2004 Chevrolet Malibu LS from North America - Comments

No problems since I've owned this 05 Malibu sedan.

I was forced to shop for a car after our 2003 Malibu (which worked great) was totaled off in an accident. I intended to buy an import and gave it a good try, but after many weeks of test driving all sorts of cars, none could match the value this 05 Malibu has.

When equipped with the full airbag package it's one of the safest mid sized cars on the road, rated in the top 6 and is the only domestic on that list. The Saab 9-3 is at the top of the list and the Malibu is based on the same platform as the 9-3.

Quiet, solid feeling, handles great, the V6 has plenty of power and is a gas miser. I consistently get 30mpg city driving. The motor has high torque so feels stronger than some higher hp engines. The electric steering is fantastic, a very progressive design that may be too progressive for some. The body fit and finish is perfect and the looks are sleek, classy and unique enough to separate it from the endless lookalikes out there.

It's very smooth and quiet on the highway. The fastest I've had it was 160Km/hr and at that speed it was vibration free and quiet.

Have had many comments from people who love the looks, the value, the feel and the safety rating. I have to agree!

For some reason this review on a 2005 model got put under the 2004 heading. Just to be clear, this is a 2005 model built in late 04 and as such it has many or all of the bugs that affected the 04 models resolved.

Just a note: I understand what you mean about the car feeling stronger than other "higher horsepower" cars. I assume you mean the "benchmark" Accord and Camry, which are advertised at 240HP/212 torque and 225hp/240tq respectively, both from smaller engines (3.0L and 3.3L). But Honda, Toyota, and others rate those figures "at the flywheel," which means they lie. (They multiply their figures by about 1.37 to obtain that "flywheel" rating, assuming a 27% drivetrain loss. GM rates them at the wheels, no multiplication required. If your GM 3.5L were rated by Honda, it would be advertised at 271hp and 301 lb-ft torque (those numbers look familiar? Look at Nissan's advertised figures for the 3.5L 350Z). So, your engine is indeed stronger, with more torque and horsepower. For any naysayers, just take a "240hp" Accord and a 200hp Malibu to a dyno, and see which one gets higher numbers. And about the 350Z, yes, 0-60 in 6 seconds, but with short gears. The Malibu would smoke you with those gears; more torque, lower RPM.

I drive a 1992 Olds Cutlass Supreme, 140hp and 185 torque at the wheels. For Honda, that's 200hp and 255 torque. Your car has 220 lb-ft of torque at 3200 RPM, mine has 185 at 3200. Guess what? Your car is faster than mine. But an Accord with 155 lb-ft. at the wheels? Who knows.

"Honda, Toyota, and others rate those figures "at the flywheel," which means they lie."

The previous comment mentioned different methods in HP ratings of which could be entirely true, but that could also be taken as simply opinion, or misinformation.

Not meaning to doubt the poster and I along with many reviews I've read do make the comment that the Malibu 3.5 feels stronger than the comparable honda/toyota. Are there any websites that have done this type of testing and have some documented results? It doesn't bode well for certain manufacturers to play the numbers game in order to confuse consumers. They should all be required to use a standard measurement or mention where the HP rating is measured, at the wheels or at the flywheel.

It reminds me of the audio wattage thing many years ago when some power output ratings were given in peak, or peak to peak, or rms. Most consumers have no clue what the difference is and assume that higher is better. At least now the true and standard rating of RMS is more widely used, but there is still some trickery with numbers going on.

To the last poster (Jun 08) : I wrote the comment above yours, and I don't know of any websites that have conducted tests of the type you and I would both like to see. However, now that you mention it, I will begin a search. If you can find sites with dynamometer graphs on them, there are some dynos (Mustang dynos, no connection to the car as far as I know) that actually read horsepower at the wheels. I saw, on a site devoted to the Acura Integra Type-R, a wanna-be Porsche, a dyno graph from a Mustang dyno showing that, at the wheels, a Type-R had 145hp (195 advertised). There was a note from the dyno shop telling customers to multiply the given numbers by 1.31 for a manual, or 1.37 for an auto, in order to compare to "stock advertised figures." Other dynos generally do this multiplication ahead of time, so putting my 140hp/185ft-lb Cutlass on a Dynojet, for example, would produce readings of 200hp and 260 torque, maybe more if the planets aligned correctly. Email dankraft@comcast.net for further discussion, as this subject merits further discussion.

There seems to be very little on the subject, but this article titled, "Asians oversell horsepower Toyota, Honda inflated claims of engine muscle; new tests force automakers to come clean with buyers"

And another quote from the article.."Detroit's automakers say they have been conservative in calculating horsepower and don't expect to have to reduce horsepower ratings on many vehicles. In fact, after retesting, the Big Three have revised horsepower ratings upward on several vehicles."

