged as Japanese cars were, with few options and just a couple trim packages. I’m pretty sure the result was Camry flare and Celebrity quality. It probably isn’t a car you’ll miss when you dump it.
I think he meant not directly, but as a boring yet reliable drive. The Prizm, which was a Corolla anyway, had that segment filled.
We still have some at work. My friend also had one. Just about all of them have had A/C control issues. Plus power steering issues. Brake problems, too. And the insides of the survivors all have all manner of laminates peeling off various surfaces. I’ll be glad when they’re gone. Maybe even more so than when all of the Cavaliers and Saturns are gone. At least the Cavaliers have decent feel to the brakes on dry pavement.
Yes, but with the Prizm, an automatic (3- or 4-speed) was optional, whereas all Malibus of that generation were automatics. With a stick shift, the relatively lightweight, 120-hp Prizm could be fun.
ppxhbqt,
I get the boring part, but there doesn’t seem to be anything about the Malibu to suggest it was as reliable as a Corolla. People seem to have quite a few horror stories as a result of ownership.
I’d take a Lada first. At least then you have something interesting to talk about. The Malibu wasn’t good enough to even be called a POS.
Sell. I don’t even suggest people buy them in the first place. the later Malibus are way better. I guess in a way they are better built than the previous gen Malibus of 1978-1983 but still, it’s a late 90s GM product.
GF wanted one, I kept telling her no, and she went and test drove one, and hated it. then she bought a Saturn SL which is equally dreadful.
Co-Worker of mine has the ’97. 203,000 miles, 3 engines, a tranny, and enough dash lights to make Kris Kringle happy.
But as he says, with a 90 mile one way commute, “why would I have anything remotely nice”.
Smarter then most folks buying new commuter cars.
Why have something nice? Because there are cars that still have their original drivetrains after 203,000 miles. Because he spends 20% of his life in his car, and there are nicer places to spend time than in a Malibu. There is a hell of a lot of open territory between 1997 Malibu and ostentatious waste of disposable income.
I think the 90-mile one-way commute would be the very reason to have something nice.
My wife and I drove this car (as a later rental “Classic”) from LA to Big Sur and back one weekend, and I still remember how the experience ranged from excruciatingly boring to just plain excruciating. Driving a 24-foot, fully-loaded rental truck across West Texas in a high wind was less tedious.
It also probably isn’t a 1990’s Cutlass, Century, Grand Am, Grand Prix, Beretta, Corsica, Ciera, Lumina, Skylark or Achieva.
Oh I don’t know. I’d be all over a Century coupe, and be happy to own another Quad4 or 5th gen Grand Prix coupe.
They just aren’t many examples left these days that aren’t total scrap.
I never see any of these car on the road. Between the mechanical issues and the rampant rust, they are all in the junkyards up here in Maine.
Followed one today in south-central NH. Didn’t look all that bad, considering. I do believe there are more ’95-’96 Corsicas than ’97-’03 Malibus on the road around here though.
Wow. It’s a weird day when I’ll defend a GM product… not to mention this GM product…
I sold Chevys when these were first introduced, and I remember the sales team being quite excited about them. I know I was. The Malibu may not have been remotely competitive with the Camcords of the era, but it was an honest-to-God revelation compared with the Corsica. This was the most “import”-like Chevy available at the time by a wide margin (excepting the actual imports like the Metro and Tracker, and the NUMMI Prizm.)
The exterior was nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t meant to be exciting and was at least proportioned well. The interior, though laughably quaint today, was assembled well, with better plastics than any Chevy before it. It also sported the best ergonomics of any GM product at the time — nevermind the dash-mounted ignition switch, it was the high-mounted air vents near the A-pillars that impressed most of my customers.
The fragile powertrain and mediocre handling were indeed this car’s undoing, but that hardly mattered to the target buyer. Chevy may have thought it was marketing to Camry customers, but in reality all the Malibu attracted were current GM customers hoping for a slightly better product. Well, and renters. At least in the summer of ’97, there were a lot of people who wanted one.
The intake manifold gasket issue alone makes it such a crapshoot to risk keeping.
Pressing the Mad Money special effects audio button:
“SELL – SELL – SELL!”
