ponchoman49

The new Malibu is a great car but there are too many compromises starting with it's narrow body and short height, way too small trunk and gas hog 3.6 liter engine. The lack of rear seat center armrest and over assist handles are silly too. I have driven lots of both new style and old style Malibus and the new model has a more shallow trunk even compared to my previously owned 07. I consider the new Bu more of a compact than a mid size. Thats why I opted for a 2008 2LT Impala 3900 and couldn't be happier. It has a much roomier front seat, way larger trunk, is taller and considerably easier to get into, rides and handles far better than people on this site give it credit for and I can crack well over 30 on the highway despite that outdated pushrod engine, low tech 4 speed automatic and the prehistoric W-body chassis. Any 3.6 Malibu or Aura I have driven has trouble getting more than 26-27 on pure highway trips. The smaller Malibu also weights more than my Impala. Now I will agree that the new Malibu is a bit more refined feeling with the DOHC V6 and has more tranny gears plus it's chassis feels more modern when you fling it around corners at high speeds but the difference is not very noticeable in everyday driving. Must be I have half a brain but I do know one thing. Todays engineers have a lot to learn when it comes to interior packaging, weight control and trunk space. The new LaCrosse is another example of poor packaging with it's tiny 12.8-13.3 cu.ft trunk which is a joke for there flagship car. What ever happened to the over 20 cu. ft. trunks of the 90's? Some people do more than race and take corners at insane speeds. The new Malibu 4 cylinder models also have the electric power steering which was a disaster on the 04-07's. I can't tell you how many folks had trouble with it. My 07 was in no less than 7 times for power steering related problems. The W-body is a bit less refined but is more simple and reliable- a plus when your out of the warranty.

The Cutlass Supreme is my all time favorite car 60's - 80's. Many times during that run it was THE best selling car in America and you couldn't go around a block without seeing one. I have owned no less than 8 supremes and they were all amazing cars and bring back so many happy memories of simpler and better times. This is the only car line that never bored me or dissapointed me and there was always a surprise waiting with each model year unveiling. I'll never forget growing up and seeing the 75 Hurst, 79 Hurst, 83 Hurst and 85 442. I'll never forget seeing the restyled 81 on TV and pleading with dad to go down to the Olds dealer to check one out. It was a stunning burgandy Calais with matching interior, olds stock wheels and T-tops right on the showroom floor. Dad soon after bought an 82 coupe with the Buick 3.8 liter V6, full power, limited slip 3.08 rear end gears and a neat light green exterior and matching interior. That car was a big upgrade from his 79 Fairmont with it's wheezy 200 straight 6, lack of A/C and flat as a pancake bench seat. He kept that car longer than any other and it was utterly reliable. I can vividly remember on a dreary day in 1987 when it was announced that the rear drive Cutlass was no more and that it's replacement was the rounded front drive Supreme coupe. I was young at the time and so upset that I skipped school and went to the local Olds dealer and spent some quality time with every car on the lot. The salemen never bothered me because they knew I was too young to buy one and I sure did get a few odd looks. Of course I loved all the other Olds models at the time too but the Cutlass was the car that I judged all others by at the time and my pick as model that most mattered at the time.

The 2010 LaCrosse should not be considered Buicks flagship. It only offers V6 engines. It's mid sized with the trunk of a compact at only 12.8-13.3 cu. ft. It weights about 500 lbs too much for it's mid size interior measurements and small trunk. It's exterior it too plain and AWD is going to be a mid level base engine only proposition. To be a flagship you have to do better than this.

The W-body cars certainly had there strengths. The Buick versions scored highly on reliability. Many came with the near bulletproof 3800. They offered roomy front seat accomodations and were taller and wider than even the current Malibu which feels like a compact to me. The Impala versions from 00-current offer larger trunks than just about every other mid size out there and I have always seemed to have good luck with all my many W cars. The Intrigue was arguably it's best itteration if anything for the smooth revvy 3.5 Shortstar, rock solid structure and excellent handling and composure. For all of todays advances, the W-bodies managed to have there own following good and bad and offered things you can't get on todays other mid size mentioned above. The Impala will be the only one left until 2013 it seems.

The Vibe looks like ass so this is no surprise. It should go right back where it came from.

I like the interior but find the exterior bland and dated. It had better be priced right and have class leading fuel economy numbers and lots of advertising.

I voted Ford. So far most of my Chevy purchases have been underwhelming and have required costly transmission or intake gasket repairs plus there interiors are cut rate and I have yet to sit in a Chevy other than the pickup trucks with comfortable seats. Ford will be making my next car for sure as I feel they have done a far better job than the clowns running/ruining GM.

