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Sedans Chevrolet Malibu Chevrolet Malibu MPG-Real World Numbers
288 messages, Last post on Nov 27, 2009 at 5:37 PM
You are in the Chevrolet Malibu Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: phil53 (Sep 24, 2009 8:26 am) As to the shifting, I have to wonder if a better programming for shift points would help? That is mileage and response. I've noticed a couple of other annoying things in this arena. When letting off from moderate to hard acceleration, it seems to upshift before engine or something properly spins down, giving the vehicle an additional slight bump in accerleration when you've already tried to slow. That seems dangerous to me! And sometimes it will hold in a gear with the engine turning so slowly it seems to be laboring hard, especially if you gradually accelerate. New experiences yesterday: An odd slight vibration, seeming to vary with road surface maybe, but hard to determine exactly what it is. Sound is very subdued. Almost like a bad CV joint sometimes and if it is occurring, it is more noticeable during braking, which then makes it seem like a rotor is also a possibility. And maybe like a flat spot on tire, and more noticeable when doing a slight steering correction (another issue). Regardless of the specific cause of that, I'd say the tires have an issue for certain. When pulling into traffic from a store road, I went through a small pot-hole puddle with moderately heavy acceleration. The road was dry. I found that the vehicle was trying to correct for wheel spin and felt like it was trying to do a duck walk, almost like having wheel hop and positraction going on at the same time. I will certainly being paying closer attention to suspension handling and at the very least say these Firestone FR710 tires are partially at fault. If it had been the Aurora with the same amount of pedal, it likely would not have spun unless I fully dropped the pedal on the V8. So far these tires are suspect for terrible wet traction, noise, poor tracking on varying road surface, maybe out of round, and harsh ride with prescribed pressure. And steering. I like a tight precise steering that tracks well on the road. It may be due to ELS since I'm unfamiliar with that, but there feels like slop in the wheel. Normally this would be like a worn out power steering unit or rack & pinion or worn parts in the steering column.
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If a company talked quality, I'd expect key and incumbant features across all models to show the same quality. That is, they are meant to move something with greater ease. Different models may be for different sized loads or have different colors and features. But you certainly could not claim quality if you made a cheap tinny, rust through in 6 months, flex like a piece of paper, always going flat tires model as well as a real quality one. It seems GM may have some hold-over mentality they need to shed. Like when big engines were only allowed in big cars like a Cadillac prior to the muscle car advent. Or that they have neglected quality with smaller models for most of their years. Which eventually spilled into larger models. |
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still amazed at the decrease in mileage the new malibus are seeing..seems it has declined since the 06-07 MY....an 04 Maxx LT here..with auto and 6 cyl...I regularly get 25 avg in the city driving...and 30-32 MPG highway doing 70 MPH.....increased my tire size from the OEM 16 inch rims to a wider 17 inch rim for a better ride....lost a bit on gas mileage but not enough to be concerned with..probably increased weight with rims and tires....as well as the wider profile on the tire...... have over 154K on the car..and still going strong |
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Replying to: e_net_rider (Sep 25, 2009 3:43 am)
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Replying to: phil53 (Sep 25, 2009 8:55 am) |
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Over the last month, with comparable driving patterns, the MPG numbers were: ____________DIC___Real__Error 2005_Base___29.4__28.4__1.0 2006_Maxx___27.1__24.7__2.4 A surprise for me in the bottom RHS corner. |
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I have owned my 2010 Malibu 2LT 4 CYL for only 1 week. I compared/contrasted the Accord and Camry with this Malibu- the Malibu won hands down. On a trip just today on the interstate (200 miles), my MPG, going between 70-75 MPH ( and using Cruise Control), varied between 32-37. The interior quality and design on this car is outstanding. The safety features are second to none. This is the first 4 CYL. car I have owned in years- remarkable power for a 4 CYL- GM finally did this car right by making available the 6 speed automatic transmission. This car has to be one of GM's best kept secrets.
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Replying to: john178 (Oct 16, 2009 6:03 pm) I have a fair idea of what might be causing low end MPG. It seems that this engine is relatively inefficient under acceleration. The figures I'm seeing on the DIC with normal traffic acceleration or going over a high bridge are much lower than numbers shown on the 4.0 V8 Aurora and my experience with Town Cars. Both of the latter would upshift much quicker. Both are much heavier cars too. There was an old rule of thumb that an engine was at its peak efficiency at the maximum torque RPM. I will have to find what that is for this engine and see if I can spot a correlation. I'm beginning to suspect that GM shortcut the process of working toward highest MPG by simply slapping a 6 speed behind an engine and the two are not well matched because of such an approach.
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Replying to: packer3 (Mar 21, 2009 6:58 pm)
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Replying to: 07maxx (Oct 18, 2009 10:37 am) Want to ask you about the struts, since our cars are similar. I got a 2006 Maxx this summer, in addition to my two 2005 Base Sedans. Maxx is nice but in some respects I like the sedans more. One conspicuous difference is the cars' sensitivity to the road imperfections. Both my sedans flow over them, on the highway or local roads. Maxx reacts to the imperfections in a manner that makes both driver and passenger feel less comfortable -- "doesn't float over", that's how I'd put it. If I didn't have four years' experience with the sedans, I would not probably notice Maxx's way -- the ride is pleasant, in general. But the comparison makes me wonder about the cause and I did a bit of research on struts and shocks; from what I've read it is too early for me to change them: my Maxx is now at about 57K miles, and the shocks and struts are usually good till 80K -- which is right at about where your car is. So, how do you know that the "struts are shot"? Why did you decide to go with Monroe Sensa-Tracs? What do you expect to pay? (From what I've read, it's about $1200 -- is this right?) Anything anyone can tell me about the suspension, shocks and struts, will be appreciated. |
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