Well after my wife and I decided we wanted to buy a Malibu, my search began. I ended up finding an 08 Malibu LTZ V6 in North Texas with only 2400 miles on the clock. I agreed on a price with the dealer, and this past Friday morning flew to Dallas to buy the car and drive the 1400 miles back to Miami, FL. Seems crazy, but the money we saved seemed worth it. Dealer picks me up, takes me to the dealership, I look the car over, test drive it, and buy it. Carfax was clean on the car, ect... The story the dealer told me was that an elderly couple bought the car in Jan this year, the wife passed, (it was her car) then the husband sold the car back to the same dealer he bought it new from, as he no longer needed it. I did some research, and it seemed to check out. It was a car I found on e-bay, and the dealer had 100% feedback. All seems well.
The first 1/2 of the first day driving the car back, all seemed well with the car, then I started noticing a hesitation issue with the car. The more I payed attention to the car, and the more used to the car I get, the more I really feel it. I think the car had the issue all along, but since it being a new car to me, you don't really notice things right away. Here is what's going on. When I am cruising, basically at any speed, then let off the gas coasting, I fell a hesitation, pulsing, vibrating feeling, as if the engine is missing, or the tranny is doing something strange. It's difficult to descibe the feeling in words, but it's like the car is lurching back and forth. You don't really feel it when you are accelerating moderately or stongly, but on normal acceleration, the hesitation is there. By the second day of the trip (yesterday), I am really dissapointed in this car. I am really feeling this vibration, hesitation, pulsing, lurching stongly. So strongly in fact, it is really making driving this car tiresome, as I am being almost constantly jerked back and forth on any type of normal acceleration, de-acceleration, or coasting. I arrived home after the 1400 mile trek in 2 days late last night, and here I am dissapointed and frustrated. I really want to like this car, and hope this can be fixed, as there is no way this can be normal.
All this morning, I have been doing research on-line to find this problem, and have not been able to find any mention of this in any web site I could find.
Needless to say, the car is going to my local dealer tomorrow to get checked out.
Has anyone heard of this issue with this car, or can anyone give me some advice? I hope I didn't get a lemon.
On a side note, when you are cruising with the cruise control on, the car is smooth and straight. I took the car to 100mph, just for a moment, and it didn't have any alignment or balance issues.
One other thing I noticed. With the engine on, and the car in park, I can feel the engine missing slightly at idle.
I really want to like this car, as besides the hesitation issue, it's a really nice car.
Thanks for the help in advance,
Rob.