USA Today PANS the new Chevy Malibu-Are they right?

Not too good of a press for the Malibu... Its nice looking, inside and out, but not my cup of tea.

No, actually it's freaking ugly. Nice try.

The extreme nature of the comments in this article compared to really good words in about every other article I have read kinda make this guys opinions seem a bit unreliable and biased.

Well not every car is going to review in the middle. So IMHO outspoken and bias are two totally different things.

You mean biased like Consumer Reports

lol this isnt GM's first issue with USA today, its almost as if the reviewer set out to trash this car, and make it look like a poor effort from GM. Every mag that has reviewed this car has rated it very highly for quality, styling, and performance, including edmunds, and USAToday with their GM issues rated it poorly, even went as far as to say the Malibu isnt as good as the Camry and Accord, this article really sounds like BS, but unfortuantely im sure GM will lose people to this article. the comments are so off center it leads me to believe that the reviewer didnt has some bias against Chevrolet, the description of the cut lines as a masochistic orgy, and makes alot promises it doesnt keep this guy really hates this car lol, wow those descriptions were extreme to say the least

i guess this is the kinda non sense want to read since everyone that thought this review was bias was deboosted....even the people who post on usatoday trashed the reveiw as bias.. getting a bad review is fine if you deserve it but creating reasons for a car to get a bad reveiw, misinforming the public, and using fanciful words as a way to show extremes is just poor journalism. There are facts in the review that arent even the truth in the review. IF a compnay needs press that bad they have to result to lieing, thats pretty bad but obviously the people here eat stuff like that up, as long as its not one of their respective brands that they are talking about.....how rediculous

"The Malibu of yore mainly was a snazzy compact"

That alone obliterates author/reviewer credibility as the Malibu has never been a COMPACT vehicle.

GM has little to worry about with this review, as the vehicle is very nicely executed, and Malibu buyers will be justly rewarded for their purchase choice (in my opinion).

A friend of mine just turned in her Camry (lease) for a Malibu and loves it.

What a coincedent, a female friend of my trade in her Malibu for a Toyota Camry SE V6, how odd and she love it ;)

ps. and she love the Camry

Huh?

She was crazy to trade in a car that just came out. There is no way she had a 3 month lease from GM so she logically bought it and took a huge hit after trading it in at a loss.

Unless she had the old piece of crap Malibu and u forgot to mention that. Of course you did, it renders ur post worthless.

"PANS?" I don't think so. This is a fairly balanced review. There doesn't seem to be much bias to me--just the mentions of issues with the car they drove.

Interesting how the interior cut lines are mentioned. Motor Trend said the exact opposite about the Cadillac CTS, which proves how Cadillac really designed the car from the ground up, with no parts-bin sharing.

It's funny to me how often this guy finds faults with cars (of any make!) that the car company has not had reported before and can't reproduce.

That said, I'd hardly say he panned the vehicle when the review ends with this:

"On paper, Malibu seems superior to the lionized Camry. In practice, judging by the test cars' foibles, maybe not quite"

well,GM need to get their house in order before comparing their vehicles with Toyota and honda since they are getting engines from Honda and in some case the whole car from Toyota

angry old man, this is his kind of car!!!

Check Edmunds for their reader's reports on the Camry.
Not good. Many auto transmission problems; similar to what James Healey reported on the Malibu.
My take on this: wait one year to test drive the Malibu to see if the auto trans problems still exist, then decide. I still don't know if Toyota ever fixed the auto trans problems with the Camry.
Better yet, test drive the Malibu now to see if the reported problems were pre-production only.

None of the tested vehicles were 'Pre-Production'

"What that all amounts to, judging from three early-production test cars — high-end V-6, midlevel four-cylinder and a hybrid, which uses the four-cylinder — is a very nice American family sedan."

Chevy's were never refined but they were always powerful and fun to drive. The last Malibu seemed more quick that it was, it is quick to very low revs and then quickly changes gear, and by the end of it you are running dry on power. And then there would be some clanking nose undeneath the chasis and seemed as if like the mufflers had come loose, and the interior was made with very harsh materials and the fitting was quite loose, with gaps here and there, and the car was just all plastic and very cheap quality ash trays and cup holders. Evern Ford has better quality interior than that. The car never seemed solid, as if the components were glued together to the chasis rather than being part of one single piece, and this problem was apparent even in the camry that i had, but surprisingly the accord that i rented had a much more solid structure though it was kind of short on power. But if you can get over all the weak links, then the Malibu was a pretty fun car to drive with pretty good grips and the exterior styling looked chunky and sporty. But i would not have bought it, even though i did rent the car for almost one month(because my Lexus ES was stolen). I have not driven the new camry or the new Malibu, but if the new Malibu is really to become worthy of buying, then GM would have had to make major improvements in almost every aspect of the previous car, chasis did not feel solid enough, the interior was downright uncomfortable and very cheap, and unrefined engine and gear shift. In this category the most refined car that i drove was the last generation Accord. I hope that GM has addressed all those problems, because the Malibu was maverick, sometimes very average, but sometimes utterly brilliant. And i really did like the car, but the car was never consistent and that stopped me from thinking of buying it.

I love the new Malibu.

Wow. I know that no car is perfect but he pretty much nitpicked this car into mediocrity.

Mediocrity is what GM is all about!