2000 Chevrolet Malibu review from North America

Nice car with a few minor annoyances.

It seem everyone has this problem with the recirculation button. It switches on you from interior to exterior, but I've learned to live with it.

The brakes are a serious problem since I need to replace the rotors every break job. $300 bucks is not cheap. The rear breaks don't grab since I still have the original pads. Service guys say the rear breaks need adhjustment often, but for some reason you can't use the old back up and break a few times to adjust em.

When the car was new it had two bad gaskets that the dealer replaced under warranty. The gas tank gasket was the first; the check engine light kept coming on. Then the trans gasket at about 50k miles. Trans started leaking fluid.

The Air compressor went out just before the extended warranty went out. Glad I bought that, it would have been a $1000 repair.

The blower motor also stopped working just before the warranty went out, again sometimes an extended warranty is actually worth it.

A fan resister went bad after about 2 yrs and now that the warranty is gone the fan resistor is blown out again now I only have high speed, just hope it doesn't go out this winter. In addition, one of the dash lights at the fan knob is blown out.

To top this list off the hood is rusted through at the very front. I priced a replacement in the same color and they're going for $300 and two hours of driving to get it..

Thank God all the major problems were covered by warranty, I just hope nothing else goes bad.

Other than those problems the car is nice to drive. It's comfy and handles nicely. I do have popping and clicking noises, but never got that taken car of. A friend said it's in the sway bar and it's a bad bushing, and Chevy knows about it, but decided to do nothing. Shame on you Chevy.

Someone mentioned the car hesitating or surging when cruising at about 60 miles an hour. I've noticed it too, but my 89 Berreta had the same issue and I just change my speed a little and it goes away. Could be an imbalance in the air sensors.

I expect to keep this car for another five years, provided nothing else major goes wrong.