New (used) vehicle

[johnridley]

Following the demise of the Taurus, yesterday we picked up a 2005 Malibu from a used car place in Brighton. It's got just under 30K on it and as far as I can tell it's absolutely clean, rust-free and runs very well. It used to be a corporate fleet vehicle of some kind. And as a bonus, it gets 10 more MPG than the Taurus did.

I took a good look under the hood last night, and I must say, I'm happy with what I saw. In contrast with the Fusion and even moreso with the Taurus, absolutely everything is easily visible and accessible. There's TONS of room around the engine to get in and work. There are some interesting changes, such as the power steering pump being run off the camshaft, but that actually makes things even easier to get to, and the other differences that I saw also make things more accessible and/or reduce parts count. Heck, the oil filter is on TOP of the engine.

I'm actually quite pleased to see that at least in 2005 someone was making a car that is simple and efficient. I'm almost (almost) looking forward to having to work on it and not having to disassemble half the body parts around the engine then reach around behind the engine and feel around in order to work on it. The amount of trouble it cause me to do simple stuff like unplug and remove oxygen sensors in the Taurus, compared with on this car where they're right there, visible and unobstructed, is pretty striking. If we needed another car today I'd drive up there and buy another one.

I picked up a used Chilton's book for it off eBay today.

The downside is that it appears that the radio that it has in it, the base model with just a single CD drive and no external Sat radio, changer or navigation inputs, may not be able to be fitted with an aux input except via FM.

Comments

[jennlk]

I suspect that most of the space/layout difference is due to the fact that the Taurus had a large 6cyl DOHC engine and the new car has a small 4cyl engine. And the engine compartment is about the same size.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Certainly the case when comparing to the Taurus, but the Fusion is pretty much the same size vehicle both with 4 cylinder engines of about the same displacement, and the Malibu has a TON more space around the engine than the Fusion does. A lot of the space taken up by the Fusion's engine is just plastic; I almost suspect that they're intentionally adding stuff to make the engine look all complex and futuristic. There's nothing under the hood on the Malibu that isn't strictly functional.

[jennlk]

Nope. Just for the hell of it, I went and measured the hoods/engine compartments. The Malibu's engine compartment is at least 6 inches longer than the Fusion -- probably about the same size as the Taurus.