Just Bought A New Malibu!

[grasnic]

I just bought a new certified Used 2003 Malibu with 17,000 miles on it. I hope it's a good car. I paid $12,500 for it. Which is 2 Grand below the Blue Book Value. Anyone have any major problems with the 2003 Malibu? Do you like it? Give me some feedback!

[snigsnug]

You may want to open up a savings account for the future repairs

[bcleeper]

Don't let all the negative postings on this board get you down. Whether you have the problems people talk about here or not is going to be luck of the draw. Also, a note I learned from my Certified purchase is that the only thing they are doing is adding a warrenty. The dealers that sell those buy them 20 to 50 at a time all they did on mine according to the service records was change the oil. I would recommend you get the 15K checkup. If you don't want to spend that much, do some of the work yourself (like rotate tires or oil change etc.). I found that even though my was in generally good condition small stuff was missed. I had a clogged air filter that I replaced right away. Also, these low milage newer cars tend to be either rental fleet or corporate cars and were probably serviced well, but driven hard. Expect to replace tires and brakes sooner than you expect as the 17K milage may have been a lot of city driving. I replaced my brakes at 35K miles. I didn't, but would recommend that you get a premium set of brakes when it is time and get them from a good dealer. Brakes seem to be one weakness on this car that you can do something about.

[~*~sExYmaLiBu~*~]

okay well... heres the thing... i have only had my 2003 malibu since June of 2004... and well its been the best car ever.... i have traveled from my hometown to the coast of mississippi and back several times and well the malibu has proven herself worthy of being a good car to me... i am anxious to see what she does for me in the future after i spend lots of money and lots of time on her... so i just wanted to let you know that i think that you made a good decision in buying that car...

[LEYLAND]

I bought a 98 Malibu when it was new and it is not a bad car to drive around. I think all Malibu, or most GM car owner had, or will need to replace their "Blower Motor Resistor" you will know when to replace it when you lost 1 & 2 fan speed. Also the intake gasket in the engine will probably need to be replace around 60-100 km you will know when you see a coolant leak. Blower motor is not expensive to replace, but the intake gasket is pretty expensive. Hope you will enjoy your new ride.

[malibusheila]

I bought my new certified used 2003 Malibu in February 2004 w/29,000 miles (it was from a rental fleet). It's been a pretty good car so far -- I drive 50 miles round trip to and from work daily (mostly highway miles) and I've driven it to North Carolina and back. I have had to replace the brakes. The only "major" problem I've had so far is that the check engine light keeps coming on. I've had it into the dealer 5 times for this and all they can tell me is that when they put it on the "machine" the code it gives them has to do with the transmission but they can't find the exact problem. On the 3rd visit they did replace a switch that tells the transmission when to shift gears. That seemed to work for a while but it happened again just last week so I took it back to the dealer. Their diagnosis -- bad wiring connections on the part they replaced. So they fix it -- 2 days later the light is back on. On the 5th trip to the dealer they say the code it is giving them isn't enough information for them to determine the exact problem so they cleared the code and told me to continue driving and when the light comes back on, bring it back in and hopefully they can get more information. I understand that it is hard to diagnosis these things -- it's just a big inconvenience when it's your only vehicle and you have to make arrangements to get to work after dropping the car off and then make arrangements to go back to the dealer to pick up the car. Thankfully it's covered under the warranty and I've only had to pay $100 out of pocket when they replaced the switch. Other than this, I really like my Malibu.

[xr250]

For Intermittent concerns, every dealer has a Vehicle Data Recorder. The VDR sits in the coffee holder and has a big red button on top that you push when the condition occurs. This will record vital information for the tech.

[fastk]

2003 malibu is fine.. you know first year models are usually have many defact, second year they are starting to find problem and third year they are start's working on fixing the problem.... I have 97 malibu (what a mistake!) and I have found that newer model have new design glove box, fan control unit, coolant cap, steering wheel ass., stereo system, bushing and more. Oh for the intake manifold gasket, new type of gasket came out last year.

[mattjordan]

Originally Posted by grasnic

I just bought a new certified Used 2003 Malibu with 17,000 miles on it. I hope it's a good car. I paid $12,500 for it. Which is 2 Grand below the Blue Book Value. Anyone have any major problems with the 2003 Malibu? Do you like it? Give me some feedback!

I too just bought a GM Certified 2003

I got a steal on it @ 8600$ US

base w/ 3.1, alloy wheels, cd, pwr locks/win

so far I like it! just a squeak or two, and I've read about these damn front rotors being junk... I think these are worped (I'm sure they are original)

btw, 27.5k (mi) on the clock

[lbjgh]

I bought a Honda Accord because of my Wife's Malibu. Good Luck.

[mattjordan]

Originally Posted by lbjgh

I bought a Honda Accord because of my Wife's Malibu. Good Luck.

This is supposed to be a happy thread on the excitement of buying a new malibu, damn you!

[lbjgh]

hehe, enjoy your wheels bud! My wife has a '98 the previous generation that had a rash of common faults. The new Malibu built on the Epsilon global platform should be a much better product. Plus the old 3.1L V6 has been replaced which is a good thing!

My wife's car is a great vehicle for the shopping malls.

Originally Posted by mattjordan

This is supposed to be a happy thread on the excitement of buying a new malibu, damn you!

[seanandzoe]

I just bought a 2003 Malibu after researching the crap out of every car in that price range and the Malibu came up as the best deal. I love it!!! And repair costs are as much a result of the driver than the car, treat your car nicely and it'll take care of you...