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Does your car have a great story?

3K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  cp-the-nerd 
#1 ·
I have my 2010 Malibu and it's been my main ride ever since. It has the 2.4L and it's carried me to work, to the university, on vacation, and across numerous state lines. However, there is one major story that really seals the bond that I have with my Malibu.

I live on the east coast of Virginia. Back in 2010, shortly after purchasing the car, my girlfriend at the time and I went from Virginia to Florida. It was a 738 mile trip and I made the entire trip in one single sitting with only about a two hour short nap at a rest stop.

I loved the night driving because the aqua light inside was just enough for a glow, everything either white or aqua made it feel cool and comfortable. It was a fairly long trip and took us around 12-13 hours, but I made the whole trip sitting and we only stopped for the short nap and a gas refill (so perhaps not "one sitting", but same idea).

I remember the great views from VA to FL, the long stretches going 80-90mph with the traffic, very scenic views, the music I was listening to. Overall the trip itself felt like part of vacation on its own!

There have been other incidents with the car. There was one time the city I lived in was flooded and I had to go through water that came up to the bottom part of the windows (I started away from the light, accelerated forward, turned off everything, put it in neutral, and let it coast across, no rust or anything!), there was a time when I was backing out of a driveway and a car rushed behind me so I had to pull forward and then a pole hit my driver mirror and door (hard to describe, but it was to avoid getting hit), there have been numerous couple hour long trips, but nothing really tops the ~738 mile single sitting trip.

I'm no longer with the girl and that's a very complicated and sad story and even though she was there on the trip it still feels like the trip was more of a bond between myself and the car as well!


Does anyone else have a great story that they feel bonds them to their Malibu?
 
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#2 · (Edited)
That's a nice story! I also love travelling in the Malibu at night.

There was a time in this country when owning a car was something special, and many people had a bond with their automobile. These days, most treat them like disposable appliances.

I feel like I have an old soul being 25 and more interested in my car than my smart phone (like other people my age). My dad's been a grease monkey since he was a teenager, and I've grown up to stories about his hand built '66 Pontiac LeMans sleeper converted into a GTO, which brandished a factory V6 badge.

The Malibu wound up in my possession in a complete twist of fate, after YEARS of perpetual bad luck. As a Chevy guy, I was foaming at the mouth when the car debuted for 2008 with a new high output V6, but had no expectation of owning one because I was a poor college student. Then my old beater broke down unexpectedly after my parents had just received some inheritance--the first time we'd ever been ahead financially. On a whim, I asked them to loan me money for a new car (since I was about to graduate college with a career on the horizon) and they shockingly agreed it was a good investment.

A month later, I started dating the love of my life. Due in no small part to the fact that I took her for a ride in my new car, which gave HER the courage to ask me out! We've been together for 4 years next week.

I've had an absolute blast driving the car almost 50k miles now and it literally marked a turning point in my life.
 
#3 ·
That's a great story too! Second story where a woman was involved (although I'm no longer with mine, but that's another story).

Good to hear things are looking up! Maybe the Malibu is a good luck charm! :)
 
#4 ·
There have been other incidents with the car. There was one time the city I lived in was flooded and I had to go through water that came up to the bottom part of the windows (I started away from the light, accelerated forward, turned off everything, put it in neutral, and let it coast across, no rust or anything!),
No water entered your interior?! You're lucky nothing happened, you pretty much soaked everything under your hood if the water went to your side windows.
 
#5 ·
I know, but no water entered the interior at all from anywhere. Unfortunately it was still pouring and that was the only way to get to higher ground. It was do that and glide through the water for ~10-20 seconds or stay where I was and sleep in the car until the water went away (it took about 3 days before it did).

I had the shop check it all out though and everything is all fine (thank goodness!). They said my turning off the engine and just letting momentum glide me across was a very very good idea.

:)
 
#6 ·
Correct. If it was running, you would have sucked up water into the intake and hydro-locked the motor.


I love taking my Aura on long road trips. Just this past Friday I headed to the Casino and it was dusk when I started out. The highway was pretty desolate and while cruising along at 80, these cars just barely churn 2200 RPMs. So it's a nice quiet ride. My iPhone connected to the USB playing my music and Google maps telling me where to go. Comfortable, heated seats and a nice thick leather wrapped steering wheel help too. I really enjoy the soft glow of the two LEDs in the overhead console and the lighting behind the door handles. Provides nice ambiance for night driving. These cars love to eat the highway miles.
 
#7 ·
I definitely agree with everything mentioned about travelling in the Malibu. It really is designed in such a way that makes long distance cruising a pleasure in itself. It glides along the highway and has comfortable seats, the quiet tuning makes even the standard stereo sound twice as good as other cars, and the interior is particularly attractive at night with the ambient lighting.

Two weekends a month, I drive 100 miles away and I've never felt like it was a chore (it used to be 140 miles). When traffic is light, I can drive almost endlessly in this car.
 
#8 ·
Yep, that's why I turned everything off when I had to go through the water :)

I agree about the highway miles. When I drove those 738 miles it just felt like nothing at all! I commute no less than 50 miles every single day and it's always very comfortable. The roads are pretty bad in the last half, but the car just flies and feels like it's driving on a cloud.


The ambient lights are my absolute favorite though. It's like the perfect amount, not too much and not too little!
 
#9 ·
Can't really say if this is a great story of not, but it's a strange story about finding my car.

Back in '10 when I became serious about buying a new car I decided to settle for the Malibu. I looked at Chevy's web site and I did the "build your own" option on their web site several times until I decided on what trim level I wanted, what interior, and what engine. After I had decided on everything I did a dealership search for this exact car, and no surprise no dealers in my area had a match to what I wanted. I began to look up local dealership sites and browsing their inventories looking for a close match. I could find the right color but it was never in the LTZ trim, or I could find a plethora of LTZs but none in the Imperial Blue I wanted. I came to the conclusion that I may have to special order a Malibu exactly like I wanted, but I figured i'd make a pass by some of the local Chevy dealers to see if I could find something that wasn't online. When I went on vacation the first week of August I made a list of dealerships got in my truck and I took off to the closet dealership. When I got to the first dealership I went in and talked to one of the salesmen. I explained to him what I was looking for, the color, trim level, engine and so on. I even made it a point to tell him if the car didn't meet the minimum requirements I listed to him to not bother bringing it up to the front from the back. To my total shock and surprise about 10 minutes after he went to the back he comes up driving an Imperial Blue LTZ with the Brick and Ebony interior and the 2.4 motor. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, here is the exact car I was thinking I would have to order, all the way down to the spare tire option. Now the real kicker is the car had sat on this dealer lot for at least 6 months. It had gone through the presale process where they would put an inspection sticker onto it and it was dated February. How much of a coincidence is it to be looking for a very specific car, to find it at the first dealership I look at, and that this very specific car had been sitting there for 6 months almost as if it was waiting for me.
 
#10 ·
That had to be a great feeling, Plague. I remember how good it felt just getting a videogame from back stock that wasn't on the shelf at Best Buy, I can't imagine how awesome it was to see your perfect car pull around the building when taking a shot in the dark.
 
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