Good Cobalt review

[chevelle454]

Cobalt Article from Washington Post

"Chevrolet Cobalt is as good as the current generations of the Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra or Toyota Corolla, if not better"

[Dsuupr]

Wow, what a great review. Once again it goes to show, it's not the cars, but the people who do GMs PR.

[Cadillacfan]

Someone should send this to GM's PR department.

[CARBIZ]

Not to be negative (who? me?) but this guy is driving the top of the line Cobalt. The trouble with these reviewers is that if he had travelled in the LS Cobalt, (which is the bulk of what sells) he would have nit-picked everything about it, instead of noting that for $3,500 LESS the Cobalt is a good value.

Yeah, the SS is fabulous, but in high insurance areas it isn't doing so well.

His points in the beginning are well taken, though. If GM had spent a few extra dollars and make the seat material a little nicer (cloth is hideous) and put a decent arm rest in all the models (the first thing any Cavalier owners comments on is "where is the armrest? where am I going to put my Cds?" perhaps GM would have had a winner out of the gate.

The engineers spent a lot of money on making the ecotec reliable, powerful and fuel efficient. They also made the ride and handling on the Cobalt second to none, but a few extra dollars spent on the touchy touchy feely things would have kept a lot of the GM haters off their backs and maybe a little less would need to have been spent on rebates (bribes.)

[pow]

Yeah, the SS sedan he reviewed is definitely nice, but it's also definitely not worth the $21K. GM should make their basic models adequately "nice", because that's what most people buy.

[I hope GMRULES again]

The Cobalt's biggest fault is it somehow managed to make CR list for worst compact in reliability. Hopefully GM is working overtime to address whatever those first year problems were.

[The O.C.]

The Cobalt's biggest fault is it somehow managed to make CR list for worst compact in reliability. Hopefully GM is working overtime to address whatever those first year problems were.

189245[/snapback]

The Cobalt LT Coupe that I had as a rental car was a total bucket of bolts with ~ 12,000 miles on it....

Rental car "beater" or not, that's pretty bad.

The car LOOKS good....and the powertrain was very nice. GM just NEEDS to get the details and build quality down alot better......

[Mr.Krinkle]

i cant believe you still go on about the rental cobalt you once had. it may we3ll have been a hunk of $h! but it was a rental with 12,000 miles on it.

the important part being a rental.

one crappy source doesnt make for that compelling of an argument. but other than that whats the problem. weve all had $h!ty rentals. some worse and some much worse than others. who knows what the hell happens to these cars. abuse.

go check out a new one or used new one. or new used one.

and theres been a clean recall record so far as far as i know. nothing like this.

Component: Vehicle Speed Control: Accelerator Pedal

Defect Summary: CERTAIN PASSENGER VEHICLES, THE PEDAL WERE NOT PROPERLY INSTALLED AND MAY COME LOOSE AT THE FLOOR MOUNTING.

Consequence Summary: IF THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL IS NOT INSERTED PROPERLY, THE PEDAL CAN COME LOOSE FROM THE PEDAL STOPPER CAUSING THE THROTTLE TO BECOME STUCK INCREASING THE RISK OF A CRASH.

Corrective Summary: DEALERS WILL RESET THE PEDAL OR REPLACE THE WHOLE ASSEMBLY FREE OF CHARGE. THE RECALL BEGAN ON NOVEMBER 14, 2005. OWNERS MAY CONTACT HONDA AT 1-800-999-1009.

its a pretty damn good selling car as it is of now anyway. so it does compete.

Edited September 5, 2006 by Mr.Krinkle

[The O.C.]

i cant believe you still go on about the rental cobalt you once had.  it may we3ll have been a hunk of $h! but it was a rental with 12,000 miles on it. 

the important part being a rental.

one crappy source doesnt make for that compelling of an argument.  but other than that whats the problem.  weve all had $h!ty rentals.  some worse and some much worse than others.  who knows what the hell happens to these cars.  abuse.

