15th Apr 2003, 13:17

I also went through brake pads, rotors and even tires. My last set of Midas brakes also seemed to hold up. At least I only had to keep paying the labor vs. labor and parts... as Midas gives 100% replacement on brakes (parts only).

I also had that humming noise on the left front side of the car. It seemed to be worse on a windy day. I never tried to have it fixed... because I was putting too much money into everything else on the car.

I've never had a car that cost me so much in maintenance. And after finding this web site (www.carsurvey.org)... it confirmed that the 1998 Malibu has too many engineering flaws on it.

What upsets me the most is that Chevrolet KNOWS that the car is engineered wrong, because the SAME problems are occurring in this vehicle. A company needs to BACK their flaws... if not... I no longer have confidence in purchasing their product.

Yesterday I because the owner of a 2000 Honda Accord. I have NEVER bought a foreign car before... thinking that I needed to support US car products. Well... since they (Chevrolet) is not supporting its customer base when they have engineering flaws... I no longer feel I need to be loyal to them. I just recently spoke to a friend of mine who works at a Chevrolet dealership as the "warranty input" person. She told me that Chevrolet is covering less and less on warranty... and less and less on things going wrong with the cars.

My 2000 Honda Accord has a 100,000 bumper to bumper Honda certification on it (they just started a new program on their used cars). It's a special certification they will give to some of their used cars. I'm looking forward to ONLY PAYING my car payment each month vs. a car payment plus $200 - $300 a month on top of that to maintain my 1998 Chev. Malibu.