Remember the Cobalt? In many markets, Chevrolet’s much-maligned small-car nameplate is not a rolling reminder of the brand’s small-car struggles, so while the US gets a new Sonic and Cruze, other markets will get Aveo and Cobalt. Unlike the new Aveo, which is exactly the same as Sonic, this new Cobalt is probably an evolution of the previous Cobalt’s Global Compact platform, and offers engines ranging in size from 1.3 to 1.8 liters. The Cobalt is being shown at the Buenos Aires Auto Show, and will eventually be sold in South America, the Mideast, Africa and Europe. Meanwhile, GM has released no English-language presser on the debut [Spanish release here], possibly in hopes that Americans who remember the previous Cobalt’s weak reputation don’t clutter the internet with tales of their previous run-ins with the predecessor. Oops!
At least it looks a lot nicer inside than any Cobalt I’ve ever sat in. Same applies to the outside except the rear.
Ha! Joke’s on Chevy, a TON of Americans speak Spanish.
It’s actually not a bad-looking little s**tbox, FWIW.
At first glance, if the last Cobalt had this interior, I don’t think it would have had any of the complaints.
I also doubt that GM only put out the presser in Spanish to avoid English speaking countries. I don’t see it making sense to publish it in English if no one in an English speaking country is getting one.
But if they had spent the money to do it in English, then we could write a blog entry about the waste of GM, translating documents that will never come to English speaking countries.
That looks like it lives up to all of the Chevy brand promise that you can convey in photos. If it’s reasonably reliable (unlike the old Cobalts) and it’s also got just a little character when you rev it to 4-5k rpms (like the old Cobalts), what more could you want from basic transportation?
Oh, that’s right, nobody (in America, at least) wants basic transportation anymore. The signature of luxury is a rear seat warmer, an ipod jack, and a back-up camera.
Edit: Quantified parenthetical.
That’s really a great update of the old Coby. If that’s still Delta I architecture it should be pretty inexpensive to produce. Love to see a SS version of this car…
The Cobalt was beyond obsolete the day it was released. It is hard to believe that the Cavalier it replaced was meant to compete with the Honda Accord. The Cobalt probably could have been released in 1986 without raising eyebrows for anything other than the presence of airbags, but was it unreliable or lacking in durability? Sincere question, as I’ve never known anyone who owned one. I’m not sure I’ve even seen many that had private registrations. I would take one over a Cruze though, as the available drivetrains were beyond superior.
@CJ: “It is hard to believe that the Cavalier it replaced was meant to compete with the Honda Accord…”
I’ve never heard any marketing speak to that effect, ever. It might have competed with the Accord in 1982, and mostly on size and fuel economy. Even by the major redesign in 1995, the Accord was a much larger car. By 2005 when the Coby came out, the Accord had graduated to full size, IIRC.
Maybe you meant Civic?
No. The J-car was meant to be an Accord competitor. “The Decline and Fall of the US Auto Industry,” by Brock Yates details its development. Keep in mind that the first generation Accord that GM had as a target was smaller than the last few Civics. If you can find the book, I highly recommend it. It covers all the decision processes that made the Cavalier instant discount fodder. One sad aspect of the story is that Opel’s Ascona and Vauxhall’s Cavalier were based on the same platform and had all the features needed to compete head on with the imports. American GM knew that Americans didn’t need OHC engines, good seats, quality controls, sound road manners, or any of the other things that made the Ascona 1.6S a head to head competitor with the best small European sedans while the Cavalier was rendered a bargain subcompact by the release of the 2nd generation Accord. Then the Cavalier stuck around in recognizable form while even the Civic grew to be roomier and have higher transaction prices.
@CJ: So, we’re basically comparing cars that were made/marketed/sold thirty years ago with a South American model that we won’t see in the US in the near future? Nice of you to mention, but I’m not really sure of the relevance of how that relates to the refreshed Cobalt.
I was rather familiar with the original Accord, I spent a fair amount of time in one back in the day. I spent a fair amount of time in the original J-cars, for that matter. Having grown up in domestic V8’s, both of them were noisy, underpowered tin cans that couldn’t get out of their own way. Unfortunately, most everything was like that back then. It sucked to be a motorhead.
The SS version of the Cobalt was a credible competitor to the Civic Si, and since there was no Camaro V6 at the time, it made sense in the overall company lineup.
The base model was always a bit of an embarrassment.
Blasphemy I know, but the Cobalt SS beat the Civic Si and the WRX in a C/D comparo.
http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparisons/09q1/cobalt_ss_v_wrx_and_5_more_sport_compacts-comparison_tests
I don’t know if I’d pick a turbo Cobalt SS over a WRX (that one is a bit of a stretch), but I’d definitely prefer it over a contemporary Civic Si.
