1998 Chevrolet Malibu LS review from North America

Front brakes wobbled/warped.

Front end creeks and knocks.

15" alloy rims corroded.

15" rims and bubble tires makes for poor high speed cornering.

Engine knocks at cold temperatures.

Head lights rarely ever turn off it boggles my mind to try to figure out how they turn off with the car running.

=To fix the poor running issues (stalling while holding brakes while in drive stopped, loss of power after 2nd gear, poor mile per gallon)

-I tore the fog lamps out, took the air box out, took the honeycomb out of the Air Temperature sensor, put a Power Adder air filter from Pep Boys for $20, took cardboard and made an air block keeping all the hot air from the engine to the air filter. I sprayed the exhaust manifold and cross pipe cover with hi-temp silicone and wrapped it with high temp fiberglass exhaust wrap. The results were very substantial throttle response and gas mile per gallon has improved. (Tools/parts needed are cardboard, scissors, wrench set, hi-temp tape or duct tape, hi-temp exhaust wrap, pipe clamps)

=To fix the brakes and handling problem due to bubble tires.

-I replaced the original 8" (I think) disc brakes in the front with 13" Street & Track drill/slot brakes with the duel piston caliper from BAER Racing, I had to then upgrade the rims to a larger size seeing how the inside of the 15" rims are only 13" and the width of the new disc and caliper is about 14" so I bought 18" rims and the brakes it has worked GREAT, it fixed the swaying when you turn sharp and fixed the brakes issue (tools/parts needed for installing new brakes are to include 9/16" drill, wrench set, 12mm hex key, brake line wrench, a machine shop to make a disc to hub spacer 5/16" thick) the costs were $450 for the 2 front 18" rims and tires, $900 for the disc-caliper-stainless braided brake line, $70 for the machined hub spacers.