Pics of the 2008 Chevy Malibu

[mrlynn]

Robert Kuttner in the Boston Globe comments on the Pontiac G6:

. . . Thanks to slushy steering, the car meanders all over the road. By the time we reached my son's house, only 45 minutes from the rental agency, two passengers were carsick. This wandering might have been peculiar to the vehicle -- unbalanced tires or loose linkage -- or my driving. But as a veteran car renter, I'm all too familiar with GM's quirky steering.

Among several other design lapses: a clunky shift-lever whose settings are unlit in the dark, pull-up door locks located in hard-to-reach places, the absence of exterior key locks on doors other than the driver's. This last omission would be less annoying if the master lock on the driver's door unlocked the other doors (as it does on comparable imports). But GM does not include that feature. . .

More here:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editori..._the_cars/

Kuttner is a politico-economics columnist, not an auto reviewer, so his anecdotal experience with a rental is not definitive. But if the new Chevy, built on the same platform, is anything like this G6, forget about GM overtaking Toyota any time soon.

/Mr Lynn