Drop a piano on it. It’s what Top Gear would do.
OMG are these as bad as a Marina holy shit it takes huge amounts of incompetence to achieve such status or is BL the model on which GM is based?
Before my family moved we had a neighbor who bought one of these the same time my parents bought their Elantra wagon. He was trying to boast how superior the Malibu was over the Hyundai, which admittedly was (and still is) nothing to write home about. He stopped bragging when the 3.1 puked a head gasket from Dexcool and shot a rod through the block. His next (and current) car has a slanted H on its hood.
Long story short, get rid of this thing any way possible. The only car off this platform I’d consider would be an Olds Alero if only for the sheet metal, I’ll take one with the Quad-4 or Ecotec.
Shouldn’t have bought it in the first place, Steve. If you really love it I have a co-worker with a Cutlass from that same generation with the 3.1V6. The car has been in NM most of it’s life, is rust free, the paint is shinny, and he just replaced it with a Cruize. And yes it is for sale. He’s also got a 2002 Cadillac Deville/DHS to sell you if you want to take a gamble on a Northstar.
For my money I’d hold out for the SS model of the next generation of these cars just to get a 3.9V6 in one of the lightest packages GM ever offered that engine in.
Chevy made a big deal out of this car, pushing it as “The Car You Knew America Could Build.” And it was the 1997 Motor Trend Car of the Year.
What a joke. And I mostly bought into it at the time. Which is why I refuse to take they hype about new products like the Cruze seriously. Been there, done that.
OT
Forgive me but I tried several times to use the contact icon and…
FAIL
I sell Fords
Ford sales inquiry system “SalesPoint” is a failure
ask the question and put it out there so all brands salespeople can comment on the sucess or failure of their brands online contact system.
Our sucks.
Russ
High Peaks Ford
Never seen one of these I guess by the B&B coomments GM wasnt too keen to send it over seas looks good and judging by the video they thought it out pretty well but the engineering as usual was a disaster We have got the awful Cavalier here mostly used from JDM and that car is crap so its no surprise this one follows in it tyre tracks Give up GM NA let the Koreans build your small cars and let the Aussies build the big ones you lot havent a clue.
Mine was not $199 but $318 per month. After 3 air control heads, a set of very expensive front tires and front brakes twice, I decided when 40000 miles rolled to return it.
I work for a GM dealer, and came originally from the import business.
The product GM has produced for the last 14 years I’ve been with them has been for the most part disappointing. However, the Holden influenced (created and engineered) Camaro is a huge step in the right direction, the Buick Regal (really an Opel Insignia) is beautifully put together, and I can’t praise the new Cruze quite enough.
Finally, to me, GM is doing something praiseworthy.
I hope this trend continues.
Finally, to me, GM is doing something praiseworthy.
Slapping its badges on other companies’ products? I thought they already tried that with Geo.
(Yes, yes, I know the companies you mention — as well as Daewoo, the entity primarily responsible for that praiseworthy Cruze — are GM subsidiaries.)
“(Yes, yes, I know the companies you mention — as well as Daewoo, the entity primarily responsible for that praiseworthy Cruze — are GM subsidiaries.)”
So why do you try to denigrate them? It’d be similar to saying that Hino trucks are awful because everybody knows it’s really a Toyota… And who would want a Toyota truck…
It’s weak logic.
Back at the turn of the century, I wrote radio ads for Avis, which were required to include the phrase, “Avis features fine GM cars,” which prompted me to remark, “Should we really be including that if we actually want people to rent from Avis?”
I had a 2002 Alero, and it was the same platform with the 3400. It was loaded to the gills, but in the end starting eating coolant. I kept it from new to just over eight years and 100k.
I don’t regret it, but it did need front brakes every year. Other repairs werent too bad. Nothing catastrophic but I think its because the 3.4 was way ahead of that wheezy 3.1.
In the end I was afraid of it. At 100k I just didn’t know what would happen next. And it was starting to rust.
When new a screaming deal, the Hyundai of it’s day (in terms of features for the money).