I agree 100%. Other than the Camaro and a couple of other GM products, my next year round car purchase will be a Ford. They are making 1000% more sense than GM in the last 10 years or so. So far GM has managed to drop just about every one of my favorite cars and divisions leaving the entry level cheap Chevrolet, Stodgy Buick with 2 substandard cars and one overpriced land yatch, Cadillac which is way out of my price range and has managed to dilute there brand with dumb letter name cars, plain exterior styling(Escalade and DTS aside) and too many costly gimmicks and the redundant GMC. Thi site sadly will become a place to visit only for the older stuff and nostalgia.

Please do keep us updated with mileage, how and when she breaks in and likes dislikes etc. I always like to hear feedback on new car purchases. Good luck with her.

I just recently rented a 2009 Malibu LTZ with 2.4/6 speed for a weekend and clocked over 1000 miles with that car. I know it's not an Aura but they are basically the same car and feel about the same when driving as far as the engine/tranny are concerned. My car had 12,900 miles on the clock when I picked it up and almost 14K when dropped off to the rental agency. The engine runs with near dead silence at ide and delivers decent enough performance but certainly not as much as my 3500 Malibu. The 6 speed tranny has the same kick down hesitation as the Aura we test drove last month when called on for more power but it didn't happen every time. On paper the 2.4 is rated at 22/33. I tested the Malibu in every possible condition and made sure I filled up with non Ethanol gas and also tried different brands. City/suburban driving saw 22-23 MPG on the trip computer. One pure highway trip saw 29.3 going 75 MPH. Another highway run with a few stops netted 27.5 MPG on the computer and yet another pure highway run going 70 saw 30.0 MPG. I could not for the life of me get even close to 33 with this car. Maybe the 2.4 needs more break in miles than 14K and maybe the huge 18" rims dig into mileage a bit compared to the lesser models 16 and 17" rims. My overall combined mileage with 50/50 mix was usually in the 24.5-25 range which I consider just average for the reduction in performance compared to my Malibu. I also had a chance to time the car to 60 with my buddies G-tech and got a consistant 8.7 seconds to 60 so the 8.6 that C&D got with the LT Malibu seems accurate. Overall the 2009 Malibu it'self impressed me for the most part but I longed for the stronger performance, better shifting 4 speed tranny and slightly better highway mileage of my 3500 equipped 2007 Malibu at the end of the day. It would be really interesting to drive a new style Malibu with the 3500 but those are fleet only and very hard to find.

It was always fun watching people burn the tires off the rims with these cars back in the day. I wish todays cars had this much style and personality.

Not my cup of tea at all. The plain sides, tiny windows, high stubby rear end and overwrought styling spell low sales volume to me. And expensive coupes really aren't selling these days. Quote: No, those older cars were great. I never warmed up to the rigid angularity of the rear quarter window versus the better flow of the backlite on that Eldo. It seems like the early 90s Rivs and Toros had worked in better looking greenhouses. Agreed! That was when cars still had some style to them and you could tell them apart. Many of todays cars have lost me on the bloated generic plain shapes with those sily tiny windows and stubby tail ends and hoods. No wonder so many of todays cars feel confined to me and don't have much in the way of trunk space.

You can't go wrong in a W-body powered by the 3800 series III. So far the series III motor has been solid and relatively trouble free with the only thing of note being an occasional failed drive by wire controller box. The series III motor is noted for ditching the plastic upper manifold in place of compsite steel, slightly larger intake valves and a more robust rigid bottom end to quell noise with the added bonus of making the engine even more tough. Also note that from 07 onwards the LaCrosse switched to the Grand Prix's 3.05:1 axle ratio in place of the 05-06 2.86:1 setup which adds some low end zip, ABS and leather wheel became std equipment on all models along with trip computer and lighted visor mirrors making the 2008 version especially nice with it's bolder grille. It's kind of ironic that the 2009 LaCrosse loses the 3.6 engine due to lack of sales leaving the 3800 as the only V6 and the Super with it's 300 HP V8 of course. I saw the new 2010 LaCrosse at the 101 st annual auto show in Upstate, NY this weekend along with some friends and walked away dissapointed with the Asian looking overbloated shape of the car. The interior was nice but rear seat legroom was modest with the drivers seat back. Gas mileage ratings are down, curbweight up and back seat leg room didn't look any better than the current model. Such progress!

Ah back in the good old days when Buick actually had a nice distinctive full car line. I miss those Rivs, Roadmasters, Park Aves, LeSabres and Centurys. You could order interiors with color. The 3800 was being upgraded and revamped on a regular basis and was able to trounce most other competitors OHC V6's with gobs of torque and honest to goodness station wagons were still in existance at the General. Here we are 13 years later with 2 cars and one big SUV at poor old Buick. Both cars still use the same old 4T65 tranny, one still has a 3800 with 5 less HP than the 90's 3800's and the other is using a Chevy derived 3900. It's amazing what 13 years of neglect and mismanagement can do to a once proud car company.

