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Sedans Chevrolet Cobalt Chevrolet Cobalt
2171 messages, Last post on Nov 23, 2009 at 6:04 PM
You are in the Chevrolet Cobalt Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: tsjay (Oct 16, 2008 3:36 am) VVT (variable valve timing) on the 2.2 engine, which seems to have made the 2.4 redundant for now (the 2.4, besides having more displacement, also had fully variable valve timing). The switch for toggling through the DIC (digital information computer?) display is conveniently located on the steering wheel instead of being a button on the instrument panel. The seat adjusts in height. My 2006 had two quality issues. A sporadic dash rattle, and a gurgle in the coolant system. The dash apparently didn't rattle for the dealer when I asked them to check it, and I had a shop replace the coolant to get rid of the gurgle (I was worried I had an air bubble, and air bubbles have been implicated in coolant "gelling" in some situations with the formula GM uses, so I replaced it with "green" coolant). This 2009 seems rattle free and solid. I love the automatic headlamps, and use the temperature gauge option in the DIC control panel to check the rate of warmup - much better than a dial or idiot light. The RDS (radio data system) on the radio displays song title on those stations that broadcast it. All XM stations give you artist and song title, which is cool. The radio has SIX levels of presets, and each preset button can be your choice of AM/FM/XM stations - so on the top level you can have an AM news show, your favorite FM station, and 4 XM stations. The radio also has a tuning knob for frequency or XM channel selection, which is great, of course it has the push buttons for search to next station, but I find twirling a knob much faster. The air con is strong. Much better than on most of the Asian cars I've owned. I selectively cycle the airon off and on as needed, I don't need it much, which helps my mileage. IF the DIC is accurate (my two prior Chevy's read .5-1.5 mpg high), I think I'll be getting 31-32 mpg. My "drive home" mileage hit 37 mpg, but that assumes steady freeway cruising, below 70 mph, very little city. After my drive to and from the gym last night on city streets, and the slow and go during my normally free-flowing commute to work, mileage is now indicating 32 mpg. City mpg quickly dilutes highway mpg, shorter trips dilute mpg (due to the penalty of warming up the car during which the fuel mix is richer), and interstate driving at more than 70 mph drives down freeway mpg, so unless I do some Yosemite trips (low top speeds, little stop and go) I think I'll be getting close to the rated 33 mpg. Keep in mind that if you are in a hyper mile contest you could probably easily hit 37 mpg if you didn't start measuring until warmed up and at a 50 mph cruising speed. After coming out of the Honda Fit, this car feels like a Chevy Impala - solid and quiet and smooth. The people at Car and Driver loved the Fit, because it is cut from the "sports car" frame of mind, but that doesn't make it an easy daily driver for freeway commuting. I think the Cobalt is going to be much better at that, particularly with the automatic. I am also driving a Nissan Versa S, hatchback, which I got with a stick shift. Unfortunately the stickshift is optimized for sporty feel and not mpg - close ratios, low top drive ratio (3,500 rpm at 70 mph). While the Versa was 1 level up from the Fit in feeling like a "real" car, the Cobalt is at least 1 level up from the Versa - quieter, solider. The Versa is still the space king, however - the Cobalt is designed for small to medium people, and even then the roof line feels close. I will leave the kiddie seats in the Versa if I have to take the kids when my wife has the minivan. My only objection to the Cobalt is Chevy's insistence on shipping the LS models ONLY with lighter toned interiors, and not with the black interiors. The light gray in the Cobalt is a real "smudge" magnet - the doofus in detailing managed to smudge the seats, head liner and B pillar while doing the detail prior to delivery. I'd like to see Chevy start shipping LS models with black (Ebony) interiors and/or offering the YES Essentials, soil resistant fabrics offered by Chrysler in their product line. And oh yeah, Chevy is in the middle on the issue of outside mirrors. Chevy is much, much better than cars like the Toyota Echo which had mirrors that adjusted as a single unit - leaving them prone to being whacked out of alignment during every car wash. They are much better than care like the Dodge Caliber, where their manual mirrors have no interior joystick control for manually adjusting them - you have to roll down the windows. (Chevy has an interior joystick on the window frame.) BUT Chevy is not as good as Nissan on the budget Versa, or even as Pontiac on the Toyota-derived Vibe, which both have power mirrors, even on