189559[/snapback]

don't f cking bitch at me because the biggest exposure I had to Cobalt was a rental car....!

Everyone on here is SO quick to pick on people that offer comments on a certain vehicle without driving one....or even sitting in one....

So shoot me if my best exposure happens to be that rental. If a Cobalt topic comes up, that's the best experience I've had to relate.

MOST people out there that may be in the market for a car might ALSO have their ONLY experience with a GM car being a rental.....(lord knows they put enough of them in service.)

So if I can get a $h!ty one.....so can Mr. Joe Blow that has owned nothing but Hondas all his life.

[Mr.Krinkle]

chill biscuit.

i just wouldnt cndemn a car because of one experience. i had a uhaul toyota that i swore i was gonna die in. and i only backed it up!

i wouldnt damn all toyotas because of it. although, i guess i could.

[The O.C.]

chill biscuit. 

i just wouldnt cndemn a car because of one experience.  i had a uhaul toyota that i swore i was gonna die in.  and i only backed it up!

i wouldnt damn all toyotas because of it.  although, i guess i could.

189717[/snapback]

:AH-HA_wink:

Okay....it's been a tough day.

BUT my point is.....I'm not "condemning" Cobalt because of that one experience.....but regardless...it was an extremely disappointing experience.

I've had plenty of GM cars as rentals that seemed like they were holding up quite well.

This particular Cobalt wasn't.....

[Snate]

Meh...I've had only one minor problem with my cobalt in 29K miles...a glitch with the cruise control that took 5 minutes to fix at the dealer. Other than that I've had zero problems mechanical or build quality.

It's a very competent car for its price and market. Other than a few very minor gripes, I would have no problem recommending it or buying another one myself

[z28luvr01]

I have a long term owner's report coming, but here's the gist of it.

2005 Cobalt LS - fully loaded except for OnStar

2.2L Ecotec with 4spd auto

I've got about 10,500 miles on my car in 1.25 years of ownership. It is a fantastic car for what I paid for it. The ride is cushy enough so that long trips with it are pretty comfortable, yet firm enough that you don't mind flinging it around a hairpin at 50+ mph.

Cargo carrying capability is pretty phenomenal, especially with the rear seat folded down. I regular put a .bike in there, and this morning I brought a 48" long package to the post office

The 2.2L Cobalt doesn't get enough credit. It's a ballsy motor that gets great mileage to boot. Unless you need to have the SS, or want to race it, the base car is more than sufficient. Bring it up around 5K and it'll pin you to the seat a bit. I've driven it from LI to Cortalnd, NY and back (~700mi round trip) and averaged 35.6mpg. It's a known fact that manual Cobalts with the 2.2L get over 40mpg hwy easy.

I'll admit that I've been to the dealership more than I would have liked, but several of the visits aren't Chevy's fault, but rather the outsourced wastes-of-oxygen who installed my remote starter and alarm. Never again will I have an unknown entity splice into my electrical system.

As for legitimate repairs on the car, I've had to deal with the following:

- Leather pulling up around the door pull cups. There's a TSB on this which does fix the problem

- sunroof switch bezel fell out when hitting a bad bump. I fixed it myself with the help of the good people at cobaltss.net. That thing's never coming down again, and I didn't cheat and glue it up there.

- a circular mark appeared on my leather headrest where my head..well...rests. I will attribute that to my body chemistry, since a similar mark appeared on the cloth seat in my truck. Anyway, I got a brand new headrest and have since sewn up some headrest covers out of black beach towels.

- There was a slight squeak/creek somewhere in the interior. With the radio on at even a low volume, it was drowned out, but I knew it was there so it annoyed me. The dealer couldn't find it (naturally). I think I may have hit it yesterday when I washed the car and lubed up the seal around the sunroof glass. It's been quiet ever since.

[Cory Wolfe]

My grandma has a Cobalt. It's a little over a year old. Completely problem free. Then again... she's put less than 4k miles on it.

[Dsuupr]

39,000+ miles on our before we traded it in on the HHR. Only the recall caused us troubles.