To the consternation of many Chevrolet loyalists, GM resurrected the Impala name for the oh-so-bland Lumina’s 2000 model year replacement. These loyalists felt that only a powerful-rear-drive car, one like the mid-90s SS, deserved the name. The new Impala was no such car. It used the same basic W-Body architecture and front-drive powertrains as GM’s upper-midsize cars (Lumina, Grand Prix, Intrigue, Century, Regal), just enlarged enough to permit a marginally full-sized interior. Chevrolet, on the other hand, used the name because it wanted to convey that a full-size Chevy was once again available following the demise of the big boat Caprice. It also did not hurt that bringing back the Malibu name for Chevrolet’s lower-midsize car had helped its sales.
I test drove an Impala to explore the current nature of a full-size Chevrolet, relative to the old Caprice, other cars off of GM’s W-, and Chevrolet’s thoroughly new midsize Malibu. The Impala has sold well, significantly better than the Lumina, suggesting that GM did something right. What is so attractive about this car?
For 2004 the Impala is offered in three forms: base with a 180-horsepower, 3.4-liter V6; LS with a 200-horsepower, 3.8-liter V6 and “touring” suspension; and SS with a 240-horsepower, supercharged 3.8-liter SS and “performance” suspension. (Each of these engines appears in a number of other GM vehicles.) While I would have preferred to drive the SS, the dealer did not have one. So to get some insight into the Impala’s popularity I drove the trim most people buy, the LS.
Chevrolet Impala Reliability
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Styling
I disliked the Impala’s styling at first sight. I don’t mind that the angular sheetmetal bucks the aero theme that has dominated sedan design for nearly two decades. In fact, I find this angularity refeshing. It gives the car a strong, bold look when paired with the attractive, five-spoke alloy wheels standard on the LS and SS. (Stylistically it’s hard to go wrong with a clean five-spoke wheel.) The front end (which looks more than a little like that of the Pontiac Bonneville and Grand Prix) is especially attractive.
The problem is, the car’s strong basic form is marred by a number of off-putting stylistic details. I don’t care for the swooshes creased into the sheetmetal over the wheels. (Subaru endows the Forester with similar creases; I don’t like them on that vehicle either.) I don’t like how the door handles bulge out from the doors. And I’ve never been able to figure out what the design team was thinking when it embedded four round tail lamps into a plank of red plastic traversing the entire rear end of the car.
It seems I wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for this detail. Last year Chevrolet introduced an optional appearance package that includes this plank in body color. Which proves once again that you must be careful what you ask for. The round lamps just don’t work within such an angular body. In black the effect is okay, but I seem to see these cars in silver, where the appearance is anything but okay. Well, the LS I drove lacked this option anyway.
I have noticed that many people find the Impala a far more attractive car than I do. I suspect that their gaze concentrates on the front-quarter view of the car. Or do some of them really like the rear-end treatment as well?
Inside the Impala is perhaps a bit nicer than the Lumina was, but still far too cheap in look and feel to compete with the Accord and Camry. The styling is very conservative, with none of the tacky elements that used to mar domestic sedan interiors but little in the way of style, either. I cannot quite put my finger on why, but the interior of the Impala feels dated. I think it’s the general atmosphere of imprecision. Not that any parts were grossly misaligned, but that they were designed with sizable overlaps and large gaps to eliminate the need for precise fits. Forms are bulbous and organic. Some are downright strange. Why weren’t the exterior’s boldly creased forms and strong proportions carried over into the interior?
The interior in the new Malibu is much nicer, with more style and a general sense of much greater precision. The new Grand Prix also does better in this area. So GM is getting its act together. I have no doubt that the next Impala will have a much nicer interior.
Accommodations
Once upon a time all large Chevrolets had front bench seats. A split bench remains standard in the base Impala, so you can seat six people in a pinch in that car. Buckets are standard in the LS. They are not very buckety. Lateral support is next to nonexistent, though the cloth provides some grip. (In leather you’d be out of luck.) Comfort is otherwise acceptable (though a firmer cushion would be nice).
The driving position is good, but could be better. You sit moderately low relative to the instrument panel, though the view forward is still good. In my wife’s Intrigue the seat is mounted much higher, as in the Japanese sedans that car was designed to compete with, while in the new Grand Prix it is mounted lower. On a positive note, unlike in the Ford Taurus and Dodge Intrepid the windshield is not overly raked, so it and the pillars supporting it remain a comfortable distance from the driver’s face.
Now we come to a major area of disappointment. For reasons that escape my sense of logic, GM endows many of its large sedans with uncomfortable rear seats. I’d think that many people buy large cars because they put a high priority on rear seat comfort. Such people won’t be happy here, just as they won’t be happy with a Bonneville, Aurora, or LeSabre. (The Cadillac DeVille does very well in this area, though.) Rear legroom and headroom are abundant. The problem is with the seat itself. The cushion is too small, too soft, and mounted far too low to provide adults with thigh support. My wife’s Intrigue is a slightly smaller car, with less rear legroom, but it has a much more comfortable rear seat. The smaller Malibu provides almost as much legroom and does a bit better on cushion height. For rear seat comfort in a Chevrolet car, though, the five-door Maxx is the way to go. Among large moderately-priced sedans, the old Dodge Intrepid and upcoming Dodge Magnum both offer excellent rear seats. Among the Japanese competition, the Toyota Camry does best in this area.