Wierdest comparison results ever. Car and Driver used the dimensions of the Civic Si coupe instead of sedan in their chart and graded the Civic subjectively as if it were really as small as the coupe. They should have been embarrassed, but instead they just compounded it by trying to bury the Civic for areas they’d praised in the past. In its first appearance in a CandD comparison, it lost by the number of points docked for the small back seat: http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/comparisons/06q1/2006_honda_civic_si_vs._volkswagen_gti-comparison_tests/2006_honda_civic_si_page_3
“Any car that receives a perfect score in the fun-to-drive and handling categories is something we wouldn’t kick out of the garage. But the Civic Si loses to the GTI for the same reason a Caterham will probably never win a comparison test: No matter how good the chassis might be, the entire vehicle must come under scrutiny. In the end, the Si’s handling wasn’t superior enough to overcome gaps in the rest of the package. However, if you’re only after a great chassis, the Si is the car to have. As a former Caterham owner, I’ll understand.”
When they finally got around to driving a Civic Si sedan, Honda had addressed the lack of back seat room, but Car and Driver pretended they had sat in the back of the coupe. Honda had addressed the roll-out Si’s problem with hanging onto engine revs too, but Car and Driver decided that it handled poorly after all and even gave it mediocre marks for the driver’s seat, which is pretty far fetched for anyone less than 50 lbs over weight.
The Cobalt SS reminded me of the Omni GLHS. It had more power than anything else in its class, great chassis performance, and even decent available seats. I’m sure it would be fun in the short term, but I don’t like turbocharged cars. I actually saw a Cobalt coupe in my neighbor’s driveway today, where there is usually a 330i PP. Maybe it is someone visiting’s car. The dash looked much better than I expected. Overall though, it looked like a car more than a few years old. I went to lunch in a friend’s rental Aveo that she has while her Mazda 3 is back in the shop. I was reminded of why I don’t like GM cars by the plastic caps over the lug nuts, some of which were missing. It is the sort of detail others do much better.
CJ, you do realize you’re looking at a completely different article, right? One where they didn’t look at the Cobalt at all, and that was written three years before the article that kenzter linked to?
Just making sure you realized.
aristurtle,
Of course I realize when the test were performed. Does it change that they used the coupe’s interior dimensions while they were supposed to be testing the sedan and that they scored the room as if the car they tested had the coupe’s dimensions listed in their table? Does perfect handling and fun to drive(better than the GTI’s) turn into sub-par that quickly? Priorities changed, and the cars that entered the segment in the mean time put a higher priority on power than finesse, but that shouldn’t have made the steering on the Civic go from not-quite Lotus Exige or Porsche Cayman S quality to more artificial than a video game’s. I’ve driven most of the competitors. The Civic’s relative lack of torque is an asset for steering accuracy compared to the MazdaSpeed or GTI. The helical LSD is much less corrupting of messages from the wheels at apexes than brake based stability controls. I wouldn’t have minded if they said that it takes more power to compete and picked faults the Civic has, like inability to get to 60 mph in the 5s, the dashboard instruments for some people, and the hand brake placement for those of us with long legs. That they faulted it for areas where it is excellent was pretty weak, particularly when they had to use incorrect information to support their conclusions and didn’t offer any explanation of their complete about face on areas where they scored the car strongly in the past.
I haven’t ever owned a Cobalt, but the 2010 that I drove as a rental last year was THE worst car I have driven in recent history (which includes some terrible cars) and did nothing to inspire confidence in GM’s so called improved reliability.
The car was very much new, with just under 9000 miles under the clock, but the car already seemed to have one foot in its grave. First, the car had a constant rattle from behind the steering wheel and an odd series of clicking/grating noise when I turned the steering. Then, when the road became less than perfect, the car thrashed as if the suspension system did not exist at all, worst of all, made this terrible groan on a road dip or speed bump. It was a noise that I have never heard from a car, and sounded exactly like when a ship or submarine’s hull is caving in in the movies. It was this low, metallic groan. Combined with the loose fitting plastics that constantly rattled to add to the ambience, I kept thinking, will this thing tear itself apart if I pressed the accelerator just a little more?
I know you can’t tell a car’s overall reliability from few individual cases, but after this and some previous bad encounters, I did vow never to drive a single GM vehicle ever again.
@CJinSD:
“The Cobalt was beyond obsolete the day it was released.”
No, it wasn’t. The Cobalt rode on a brand new platform when it was introduced, and mechanically, it was as up-to-date as any of its competitors. The reason the car failed was perceived quality – GM skimped on the materials and execution, and the car felt tinny and cheap. That’s why the couldn’t sell them to anyone not named Mr. Avis.
Worth noting that the Cruze has no such issues.
The Cruze might not have those particular issues, but it weighs up to 400 lbs more than competitors and it has an engine that only makes sense in the EPA lab. None of the tests it has been in have produced competitive fuel economy, with scores of 18, 23.8, and 25 mpg in two test by Car and Driver and one by Motor Trend. The 18 mpg was in a comparison test that must have been heavy in track and hoonage, but the 23.8 was returned in a Motor Trend test where other cars produced pretty respectable results while driven in the same conditions. The 2012 Civic returned 29.4 mpg in that comparison, and the Focus was at almost 28 mpg. The new Sonic weighs 2,800 lbs, which is also off the scale for its size class.
