Test Ride

Chevy Malibu (source: Chevrolet Website)

Hey guys!  So, recently I got to drive a Chevy Malibu.  It was a rental car to replace my dad's Honda Accord while it was in the workshop.  I don't normally drive automatics, but I did a couple five-hour stretches in my friend's Honda Accord on a road trip this summer, so I'm familiar enough with them to not reach for the clutch (that was a fun lesson to learn). But other than that, I drove a bit in another rental car my dad had earlier, a Dodge Avenger.

Honda Accord (source: Honda Website)

I had only been driving for a few months when I drove the Avenger (the first automatic car I drove), so I don't remember much about it.  I do remember that it wouldn't accelerate much - I remember flooring it in a parking lot with no response.  However, that car may have just been lemon.  Nevertheless, I still used that car to judge all automatics for a year, until I drove my friend's Accord.  

Dodge Avenger (source: Wikipedia)

There's not much to say about my friend's Accord, as I drive a Honda Accord and an Acura TSX (a rebadged Honda Accord).  Apart from noticing that it drops a gear when I push on the gas, (sometimes two if I pushed hard enough), it was an identical ride to what I consider standard.

The Malibu, however, was a bit different than my usual rides.  When I first walked to it, it looked slightly larger than the other cars here, and it did feel like I was sitting higher off the ground, (which made my line judgement a bit more awkward when parking, but that's a matter of getting used to the car).  Because it was raining, I noticed a couple things on the inside of the car immediately: there was an automatic feature for the headlights, and the lever for the windshield wipers was the reverse of the Honda's lever (pushing the lever up in the Malibu would be the equivalent to moving the Honda's lever down and vice versa).  

And now, we'll move on to the actual driving.  Immediately, I noticed this car drove much better than the Avenger I drove; it would accelerate when I wanted it to and it could handle corners well. One interesting thing that my dad showed me was the manual mode (M).  This allowed you to shift through the gears with a push of a button.  However, it was a bit awkward to push on the top of the shifter with your thumb to change gears, but it did get the job done and prevented shifts if the engine was underpowered.  Finally, there were a couple awkward blind spots, one at the drivers eleven o'clock (with the driver side's A-Post) and one at the driver's four o'clock (with the car's C-post).  The former made it hard to pull a turn going left and the latter made it hard to pull into lane.

However, all in all, it was a decent car to drive.