It would seem that the big 3 North American guys have been playing fair all along, or even under rating the HP claims. Makes one wonder what else the Japanese do to confuse and deceive consumers in the name of sales. I'm proud of the fact I've never bough a Japanese car, and probably never will. I think that a car company who purposely tries to deceive and confuse by using whacked out numbers isn't trustworthy enough to get my business.

The full article is here:

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0508/17/A01-283759.htm.

If anyone cares to discuss this or other car issues on a forum website, I'd recommend Edmunds.com

I usually post at the Malibu section here: http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX/.ef254d5/

There seems to be very little on the subject, but this article titled, "Asians oversell horsepower Toyota, Honda inflated claims of engine muscle; new tests force automakers to come clean with buyers"

And another quote from the article.."Detroit's automakers say they have been conservative in calculating horsepower and don't expect to have to reduce horsepower ratings on many vehicles. In fact, after retesting, the Big Three have revised horsepower ratings upward on several vehicles."

It would seem that the big 3 North American guys have been playing fair all along, or even under rating the HP claims. Makes one wonder what else the Japanese do to confuse and deceive consumers in the name of sales. I'm proud of the fact I've never bough a Japanese car, and probably never will. I think that a car company who purposely tries to deceive and confuse by using whacked out numbers isn't trustworthy enough to get my business.

The full article is here:

http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0508/17/A01-283759.htm.

If anyone cares to discuss this or other car issues on a forum website, I'd recommend Edmunds.com

I usually post at the Malibu section here: http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/WebX/.ef254d5/

Indeed. Must be that new "SAE net" thing I hear about. Interesting read about the crankcase oil, etc. The main issue for me is the discrepancy between advertised power and actual performance. For example, Honda's 2.4-liter in the Accord is rated at 161 ft-lb. torque, while my 3.1L has 185 ft-lb. So their DOHC engine makes 87% of the torque of a *pushrod* V6, from 76% of the compression space? I don't think so.

That article presents facts I had not considered, but I believe the thing being left out was the fact that those companies still rate the number "at the flywheel."

Some people believe that the new SAE standards did just that, and corrected power to the wheels, but if the new Civic Si went from 200 crank HP to 197 wheel HP, then their drivetrain defies physics with its 1.5% power loss.

I noticed that the Accord (an Edmunds favorite) was never specifically mentioned, when it seems like their "240hp" V6 would merit the most scrutiny. Don't know if that's significant at all, but seemed a rather obvious omission.

One doesn't want to irritate the sponsors now do we. Is there anyone out there these days who isn't biased, getting kickbacks or special favours?

I agree that numbers measured at the flywheel verses at the wheels will be a lot different and they should specify that when giving a hp rating. But are you sure the Honda ratings have always been measured at the flywheel?

I don't believe so. I have a collection of Popular Science magazines ranging from 1986 up, and by the 1988 issues, advertised figures for cars in their tests pretty much go along with the way things are advertised now.

In a 1988 issue, a Nissan 2.4L is already rated at 150hp. However, in the earliest issues I have, from 1986, a 2.0 liter Nissan Stanza engine is rated at 97hp and 114 ft-lb, while today, the same size engine (2.0L) in the Nissan Sentra merits easily 145hp and 136 ft-lb. of torque. "Advanced technology" aside, that's a pretty big improvement. For another example, a 1986 Nissan Sentra, 1.6L, is rated at 70hp and 92 ft-lb., while today, Honda maintains that their 1.6-liter engine produces 127hp and 114 ft-lb of torque. The 1986 Sentra had 9.4:1 compression, the same as the 2000 Civic.

Regrettably, I don't have any road tests of Hondas from the mid-80's, only a Honda Prelude Si (2.0L, 135 claimed hp, 127 claimed torque). But, I'm assuming that Honda went along with the other companies during the mid-80's, providing actual wheel-hp figures, and I suspect that sometime during the late 1980's, someone at a Honda/Nissan/Toyota staff meeting had the bright idea that, since people are stupid, they could just advertise whatever horsepower numbers they wanted, and people would buy based on that, rather than how the car actually felt during a test drive. They were successful, and so today idiots are surprised when my 140hp Cutlass can absolutely dust most (Japanese) cars that advertise 200hp. Naturally, if a Chevy says it has 200hp, I tend to listen.

And yes, I am long-winded. At least with a keyboard.

Just remember the problems Toyota had with the Corolla in 2004, the engine was advertised at 130hp, but with dyno tests it was revealed that some of these engines could barely produce 88hp. Some customers had refunds or warranty extensions.

I thought all vehicles hp ratings were at the fly wheel is this no longer the case?