Not true on fuel economy on the Cruze on the Eco model. The Eco model has blown away every single mile test that has been done in every review I’ve read – USA Today almost got 50 MPG highway out of the Eco.
Oh, for the record, The Ford Focus isn’t meeting it’s sticker on fuel economy either in recent reviews I’ve read.
So the future of every single economy car is LED light strips instead of fog lights?
Eventually, I’ll have no idea what’s made by Mercedes and what’s made by everyone else at a distance.
I never quite understood all of the hatred towards to Cobalt. Was it really that bad? Was it worse than the Corolla? I thought it was a good, cheap, reasonably handsome vehicle, with an excellent (if not class-leading at one point) drivetrain.
The Cobalt wasn’t objectively bad, but it was a midpack contender at its introduction and GM never put any effort into the car after that. The market had left it far behind by 2008, and it had no chance of ever living up to GM fanbois’ perennial “blow the imports into the weeds” hype.
@geo:
You’re right, at a minimum, the Cobalt was competitive mechanically, and drove quite well, but GM obviously bean-counted every bit of perceived quality and richness they could out of the interior.
Yup. The last iteration of the SS was by far the best offering. The sedan version minus the boy racer rear spoiler is a damn good sleeper. Put the Stage I GM approved turbo upgrade and ECM reprogramming and you’ve got 300 HP and 325 pound feet of torque with Brembos on all four corners, wrapped with 18″ rims and great rubber, a suspension that was lauded as possibly the best handling front wheel drive car ever built in the press, and a Saab derived 5-speed between the front seats. Was it all good? Well even with the optional Recaros the interior left a whole lot to be desired – and the sheet metal was bland city. Fit and finish was certainly not the strong points.
The Cobalt was a product of “good enough” thinking at Old GM.
Thoroughly mediocre in every way, massaged down to a price point that theoretically made money if only retail customers could be convinced to buy one.
In other words, it’s *exactly* the kind of car Cap’n Dan’ll bean-count to replace the actually good Cruze.
*Insert obligatory anecdote about a friend who rented one last summer for a week when her G37 was in the shop and she said it was a total piece of crap so that’s why I also hate it.
I prefer this to the frankly horrendous-looking Aveo Sedan.
Imagine if Chevy had done this interior in the Cobalt they sold here…live and learn.
Had Chevy done this interior in the Cobalt five years ago, I wouldn’t be mazder3 now! I love that dash! Extremely similar to my parents 1986 Z24.
This is NO COBALT! It’s a thinly disguised OLD AVEO! Can’t you all see?? Either way, it’s no driver’s car. It never was. Can you say “Point A to point B” sedan? I don’t care how many LED’s are on it! I see Korean cues to it. Daewoo totally helped GM globally…and believe me, that’s no compliment. Now the crap is everywhere. GM and Daewoo…what a combination. YUCK!
This new Cobalt is a new cheap subcompact car for third-world countries, developed by GM Brazil. It rides on a new “Gamma II for Emerging Countries” platform, which in reality is a Gamma I platform with some Gamma II components. The same platform will be used for the rumored “Aveo-based Global CUV” (actually Cobalt-based) as well as new entry-level models for South America.
This new Cobalt is actually cheaper than the new Aveo (probably the same size though), and will replace the old Aveo, while the new Aveo will be sold at a premium to compete with the new Fiesta (and get higher profits, obviously). In fact, they developed this car so that they wouldn’t have to sell the new Aveo at the same price as the old one. This is how automakers operate in South America: make newer generations more expensive with time and introduced crappier and smaller models that are designed for third-world markets in mind.
This isn’t a bad looking car at all to be honest even if it’s just another bread and butter, albeit small 4 door 3box sedan.
That said, I drove the original Cobalt, a 2006 model, white with tan interior as a rental and while it was a decent car in handling and ride and performance, it was nothing to shake the earth about either but the interior fit and finish, could be better in that where they put “silver” accents, they simply painted on some dull silver paint, like on the window and door lock switch plates and in less than 6 months, it was already scratched, showing the black plastic substrate underneath, indicating cheap materials and finishes were used.
The car itself was decently equipped, alloys, automatic lights and mid grade AM/FM CD head unit and I forget what else but it WAS a decent, competent vehicle but nothing really stood out with it and was about as generic in feel as anything but without the ultra softly sprung suspension and antiquated bench seats, foot operated parking brake and the like, the car felt reasonably modern, which was the thing that I had issues with, with the domestics in the past.
Will it be a new-style Cobalt Bomb?
Years ago the generally delusional masses of ill-educated, emotionally-thinking vice relying upon rational thought USA public believed the cobalt bomb could conceivably….. sharp intake of breath moment, could be the newcleeur weapon that was able to DESTROY THE ENTIRE PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!
Wipe the sweat off thine brow.
Let us be more concerned with a mega-eruption of the Yeallowstone caldera.
Thank you.
Those are some crazy big headlights. With projector lights, I was hoping for more 159-like lights on new cars these days. no me gusta
Had an 05 Cobalt LT sedan for 4 years. No problems at all. So who knows?