The 2001 Chevrolet Malibu was the third car we rented during out vacation in Hawaii. It had 27,558 miles on it. I am reviewing this as a layperson. I do not work at a car dealership, I am not a mechanic and I don't review cars as my job at epinions.

The car’s features

I was really happy to see this car which is considered mid-size. It was a front wheel drive, 4-door STD Sedan. I was very upset with our previous compact rental.

The car we rented had a 6 cylinder 3.1 litre engine. Standard in this car are
-air conditioning (which worked very well),
-an alarm system,
-digital clock (but no weather feature),
-an am/fm stereo,
-an automatic 4-speed transmission,
-power door locks (which locked automatically after the engine was started),
-in addition, I just loved this feature which I had never seen – the car told us it was locked. That may not be news to some, but it is a neat feature. There is a keyless entry and when you click the key to lock the door, the headlights flashed on and off telling us it was locked.
-It also had a remote trunk release,
-steel wheels,
-anti-lock brakes,
-cloth seats.

Everything was power (the mirrors and windows, for example) except the seats. They moved manually.

Inside

This Malibu was very comfortable to sit in, drive and be a passenger in. The seats go all the way down and I slept more often than I wish to admit. There is the usual map pockets and areas for change but one very strange item was one-cup holder. I just could not understand that. Not only is this a mid-size car but it is roomy so there is certainly room for another one. I don’t know what they were thinking. There was an armrest between the bucket seats, which opened for storage.

The car really is roomy and I will give you the specs at the end but just as an example the front head room is 39.4 inches which an inch more than the Chevy Prizm. It has a bit less legroom than the Prizm which surprised me when doing research on the car because it felt much roomier.

The back seat was a large 3 seater. There is no mistaking that 3 adults can fit into the back seat comfortably. It was very roomy. Compare the 33.2 inches of legroom in the Prizm with the 38 inches in the Malibu. That makes quite a difference. I found the front and rear seats to be wide, firm and supportive. I was quite comfortable for our 5 days on The Big Island.

The car felt solid inside and well made. Unlike many of our rentals, the Malibu did not have that tinny feeling although I will give you the crash test results in a moment.

The cloth/velour seat colors are gray and neutral. Ours was gray and was very pretty and soft to sit on.

Outside

The Malibu is a lot less sporty looking that the Subaru Imprezu, a car I liked a lot. I target it for the conservative driver who wants to think he or she is driving a safe, solid car. It actually is. It just did not fare well in one area of the crash test. The colors are: Black, Bright White, Dark Jade, Green Metallic, Galaxy Silver Metallic, Light Driftwood Metallic, Medium Bronze Metallic, Monterey Maroon Metallic and Navy Blue Metallic Our was one of the thousands of white rentals around!

The car is often compared to the Honda Accord or the Toyota Camry. It doesn’t look like either. To me it looks just like a conservative Chevy, a smaller Impala, and it looks very, very much like the Buick Century. I am a foreign car lover, so there is no contest among these three cars but the Malibu does offer a lot for the money so if you are an American car buyer and are looking for a mid size car, this Malibu might be just right for you. But that sounds like the end and I’m not at the end...so I will continue.

It had a large trunk, which is always nice to see, with 17.1 cubic feet versus 12.1 cubic feet in the Prizm you can really see the difference between a compact and a mid size car. We had no problem at all getting our luggage and gear into the trunk or the back seat for that matter.

The fuel tank capacity is 14.8 gal versus 13.2 in the Prizm. The automatic gets 20 miles to a gallon of gas (versus 28) in the city and 29 (versus 36) on the highway and yet another comparison of the compact to a midsize car. The fuel economy isn’t terrible, but you can find cars with much better fuel consumption and if this is a commuter car, something you want to consider. The Honda Accord will get you 26 mpg and 32 mpg. Not a huge difference but that 6 mpg in the city may just add up.

Handling

I found the Malibu drove well but considering how much I liked the Subaru I did note that it did not hold the road quite as well as the Subaru. As you continue reading, you will see it did a good job, though.

It had great pick up although tended to get a bit noisy when “floored.” We did a lot of driving on The Big Island. We drove for hours and hours and I was really pleased with the way it handled. Some of the roads are narrow and some are steep and I found the car handled both well. Roads in Hawaii are often windy and again, although not as good as the Subaru, it did well on these roads. This is the island that Volcano National Park is on requiring some very steep driving and a lot of stop and go when waiting to see the lava. I was pleasantly surprised that the stop and go of the Malibu did not make me feel sick and that I wasn’t thrown all over the car when we turned corners!