base models where locks and windows are manual. I think the makers need to include power mirrors standard, you need the ability to adjust mirrors on the fly, and that is difficult on the driver's side with manual mirrors, impossible on the passenger's side, and a real safety issue if drivers share cars, human nature is that one of the drivers is going to leave at least the vital passenger side mirror in less than optimal adjustment. Finally, the 2.2 with 155 horsepower "hauls monkey butt" on on ramps and transitions. The automatic has been reprogrammed to resist unlocking the converter, much less throwing a downshift if you have a light touch on the throttle (a good thing for gas mileage) but instantly unlocks and throws a downshift if you goose it just a little - and that 2.2 roars - in terms of power - in noise it is a low growl. I'm glad to see Chevy realizing the promise that the Ecotec brought to the Chevy small block line when it was first introduced, and I rue the day they decide to downsize to 1.8 liters, like they have on the Saturn Astra. Nothing beats an oversize (for its class) engine loafing along at low RPM until actually needed. |
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Replying to: micweb (Oct 16, 2008 9:34 am) I agree that the interior should be darker, I bought a cheap seat cover at Auto Zone for the drive to and from work. When you remove it, you realise how much better the actual seat is without it.  But at least it keeps it looking good. I am impressed with the performance of the Ecotec 2.2. Even with the A/T, it has plenty of snap and the downshifts are quick and precise. This car is one of the best values out there. I will be putting a coat of Race Glaze Polish on mine tomorrow, have to get ready for Winter. Hopefully it will perform well in that department also. Horsey
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Replying to: micweb (Oct 16, 2008 9:34 am) Probably didn't need to do that. There's a process for some cars for burping air out of heater after draining and refilling system. The DexCool early formula is different than today. Now the Mixes with Any Color coolant and DexCool have the same active ingredients. The green stuff isn't as friendly to the various metals in the system which is why DexCool was developed to be protective of those metals. You might flush and refill with Mixes with Any Color coolant after a year or so; but DexCool appears to be the same. I was told that they are the same functionally. |
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Replying to: micweb (Oct 16, 2008 9:34 am) Thanks for the nice write-up. Some of the features you are enjoying on your 09 were present on the 08s, like mine. Mine came with XM radio (but not with OnStar), and my DIC control is on the steering wheel, not on the dash. I think you have an additional seven horsepower with your 2.2 L compared to my 08, which also has the 2.2 L. These little cars SCOOT, don't they? That's one of the main things I like about my Cobalt, i.e., despite its being a gas sipper, it still accelerates great. The light interior is going to be a problem, I do believe. EVERYTHING shows! I'm trying to be careful to avoid stains. I got a good coat of Turtle Wax on my Cobalt the other day. Man, it is sure easier to get the bugs and road tar off when I wash the car now. I can't believe I that I have been so careful about getting stains on the seats, that I have been hand washing the car practically every Saturday, and that I have even waxed the car. I bought this car strictly to have reliable transportation to work and back and to save money on gas. I wasn't going to be particular with it. I didn't plan on even keeping it clean. There was none of the usual "excitement" over buying a new car in this purchase, but the excitement has come from owning it. Tom |
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I was on my way home earlier today and passed a Corolla S. I don't think he wanted me to pass him, but I blew him off the road. I kicked 'er down, and before I knew it, I was going 95 MPH! That little Cobalt was still acclerating real well when I let off. I don't normally drive that way, but I was in a playful mood. Besides, I had to show that Corolla guy that he couldn't keep me from passing him. Tom
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Replying to: tsjay (Oct 24, 2008 7:22 pm) 
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Replying to: horsey55 (Oct 16, 2008 11:23 am) |