The car before the one I have now was a 1999 Alero. And I liked it. I fixed the lower intake manifold gasket, changed the brakes to high quality (not original) parts and became good at changing front wheel bearings (hubs) in 1:15h. The car was called Chevrolet Alero here in Europe and as most American cars it was completely overprized here. It was about the same price as a similar sized Volvo, Audi etcetera. But I like American cars for a good reason. Most people here think they are worse than cars from any other country, so the used prices are ridiculous low. American cars are not THAT bad. I liked the engine and transmission and the rest was good (for the price I paid for it).
Vanilla was once worth nearly its weight in gold. The same can’t be said for the Malibu.
We once got a Malibu Maxx as a rental. My wife (who is just not that into cars) HATED it. She couldn’t wait to turn it back in.
There are two kinds of vanilla vehicles. There are the plain but reliable and durable ones, which are fine transportation appliances. Then there are the plain but brittle and high maintenance ones. There is no reason to keep this kind. The Malibu is of the second kind.
Actually, that was a pretty reliable car with proper care. Keep it is my vote.
Used to get these as rentals often. Hated ’em at first. Was always visiting Ford factories and wanted Focuses for their family relationship, parking priorities and decent handling. At some point the Malibus became so generic that there was a comfort in them. I frequently hooned them and was surprised at how they took it. Hated the Bisquick inspired interiors and big goofy taillights.
Ugh…my wife had one of these when we got married. I hated that car. Got rid of it as soon as she was out of grad school and working. However, that was not before the intake gasket and numerous other issues where the parts had been redsigned since release (ie. blower motor resistor…shed loved only being able to have the AC on full blast).
I rented one of these right before the boxy body version came out, for one of our lightning trips to Tennessee to visit my FIL after one of his many illnesses. It was equipped with the Ecotec and a 4 speed autobox. The only thing I remembered thinking when I was bringing the car home to pack it for the trip was, will a 4 cylinder car take the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee?
I remember my father’s 6 cylinder 1968 Mercury Montego laboring horribly in the Alleghenies and Appalachians when we take my brother back to art school on the Eastern side of Pennsylvania. Even on the way back, when the car was relatively unladen, it still was rough going.
The Malibu really wasn’t fazed by the mountains, even with the air on. Considering we had all four of us in it, and all of our luggage, too. As it turns out,that was the only contact I ever had with that generation of ‘Bu, I eventually owned a Maxx that I leased and loved. But I didn’t love the lease…
I’d hold on to one of these only if it had an Ecotec and I really had no other choice. I prefer the generation that succeeded this one.
Sell.
Sell it, as operating it in any way is a world of hurt.
I have a boxy generation and, being a hand-me-down design from the Vectra, it seems better in all ways:
– It’s an Epsilon car, not a Roger Smith abortion
– The 3500 is a lot more reliable than the 3100 lump
– The brakes are good — the N-platform car ate brake pads, whereas the Epsilon one can get about 40k miles out of a good set
The only knock on the boxy generation is that the whiz-bang steering (telescope and tilt!) was not done well, and so the steering column has to be replaced, although GM eventually admitted this was a design defect that they fixed by the 2007 model year, and they’ve agreed to fix the older ones if not fixed already.
Give away… anonymously.
My wife had a 2001 LS with 253,000 miles on it.. two head gaskets in one year, thanks to the incompetence of the first place that “fixed it”, needed a new cat because it got clogged up from the coolant issues.. broke a spring or two because of Detroit roads. Average fuel economy was around 20-21 mpg.
To be honest though, the car wasn’t that horrible until the last year of ownership though.. tail lights needed to be siliconed shut so water wouldn’t get into them. You can figure on replacing the head gasket or intake gasket every couple years though, which if you’re paying anyone to do it, gets expensive.
Did the usual blower motor repair, which was cheap and easy thanks to rockauto.. new brakes every year or so, new tires every other year.
We religiously changed the oil at the 3000 mile mark.. which with her driving was every 5-6 weeks.. I think that was part of how it actually made it to 253,000 miles.
Ford gave us $1000 for it under the “retire your ride program” (they scrap them) Got a 2011 Focus SE with sync/heated seats/etc. Averaging about 31-32 mpg with it. 9,200 miles in 4 months of driving on it.