1981 Chevrolet Malibu from North America - Comments

Everything, really..

The body is cheap and easily mangled.

The rear end is cheap and wears quickly.

The brakes are horrible even after you have new ones put in.

The handling is miserable even after you replace all of the front end parts.

The engine is sloppy, burns oil, weak pick-up.

The interior is falling apart - just like every other older Malibu I have seen.

The transmission is OK.

You know, I have given Chevy a fair chance, I really have. I have found that their cars are cheaply built. Every Chevy I have owned or driven I have compared to a Ford and Dodge of equal value and found Chevy always came up short. Dodge choked in certain years and Ford was bad from '80 to '82.

You are criticizing a car company because of a 20 year old beat up car. It looks like you have only put 50 miles on it and haven't had it for a year. I bet you paid less than 500 bucks for it. I am sure this web site is set up for people who have recently bought new cars, or people who own older cars which they bought new, not people who buy old beat up cars with high miles for little or no money. If you would have bought this car with a V8, you would be a lot happier with it, guaranteed..

I apologize for standing on my little soapbox, however I do not tolerate a review that seems foolish. This car did not suddenly become rusted to the point of scrap metal in the fifty miles that you owned it. Why did you buy it in the first place? Why would you put the kind of money a total brake job requires, find yourself unsatisfied with the outcome, then continue to dump more money into a complete front end, only to find yourself again unhappy? They must have seen you coming!

I had one of these cars, & it was a very reliable & sturdy car. Mine was a coupe with a 305, & an automatic. I still see the guy I sold it to driving it around the area. As the other comments said above, it is highly unlikely that the car just turned to scrap metal after only putting 50 miles on it. If all you say other than the scrap metal comments about the car is true, then the person that sold you the car beat the car extremely hard, & into the ground before you acquired it. Like another previous comment said, you probably only paid 3 figures for the car anyway. You know what they say, caveat emptor (buyer beware).

Let me tell you that the chevrolet Malibu is the best car GM has ever produced. I'm from Venezuela, and here is most wanted car because of the excellent quality, it can be used any time, I own one and in 22 years I had to change the engine in year 2000 I have evidence of that. In fact it is a such a good car that most of the taxi drivers use them inside Caracas, the nation's capitol, and is also used by taxi drivers who give their service taking people across the country. The problem is that here because of the economy problems we have been forced to take care of them, make a good maintenance and of course, make modifications to the engine and many other parts of the car that gives them more time of life, so I think that the Chevrolet Malibu is a very good car bescause it has a cheap maintenance, easy to work in the mechanic area, not an excessive consumption of gas, it is also very comfortable. Many engineers form GM say that it is a GM mistake because of the great quality of the car. Those who think that this car is bad is because, in miles opinion, they do not take good care of them, or maybe because they do not own one or maybe because they have not yet the opportunity to realy test them, make a trip across the country, and you will see that I'm not wrong, I know I'm not wrong because I own one.

I own an 81 malibu... as a car buff whether you are hot rodding or looking for just a reliable car the malibu surpasses the competition.. the boys at GM really had their heads screwed on tight for this one. I pulled the original v-6 motor which still runs today and replaced it with a 350 and beefed up the suspesion, added a nascar style spoiler to the rear deck and put on the euro style front end and this machine screams off the line and turns heads all over town... two thumbs way way up chevrolet you made a winner... no wonder yur the most dependable and the winningest manufacturer in racing today.