Interesting how when an article praises a GM vehicle many people here will cite it and quote it at face value, but if/when they don't like a GM vehicle they're biased, the test was flawed, or 'editorials are stupid, you should just drive it and see for yourself'.

Fact is I have no interest in buying a econobox right now, so to take the time and hassle to go to a bunch of different dealerships and test drive their cars, putting miles on them, and wasting salesmen's time just so I can come up with my own opinion and still not have any of you guys listen a bit to what my results were... well... I just don't see the benefit, or maybe I'm just too lazy.

 

Threxx I for one will listen to you. You have good ideas BUT you have to admit that the cars should have either been as close as possible in options or price. By choosing a base model car and then chastising it for not having options that were on the higher model, and being within the same price range as the other cars, the test became very flawed.

It would be like reviewing luxury sedans only to use a Lexus GS without Nav, premium sound, or leather seats and complaining because the car in the test didn't have those options while all other models had them. It just doesn't make sense.

 

Perhaps, but of course, the same can certainly be said for those on the opposite side of the field.

At least there were legitimate reasons to express disagreement with this particular comparo.

 

Funny how a car that cost $2000+ more can be called the best 'economy' car.

 

Absolutely, I've never pretended that GM guys are all a bunch of fanboys and Ford guys or Honda guys or Lexus guys or BMW guys or whatever brand you want to name doesn't have equally biased and ignorant selective listening, reasoning, etc.

I'm not saying you guys are idiots for seeing things the way you do; it's human nature, and I'm just as prone to it as everyone. But I think the first step is at least learning that things aren't always as lopsided in the media as you might view them as being.

The next-gen of my Lexus GS has been getting slammed by some magazines for all of its driving nannies which keep anyone from being able to truely test the limits of the car. I can definitely understand where they're coming from and agree with them that from a performance enthusiast's standpoint and certainly from the standpoint of somebody who wanted to take their GS430 to the road course, the alphabet soup of stability and traction control nannies would suck bad. Then again I'm pretty confident that 99% of the people who buy that car have no interest in pushing the car to that limit and if they do accidently reach that limit in slick conditions, they'd probably be more likely to be thankful that they just got saved from sliding off the road into a telephone pole than they would be mad because 'this car won't let me have any fun'.

With all of that said Lexus is a bunch of idiots for not putting a 'defeat all' switch in that car that would turn all that stuff off if and when somebody wanted to get crazy.

Am I biased in my opinion? Probably, but I try to remain reasonable about it anyway.

 

Second time:
A Cobalt optioned similarly to the Mazda 3 we just bought (leather, sunroof, power, cruise) costs about the same (a bit more, actually).

Any comparison of economy cars you can find puts the 3 on top by a significant margin. Could it be that it's simply a better car?

 

It certainly could be and very well may be a better car. However, that Edmunds comparo does not support it being anything but a different car.

Hopefully without offending anyone, I'll try to put it how I see it: Review sites like Edmunds and even the big mags like C&D & MT aren't where I'll be going when looking for a car. I'll be reading the specs, driving various models (often overnight whenever possible) and generally doing my own research. These reviewers are good only for people that just don't have a clue what's out there.

Unfortunately, the ones that don't have a clue are the ones that will fail to notice the disparity in the options. Threxx and others, you can say "well, yeah they weren't optioned the same, but that's not what I looked at in the comparo anyway". That's fine for you, but again, unfortunately, John/Jane Doe with their gnat-like attention span skim directly to the end of the article and see who the winner is. They don't know the who/what/where/why or how, just that the Mazda won and everything else is a POS.

Plain and simple, it's just poor journalism (yikes, did I just call that article journalism?). I'm not necessarily claiming any malice was intended, but rather that maybe a little incompentence was to blame (or both, who knows?).

And for all the people that say, "I drove xyz car as a rental and it was a pile of junk". Please remember you're driving the automotive equivalent of a hooker. This isn't Playmate of the year and there's no airbrushing. If you're driving a rental to get the feel of a production car, I'm afraid there is no help on this earth that can fix what's wrong with you.

 

Interestingly enough I've driven several "rentals" that had a good number of miles on them that were very impressive to me in terms of how they were holding up... most of those being the free lexus loaners I've gotten when taking my car in for service (even oil changes they give you a car to drive around for the day so you don't have to wait around and be late to work or whatever).

Please don't take this as me promoting Lexus specifically in this instance. I'm simply trying to say that while loaner cars are certainly beat on, and I can understand that 10,000 loaner car miles on average is probably more like 40,000 'normal' miles... it's still an excellent way to judge the durability of a car. A way to judge what a car is like brand new? Of course not. But it's a pretty good peak into the future of one of you bought it and put a good number of miles on it.

The most terrible car I've ever driven as a rental was a 2002 Malibu (the old body style). I only had to drive that car for a day and it was already making me annoyed, angry, depressed (this is when I had my Silverado, not my Lexus, FWIW)... It only had 4k miles on it but it was already driving like a POS. Who knows what happened to it.

I drove a rental Ford Taurus that, while it wasn't the most fun to drive, it at least kept me sane.

I guess what I'm saying is that not all rental cars automatically turn into crap boxes simply because they're loaned/rented to people.

 

Doesnt change the fact that GM cut some corners on the Cobalt Interior. Even on the SS.

 

Snow ball in hell?

 

Ever add anything insightful or productive to discussions or just nitpick others who try?

 

I don't understand your point. We aren't arguing that a comparably equipped Cobalt costs about the same as a Mazda 3 with the same options. That's not the problem. The problem is they compared a stripped Cobalt to a better equipped, much more expensive, Mazda 3 as if they were comparable cars.

Get a Cobalt with similar features and a similar price as the Mazda 3, and it would have done better in the comparo as well, especially since one of the negatives were no power windows, and steering response. duh. Would it have beaten the Mazda 3? Who knows. They didn't compare an "apples to apples" car with the Mazda 3. The Mazda 3 may very well deserve the spot it got, but the Cobalt got a raw deal in the comparo for reasons already mentioned.

Dan

 

If I had to buy one of these cars, I'd go for the cobalt but I have to admit that GM could have put way better materials such as the plastics in the instrument panel and other things such as the heater ***** and switches.

For anyone to suggest that GM didn't cut corners on this car is foolish. The vents have been molded into the dash plastic piece, the seats could have better adjusting mechanisms, the parking brake is very cheap looking imo etc. etc.

Whoever suggested that the civics interior is just as bad as the cobalt obviously has never spent the time in that car. The plastics feel thicker, the dash is a little padded, the gauges are electroluminescent and the switches feel more precise and solid.

The Cobalt drives and feels like a great car but lacks refinements in the interior. It's very much like the new Impala. The whole dash is a solid cheap piece of plastic but the fit and finish is better than everything they've ever built.

All I'm saying is that it's too bad they couldn't spend a few more dollars on these minor things that could make such a difference to most car buffs and opinionated journalists.

 

I didn't think they compared them based on options but they critisized the cobalt's cheap interior and material quality.

Whether you get a cobalt SS or a base model, you'll still get the same cheap parking brake, cheap plastic dash and flimsy AC heater buttons.

Why can't they just be like in 93 when the camaro came out and said that even though it had the cheapest interior EVER, it was still the bang for the buck.

Didn't GM achieve that with the cobalt at least on a price point???

 

I LOVE my Coblat interior. Yeah I drove the Mazda 3 and don't remember a better interior---just different.