I am not surprised at all how nice the condition of your car is or the 3800 going 300K miles. I have personally seen numerous late 80's and 90's GM 3800 powered cars such as W-bodies, H-bodies and even G-bodies go well over the 300K mark on the original engine. Folks that lambast 80's and 90's GM products are more than likely going by the smaller cheaper Cavaliers or Grand Ams that ate head gaskets or had interiors that didn't hold up well over time. My good friend has had a used car dealership since 1977 and has sold nothing but GM's and the occasional Ford or Chrysler transported from PA or other Southern states. 200-300K mile LeSabres, Regals, Park Aves, Olds 88's/98's and Bonnevilles are a common site to me and well maintained examples still have very clean bodies and the interiors clean up with the occasional steering wheel respray, new floor mats and maybe a power window/lock switch bezel swap out. One car that really stood out to me was a 1998 Olds 88 LSS with 397K miles showing on it's digital odometer. It was a green one owner car with all the paper work stuffed in the glovebox on repairs/oil changes and tires etc. Other than a reman tranny at 200K, 2 alternators, one water pump, replaced upper and lower intake at 100K, new struts at 200K, tons of oil changes and many sets of tires the car it'self was amazing. You would swear it had 60K miles the way it drove, no squeaks or rattles and that amazing 3800 still ran perfect and pulled you back in the seat. The interior was in nice shape and the seats looked better than most cars with under 100K! The body had no rust or dents and wasn't faded. The owner drove the car for about a year because it had those comfortable Aurora buckets seats that all LSS cars carried in those years and found the car very comfortable. He finally sold the car with 433K miles to a customer for $900.00 and I believe that car is still in operation to this day.

A good buddy of mine bought a sweet black 87 Cutlass Salon coupe from an older gentleman with the exact same burgandy bucket seat interior as your car. It had around 62k miles with the 307 Olds and 200R-4 automatic trans and factory 2.56:1 rear gears. It ran sweet and smooth but was a gutless wonder and I timed it with a stopwatch from 0-60 in 14.9 second! The 85-90 version of the 307 used 7A heads instead of the 80-84 5A versions and used a roller cam. The 7A heads are smaller and spiral shaped which increases the ram effect of the air/fuel mixture. This is great for mileage and around town response but top end power suffers. A good running 7A roller 307 should start very easy and have response very similar to a fuel injected engine if in proper tune. My buddys felt doggy all the time and a heavy throttle foot was needed to get it going. The first thing I did was have the entire exhaust system checked. They checked everything from front to back and found a partically plugged original cat converter and a rotted air injection tube dangling. That explained the strange wheezing noise whenever the car was cold. With a new high flow converter in place and the air injection hose in place the car definately felt better but still not nearly up to par. It was starting hard and stumbly, until warm and hesitated at more than part throttle. With the converter done we re-timed the 0-60 run in 12.5 seconds. Hmm, more room for improvement here for sure. Next was a complete tune up. Yes this car looks to have had the original AC Delco spark plugs with the circular built in groove and litterally no electrode on 4 of the 8 plugs. We stuck in a set of NGK plugs and new Autolight 8.5 MM wires. The cap was replaced with one with brass terminals along with the rotor. The filters were all swapped out, oil changed, tranny serviced and I checked to make sure no codes were stored in the computer. With this done we re-checked the 0-60 time and it dropped to 12 seconds flat. This prompted us to check the timing. Olds 307's like to run with 20 degrees of base timing. With the proper terminals jumpered on the ALDI port under the dash to disable computer control of the distributer we saw 14 degrees of base timing with the engine fully warmed up. Ha, another problem found. I therefore advanced it to the proper 20 degrees. Well it had more power but pinged like a bastard with full operating temp. Ah the famous Olds plugged EGR passages at work here. The valve it'self was working but after removing the carb we noticed the passages to it were plugged right up with carbon! After several hours of drilling, scraping and pounding out the carbon in the passages we decided that the carb should have a good going over. Luckily an ol timer in the area knows these Quadrajet carbs real well. We brought the carb to him and he completely rebuilt it, replaced a bad choke pull off and flow tested it on another running 307 he had in the garage. After buttoning up the newly rebuilt car, EGR passages cleaned out, proper timing and a complete tune-up we took the car out for another run. It was definatley a LOT quicker feeling by seat of the pants feel. The stop watch confirmed with a much better 9.5 second run. The engine started a lot easier, ran as smooth as silk but... It was using gas like a 455. Something was still amiss. The exhaust was black and smelled rich so we knew something was still wrong. My dad thankfully still had his old dwell meter for point ignition systems. This comes in very handy on a computer carb. When connected it can check and see what is going on with the mixture control solonoid. A proper spec for the 307 is 30 degrees on the 6 cylinder scale at idle. Ours was moving from 40 to zero and then 40 again. Replacing the oxygen sensor solved this. When the carb was rebuilt the two factory anti- tamper mixture screw plugs were drilled out so we had access to them easily enough. With the new sensor in place we tweaked the screws until we had a steady 30 on the dwell or about 2 1/2 turns of both mixture screws. This totally got rid of the rich exhaust and mileage nearly tripled to nearly 27 on a pure highway run of about 200 miles. The engine was very responsive, smooth and effertless to get up to speed. I did a little more tweaking on the carb and bent the restricter tab that keeps the secondaries from opening more than a 1/4 of the way. I also released some tension on the spring so they opened quicker. The secondary metering rods on the 307 are the fattest DD rated ones they every stuck in a Quadrajet. The thinner they are the more fuel flow you will get. And it's only the primary metering rods that are under computer control in these cars. Wide open throttle is not controlled so we found a set of thinner rods at the junk yard out of a 70's Delta 88 with the 350 rocket and stuck them in. This made a noticeable difference on top end performance but the poor old 200R4 was starting to suffer from all out testing and tweaks. It would shift late, bog and get caught up from lockup and overdrive. The 200R4's shifts and line pressure are controlled via the TV cable that attaches to the tranny from underneath and terminated on the drivers side of the car. I noticed that when the accelerator was snapped open quickly, the cable didn't always come back with it. Time for a new cable. We installed that and set it to specs and the tranny was back to smooth shifts. 0-60 times were now down to 9 seconds flat! Quite an improvement from 14.9. We were going to install a set of 3.23 rear gears in the Cutlass but sadly hard times hit last year and he was forced to sell the poor old Salon. It would have been interesting to see how the gearing swap would have improved things but alas nothing came of it. Maybe another Cutlass 307 will be in our future.