Another reason people buy large cars is to get a large trunk. They’ll be happy with the Impala’s. At 18.6 cubic feet it can contain a bit more than that of the large Dodge and considerably more than the typical midsize sedan’s 14 to 16. If you get the optional leather (the car I drove lacked it) the rear seat folds in two sections for even more cargo volume. This can be a very useful feature. So why isn’t this feature included or at least available with the cloth?
On the Road
The regular 3.8-liter V6 moves the Impala’s roughly 3500 pounds well, as I knew it would given the performance of my wife’s similarly heavy car with the same engine. This engine was created four decades ago by slicing two cylinders off of a Buick V8. However, it has been redesigned and refined many times since then. It still does not make the most sophisticated noises, but provides a satisfying amount of smooth grunt at low and moderate engine speeds. Throttle response is immediate. Few people will feel the need for the supercharged engine.
The Malibu’s 3.5, an upgrade of the base Impala’s 3.4, has very similar power and torque ratings. On the road it feels at least as strong as the 3.8, but does not dole out this power as smoothly and progressively. Many times in the Malibu the transmission kicked down unexpectedly, giving me far more grunt—and engine roar—than I asked for. With the 3.8 this does not happen. I always get the precise amount of power I ask for from this pair.
The difference may lie more in the transmission tuning than the engine. For whatever reason, the four-speed automatic shifts more smoothly and intelligently paired with the 3.8. A fifth ratio would make the Impala more competitive with Japanese sedans, but the broad torque curve of the 3.8 makes closer ratios less important than they are with a peakier DOHC mill.
The 3.8 has served GM so well it will be sad to see it go, but go it will when a 3.9-liter version of the Malibu’s 3.5 appears in a couple of years.
The Impala handles better than I expected. The LS comes standard with a “touring” suspension and “touring” tires, so it’s not overly soft and floaty, unlike Chevrolet’s big boats of yore. The tires stick well in hard turns. Like the powertrain, the chassis feels smooth and always reacts as expected. Together, they make the Impala very easy and pleasant to drive. There is no learning curve with this car. In contrast, the Ford Taurus and Dodge Intrepid, both of which I have driven for hundreds of miles in rental car form, never feel quite right to me. Their engines, chassis, and driving positions are all less satisfying than the Impala’s.
As pleasant as the Impala was to drive, I could not shake the ghosts of Chevrolets past. Like some people, this car was born old. The satisfying powertrain and chassis notwithstanding, from behind the wheel it feels dated. Part of this is the strong impression of size. Partly this is due to the actual size of the car. At 200 inches in length it is nearly a foot longer than an Accord or Camry. But my wife’s Intrigue is 196 inches long, and it doesn’t feel nearly as large from the driver’s seat as the Impala does. I strongly suspect GM tuned the two cars very differently because it had two different goals in mind. GM sought to make the Intrigue feel smaller than it was to compete with Japanese midsize cars. With the Impala, however, GM wanted to appeal to traditional large sedan buyers, so they tuned it to feel even larger than it is. The Impala never feels unwieldly, yet it lacks the (relatively) precise, taut feel of the Intrigue. Through the steering wheel and seat of the pants it feels heavy. The steering has a good firmness to it, but also a moderate degree of numbness.
On the flip side, the Impala rides much better than my wife’s Intrigue. Although larger bumps and potholes send shudders through the body structure, the small stuff is absorbed well. Noise levels at highway speeds are thankfully much lower than in the Olds; they have to be to compete in today’s market, where the market-leading Toyota Camry is quieter and smoother still.
The Malibu also rides fairly well but feels very different, tighter and more precise. With Oldsmobile pretty much gone, Chevrolet is taking up the challenge of being GM’s primary Honda and Toyota competitor. I suspect the next Impala will differ considerably in character from the current one.
Pricing
For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.
A couple of results from this site (10-2004):
After a $2000 rebate the Impala is about $500 less costly than the new Ford Five Hundred and two to three thousand under a Chryler 300 (which has a $1,000 rebate).
Last Words
Especially once the Intrepid is gone, the Impala will be the least expensive large sedan you can buy. This together with its bold, angular lines seem to have appealed to many people. However, I personally do not care for its dated feel and subpar rear seat. The Camry is a more refined, comfortable package for about the same price, while the Malibu is nearly as good as the Camry in many areas, for significantly less money. I prefer either of those cars to the Impala. Between the Impala and other truly large sedans like the Intrepid and Ford Crown Victoria, the Impala might be my pick. The Crown Vic is too crude, the Intrepid too strange. The upcoming Dodge Magnum wagon and Chrysler 300 sedan might be worth a look, though.
Finally, about the name. As a modern interpretation of the large Chevrolet, the Impala seems to have hit the mark. I feel the name is warranted. It feels large, smoother, and powerful, and offers a lot of car for the price. If anything, the Impala feels too much like past large Chevrolets. It’s time to consign the crude interior bits and low rear seat to the dustbin of history.
To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, visit www.truedelta.com.
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