Seeing as how 8 speed transmissions are on the horizon ... who the hell still uses a 4 speed transmission in a car?! I'll tell you who... Chevy and GM in the Malibu. One of the biggest let downs ... the 4 speed auto transmission.
Now... taking it into the account that this is a standard passenger sedan and a cheap one at that, we obviously can't expect supreme driving comfort and unsurpassed handling abd braking. However, being that as it is ... the car is not all that bad. The engine has plenty of low end grunt which is required for the long gears in the 4 speed tranny. The engine is more than happy to pull with force from idle through the RPM range. However, being FWD, ask for too much "go" power and you'll find that torque steer becomd a huge problem wanting to change your desired direction of travel to the left or right sharpely depending on where the scenery can do the most damage to your vehicle. All that go power is enough to get you up to just shy of triple digit speeds before starting to run out of passing power.
Handling is ... well, designed to be cheap and comfortable. So... it's not perfect but it gets the job done. Bumps are soaked up with ease but ask this monster to handle an on/off ramp at anything considered remotely fast and it'll have the tires screaming for mercy as your passenger wonder if you are pretending to be a NASCAR driver. Body roll and squat and dive are ever so prevalent and even more prevalent when the car has cargo.
Braking... well, I'm not even going to try to tell you that repeated stops from speed will give you any sort of confidence. The first stop from anything considered fast is decent and will leave you rest assured, but as you try more and more stop from speed, your confidence level drops considerably before you begin to wonder if it would be bail out and abandon car in fear of ending up as part of the scenery rather than asking it to do another stop from speed.
Interior erogonomics take a little while to get used to. The interior is made of cheap plastic, but it functions to get the job done. The high mounted shifter on the drift shaft is awkward and clumsy as shift controls for manual shifting are placed where the normal button for switching from reverse to drive is placed. The radio control do the job are are directly to the point. The buttons the steering wheel also serve their purpose, but there are two buttons mounted on the back of the steering wheel that you'll have to find before you know they are there that control the volume of the radio from the wheel rather than the dash.
Another sore subject for this car ... the horrible seats. They are far from comfortable and you probably would have a better driving exerpence if you took the seats out and replaced them with the plastic crate boxes. The seats are horrible.
Overall... for the price, it's a damn good car to drive, but that being said, you would be better off spending more money to get something a little more suited towards extended travel.
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