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I just refilled the Cobalt for the second time. DIC indicated 31.7 (reset on last refill) and my calculation indicates 31.1 mpg, which on the face of it is close but I don't have enough information to formulate a trend yet. Fill variations from gas station pump should make the DIC more accurate, but the DIC on my '06 read about 1 mpg consistently over my calculations. Anyway, I was about 1/3 of the way through an approximately 90 mile round trip when I had to refill, so I re-set the mpg and speed indicators after the refill to see what free-flowing freeway driving would show on the DIC, in comparison to the mileage I get from my commute, with is 70 miles round trip with a small amount of surface street when I leave, and moderate amounts on the other legs (freeway off to work, work to freeway on, freeway off to home). In this trial case, I had about 5 miles to my destination after leaving the freeway on somewhat congested suburban surface streets, and 5 miles of very free flowing main artery surface street back to a different freeway on ramp. So those surface street miles - more than my usual work commute - probably brought down the DIC mpg. What was my DIC mpg? A whopping 34 mpg. Subtracting my current apparent DIC error of .5 mpg, that gives me 33.5 mpg, or subtracting 1 mpg from my former car's error gives me 33 mpg - simply astonishing for an automatic, 2800 or so pound car. Apparently I have more "slow and go" and "stop and go" during my work commute; I also haven't learned how to time my "coast downs" to traffic and lights, the automatic holds it's speed more than the stick shifts I usually have, so I find myself having to break harder at the end. At one point I was on a 9 mile bridge going across water (hence very level) with no perceptible wind, going only 60 mph, and the instantaneous DIC option indicated 45 mpg (the instantaneous function is much better than on the '06, instead of measuring economy by a fraction of a second, which caused the indicator to jump around too much to be useful, it seems to have a longer duration, maybe a second or second and a half, which means I can readily see the effect of my foot, of ever so slight coasting and of almost invisible rises in the road). It would be interesting to see a club competition with one of these things driven at a constant 40-50 mph - probably quite phenomenal gas mileage. Of course, warming the car up and ANY amount of surface street REALLY hits the tank average mpg hard. My average speeds on the trip were generally around 60-70 mph and at the end of the 60 miles (the last 2/3 of my overall trip) the average speed on the DIC was 45 mph. I suspect interstate trips at 75-80 mpg would probably produce more on the order of 30-32 mpg, still excellent. I figured out why I like this 2.2 in the Cobalt over, say, the 2.2 in the old Malibu or the 2.4 in the new Malibu. You get TERRIFIC acceleration. I remember from my test drives of the old Malibu that acceleration was more than adequate, but as the poster a couple of posts up notes, even with an automatic Cobalts can be darn quick. By the way, for those of you who want to experiment, reset both the mpg and average speed indicators on your DIC when you refill. You will probably note a very strong correlation between average speed and average mpg. The higher your average speed, the more you have been freeway cruising, and average mpg rises with it. If you have an average speed of 25 mph, you are probably driving a lot more city miles than you realize, or have been sitting in traffic or letting the motor run while waiting to pick someone up. |
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I posted this on the "Cobalt Real World MPG" discussion. It goes along with what you were saying in your post. Speed really does kill gas mileage. I took a 265 mile (each way) trip yesterday and checked gas mileage. The pump failed to shut off automatically when I filled up on the other end of the trip, and a good amount of gas overflowed before I could get back over to the nozzle and shut it off. I was on the other side of the car getting ready to clean the windshield when I heard the splashing noise. The last time I made the same trip, I averaged 33.7 MPG. I did a little experiment as I drove across I 64 in southern Illinois between the Wabash River and Mt. Vernon. I reset the average MPG on the DIC and drove a steady 70 MPG for 15 miles, and the MPG reading was 32.7 at the end of those miles. I reset it again and drove a steady 60 MPH for about ten miles (had to stop at a rest area) and got 37.5 for an average MPG for those miles. Tom Can you BELIEVE the acceleration of these Cobalts? For cars that get such great MPG, the acceleration is fantastic. Tom |
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It's the first time I drive with winter tires in 33 yrs of driving. Last night the car in front of me made a sudden stop, when I applied the brake at my surprise I slid and almost rear-ended the car in front of me. On another occasion, I was turning after making a "dead stop" and when I starting to turn, my wheels spun making a "screeching" sound (first time I make my tires spin, I was surprised again. Is it normal for a winter tire to do so on dry pavement? or my "new" tires are no good?
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