Behind the Wheel: 2010 Chevrolet Malibu

I recently had an opportunity to spend a good amount of time behind the wheel of a 2010 Chevrolet Malibu while driving from Miami down to Key West.

Unfortunately, although I certainly didn’t hate the Malibu, I didn’t exactly like it either. Like so many American cars of the last, oh, 5-10 years or so, it felt like it was trying really hard to feel more upscale than it really was.

A few things I didn’t like were:

  • The very low ceiling (not helped by the fact that our car had a sunroof)
  • The annoying automatic headlights (and what ever happened to all Chevy vehicles having daytime running lights?)
  • The annoying automatic door locks… which passengers could not unlock until you put the transmission into “Park”
  • The steering wheel control buttons that you had to look at to see what they do (you can’t tell by feel)
  • The 3-spoke steering wheel (each of the spokes was just too big to hold on to when cruising, probably because of the need to fit in all the radio & cruise controls)

Some things I did like were:

  • The radio (I do like that Chevy’s have one of the few CD players that actually read CD-Text for song titles – why don’t more cars do this?)
  • The engine (peppy without being hard to control, and definitely nice considering it’s just a 4-cylinder, albeit a 2.4L one, putting out 169 HP)
  • The paddle shifters (completely unnecessary, but still kind of nice to have)

All-in-all, the Malibu was an OK car, but nothing special. If it was a little bit less expensive (running somewhere between $21K-$27K) I would say it’s a good deal for the money. But as is, it’s just… meh.

By Keith Survell

Geek, professional programmer, amateur photographer, crazy rabbit guy, only slightly obsessed with cute things.

4 comments

  1. We hired a Chevrolet recently and we felt very suave. I wasn’t *that* impressed but it definitely had some perks, like heated seats and a good sound system. The auto-lock thing you mentioned seems a little weird – what happens if you need to get out of the car in an emergency?

    I didn’t know you had this blog – I’m looking forward to reading it!

    1. Thanks! I hope you enjoy reading this blog.

      I don’t know about that auto-locking thing; there may be some way around it that I couldn’t figure out. I guess if you buy one of these cars, you’d better read the manual carefully… but it seems kind of bad to me that you’d have to read the manual to figure out something as basic and important as how to get out of the car.

  2. Giving a blog talk to beginner bloggers in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be pointing people in the direction of your efforts. Nicely put together dude.

    1. Thanks! I’m glad you like it, and thanks for pointing people in my direction – I appreciate that. I hope they find it as informative and entertaining as you did!

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