The L99 code W 4.3 liter 265 V8 appears in the majority of 94-96 Caprices that I have seen or know people to have owned in the past. I have driven tons of them as my best friends dealership used to sell them like crazy in the late 90's when gas was still cheap. It made 200 HP and 245 torque, was tied exclusively to the 4L60 4 speed tranny and in 94 used 2.73:1 rear gears. 95/96 saw a change to 2.93:1 rear gears as std and when you ordered limited slip a 3.23:1 ratio was thrown in. I have timed these cars myself around the low to mid 9 second mark pretty consistently in the 0-60 run. They were also capable of mid to high 20's mileage on trips which was good for a 4000 lb true full sized BOF sedan. The engine never appeared in any other full size BOF car like the Roadmaster or Brougham and never even made it to the Caprice wagon which makes one wonder why they even bothered with this engine for one line of sedan for such a limited run.

My buddy and I took a 2009 2.4 with 6 speed automatic out for a test drive and were a bit dissapointed with the performance but were surprised how smooth and quiet it was overall. The 3500 was a good engine in the Aura and it was a shame they never offered it with the 6 speed auto as they did in the Vue. It seems like it also gets about the same mileage overall as the 2.4 so it's mainly a perception thing about DOHC VS OHV architecture.

That was when they actually made full sized car trunks. Todays so called full size models like the Lucerne or Avalon with 17 and 14.4 cu. ft. trunks are a joke compared to the real full sized cars of the 60's -90's.

I love the 442 and have a real fondness for 78-88 G-body Cutlass cars. There is a real nice clean 87 blue on gray 442 for sale about an hour away from me with 72K original miles that I would die to get my hands on. This car excites me more than 98% of the blandmobiles on the road today. It has the 180 HP 4 BBL 307 HO engine, dual exhaust, 3.73 rear with limited slip, rallye guages, bucket seats, larger 215/65R15 RWL tires, Olds gold tinted super stock wheels and a healty dose of personality. The owner, who is a super cool fellow Olds enthusiast, let me take it for a test drive last September. It was easily the most solid G-body car I have ever driven. It sat up nice and firm, rode and handled curves with ease and that nice burbly 307 has very strong low end grunt and only petered out at high speeds well above the limit. It would sure make a fun Summer ride.

The tail lights are all wrong for a Buick. Why can't they create nice slender horizontal units like on Buicks of yore. The Lexus looks is very tired. Also the dumb mislocated strip of chrome on the bottom of the doors is going to be a disaster when road salt and curbs brush up against it. Why can't it be up in the middle of the doors where it will actually do some good to protect the doors from dings and stray shopping carts and break up the tall ungainly bloated shape of this car? Lexus, Lincoln, Hyundai and Mecedes to name a few also make this huge blunder. The interior is much better executed IMO.

The bodyside molding and lower two-tone paint at least make it look different from all the bland plain looking other Subies.

Looks like a Tiburon on steroids. Not impressed.

Wow can you say bland generic styling combined with bucky the buck tooth beaver cleaver from end, no trunk space, dumb overly long name and overpriced in one sentence? The RL is the only decent looking vehicle they have left save the cleaver front end.