AlanBarber.Org
Thursday, February 05, 2004
I bought my first car!
Well unfortunately the "family" car that I was driving, 1995 Oldsmobile Achieva, decided to go awol on me. Started up last Tuesday and just as I was scraping ice off the windshield it died. After about an hour of playing with it, the car finally started but was running on only 2 or 3 cylinders. This has become a regular occurrence over the last 2-3 years so it was no surprise it happened really.I had originally planned on buying a new car after graduation but it became clear that I had to buy a new car now. So I spend rest of last week reading up on different cars and visiting several car lots. I narrowed it down to the Oldsmobile Alero and the Chevrolet Malibu. The Alero was nice but it just didn't click with me. It felt too much like a grandma car I guess. Being young and hip I just didn't feel comfortable in it. So I went with the Malibu.
General Motors did a complete overhaul of the Malibu for 2004. It's may be called a Malibu but it's nothing like previous years. It's based on their new Epsilon platform. It's the same platform being used for the Opel Vectra and Saab 9-3. It's been modified by Chevrolet to be more "American" but it still has a hint of European influence.
I like the look a lot. It's much more sophisticated than anything I've seem from Chevy before. I went with the Galaxy Silver metallic exterior which is what is shown on the Chevrolet website. Well technically I didn't have a choice since the dealer I went with only had the one Malibu on the lot. However I wanted the silver so it worked out perfectly.
The interior is a bit disappointing but it's still nice. You see the outside and you think upscale but you look inside and it's pretty low-key. The cloth seats are nice but plain, the dash is minimal and layout is pretty sparse. Then again I like it clean and simple since to me throwing on tons of fancy trim and other stuff is just a waste to me. The car has some nice features like a telescopic steering wheel which lets you adjust how far back or forward the wheel is. Plus the car comes with adjustable electronic pedals. Basically you can move the pedals back and forth about 2-3 inches. Between the wheel and pedals even a rather long legged driver such as myself can be very comfortable in the car.
There's a 200 horsepower V6 connected to a four speed automatic transmission. It provides plenty of power for the package and acceleration is quick and responsive. Shifting is very smooth and my only complaint is that I wish GM would get out of the 4 speed auto rut them seem to be in and put out a 5 speed model at least as an option.
I could go on and on but I won't. All in all I'm happy with the car. It has four wheels, an engine that runs, and doesn't look like trash. That's all I ask for in a car. So here are two pictures of it.
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on 02/05/2004 at 11:37 PM