I was almost surprised one night when we got back to our car it started. We had been gone for hours and it was pouring. It did cross my mind that it was a rental and "what if", but no problems at all. I give this a thumbs up because lately a few of my rental experiences have not been positive. I can blame it on the car rental agency but I can also say that if the car started after sitting in the pouring rain (Which it should.) as a rental, then as one you own and maintain, it would then translate into reliability. (maybe- Years ago our brand new Caravan stopped on a major highway hundreds of miles from home leaving us stranded for days, so one never knows!)

I was also taken by the way it handled sand and mud. We, of course, didn't purposely drive on either, but during the course of our 5 days, there were roads that were both sandy and muddy and the car's traction got through them just fine.

We also went on many, many very bumpy roads. Roads that were barely paved and I barely felt them. The car handled really well in all environments and situations.

Warranty

Basic is 3 years or 36,000 miles. The drivetrain is covered also for 3 years or 36,000 miles. Roadside is the same and rust is warrantied for 6 years or 100,000 miles

How does it fare in a crash

It actually fares well. It was tested using a "frontal offset crash test” see url: http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ce/offset.htm if you want to see how this test is done.

It has an acceptable rating overall with the following specifics:

Structure/safety cage gets an acceptable.

Injury measures: Head/neck gets a good (which is better than an A)

Chest gets a good

Leg/foot, left gets a good

Leg/foot, right gets an acceptable and here is the one concern I have:

The Restraints/dummy kinematics gets a poor rating.
I am going to explain what that means.
"Significant injury risk can result from undesirable dummy kinematics -- for example, partial ejection from the occupant compartment -- in the absence of high injury measures. This aspect of performance involves how safety belts, airbags, steering columns, head restraints, and other aspects of restraint systems interact to control dummy movement."
For more information, please read about this at http://www.hwysafety.org/vehicle_ratings/ce/def.htm

I must say here that if we read the crash results (and I only started doing this since I started writing car reviews) many of us would never get in a car. Perhaps the only car that may be safe enough would be out of our financial reach so we have to take this information and realize that few cars have all As. I don’t like to see a Poor, though, in the crash dummy test especially since many buy this car as a family car.

My final thoughts

The Chevrolet Malibu is a decent car. It isn’t one I would buy because it isn’t my style, but the price is right with a dealer retail of $9,878. You get a lot of car and a lot of features for that price. I do realize this is a 2001. The new Malibu is selling for between $17,000+ - $19,000+ which is a decent price for this car with a lot of features, which are standard and great space!

It handled well for an American car (Sorry, my bias is showing). It held the road, didn’t feel like a hunk of tin and had terrific pick up. In spite of learning that it got a poor rating I am going to recommend this car but call it average. I just think there are too many above average cars in this price range to rate it higher.

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me.

Some sites you may want to check out are:
http://www.faceoff.intellichoice.com/FaceOff/Sponsors/national/SelectionFrameset.asp?spon=national

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/testing/NCAP/

http://www.edmunds.com/

Specs for those of you who want them and understand them. I am leaving out those already mentioned in the review:

Exterior:
· Length: 190.4 in.
· Width: 69.4 in.
· Height: 56.4 in.
· Weight: 3051 lbs.
· Wheel Base: 107 in.
Interior:
· Front Head Room: 39.4 in.
· Front Hip Room: 52 in.
· Front Shoulder Room: 55.5 in.
· Rear Head Room: 37.6 in.
· Rear Shoulder Room: 55.3 in.
· Rear Hip Room: 52 in.
· Rear Leg Room: 38 in.

Performance Data
Performance:

· Horsepower: 170 hp
· Max Horsepower: 5200 rpm
· Torque: 190 ft-lbs.
· Max Torque: 4000 rpm
· Drive Type: FWD
· Turning Circle: 36.3 ft.

from edmunds.com

If you are interested in other car reviews, here are my links:

2000 Nissan Altima
2001 Chevy Malibu
2002 Chevy Prizm
1998 Dodge Ram Van
1996 Nissan Sentra
2001 Pontiac Sunfire
1999 Toyota Camry
2001 Hyunda Accent
1998 Chevy S-10 Pick
1999 BMW 323is
2002 Subaru Impreza
2000 Suzuki Swift
2001 Chevy Metro
Amount Paid (US$): 9878
Model Year: 2001
Model and Options: STD Sedan, Automatic