Cartastrophe

I did it.  There's no one else to blame but me.  No one forced me to do it.  No one even asked me to do it.  I am willingly confessing that in the fall of 2001 I bought a 2000 Chevy Malibu.  Now some would say it was a wise decision.  I bought it used, and now it's the spring of 2014 and I'm still driving it.  I admit that my car and I have been in a long relationship, but it's also been an abusive relationship.  It began with a melted intake manifold gasket causing oil to leak into my cooling system.  I had that one fixed twice.  There was the faulty emergency signal switch.  They recalled a LOT of cars to fix that one.  Pretty much every VIN number that wasn't on my car.  Then, of course, the passenger side window switch stopped working, and then the driver's side window switch.  Oh yeah, and when the battery was disconnected to change the thermostat, which was changed 3 or 4 times, then the radio stopped working due to a security system password I didn't know was needed when I bought the car.  After a lot of unsuccessful guesses I took it to a dealership and they made a phone call and got it working, but they wouldn't give me the code.  So it went out again and I took it to the dealership again, and thankfully the third time I found the code on the internet and was able to disable the radio security system (it's not that great of a radio anyway).

There was the time the wheels were really noisy and I thought perhaps it was the tread, but instead it was the bearings.  No big deal... Just another $450 in repairs.  And the transmission slipping as the speedometer dropped to zero while driving and jumping all over the place as the car jumped into gear.  That was a Transmission Speed Sensor problem.  Oh yeah, and the fuel pump went out.  Had help with that one.  Didn't want any explosions or anything.  Needed shocks and struts and coil springs.  The upper radiator hose has needed replaced a few times as it's really close to the exhaust manifold.  Had to change the coolant reservoir and the washer fluid reservoir due to cracking, and the washer fluid pump.  The driver's seat broke.  I guess I should have read the weight restrictions in the owner's manual.  The accelerator cable broke on a busy road one day.  The gas pedal no longer worked which can be kind of scary with cars all around you.

Back to the cooling system, the heater core hoses sprung a leak, and the lower coolant reservoir hose, and the water pump, and the radiator (that was fun), and the lower radiator hose and the transmission coolant line because the clamp and the line were installed touching each other so that neither could be disconnected.  Two idler pulleys went out as well as the tensioner pulley.  It's needed 3 or 4 belts which are fun on a malibu, where you actually have to jack up the engine and remove engine mount bolts to get a belt on.  The starter went out not too long ago - that was $300-ish.

Oh, and last but not least, the GM Passlock Security System.  So one very cold day you're driving down the road and every sensor light comes on and I smelled a little bit of a burning smell also and the car decides to shut down.  It did it on a turn so I'm thinking short in the system somewhere.  I have it towed and they say it starts, but they try to diagnose it for 4 days and find nothing.  So I take it back and break down again.  And after awhile it starts and I make it another 1/2 mile.  Breakdown after breakdown.  Back to a garage who can't diagnose it either.  Finally after reading about the Passlock problem on the internet I suggest to the garage they add weight to my key.  They did and it shut down.  The repair cost was $600, which I didn't have, so I had someone follow me and I drove it home.  What I realized is that the ignition switch was more sensitive in extremely cold weather.  I found a solution on the internet to override the passlock system's ability to shut down the fuel pump and I guess it worked because it hasn't shut down since.

GM has since recalled a lot of cars due to this problem and it's a big controversy.  I couldn't help but notice they haven't recalled one Malibu.  Do a search for "Chevy Malibu Passlock Problem" and you'll get more than 20,000 results with YouTube videos on doing the repair and car sites describing the "common" issue and a lot of people wondering why there were no recalls or class-action lawsuits.  The non-existent Malibu recalls sound like a convenient oversight to me.  Where are the congressmen on this one?

There have been other repairs I've had to do that I'll spare you the details of.  What it all comes down to is - my Malibu has put me through a lot, but we will be divorced before the year is over.  Or perhaps the better way to put it is that I will be widowed before the year is over.  The paint is peeling.  The exhaust is getting louder with every passing week.  The repair budget is exhausted.  No more oil changes.  No more tune-ups.  It's going to the scrap yard so no one else has to suffer it's wrath.

So, it's time to start shopping around.  Hopefully this time I'll have better luck.  I thought maybe Chevy has improved since then, but they just recalled some current year models, so I'm not so sure.  Are there any good ones left out there?  What IS a good one these days?  I don't know, but there's got to be something better than this.