Review: Cobalt's a bit of a love-hate car

[91 s-10baja]

Chevrolet Cobalt, the brand's replacement for the aged Cavalier small car, drives quite nicely and has the feel of a larger, more-expensive car. But it comes with a laundry list of gripes, making it a yes-but car.

Cobalt's just saucy enough, neither too in-your-face nor too generic.
General Motors

It's built atop what Chevy parent GM calls its delta platform, similar to what's used under the Saturn Ion (but don't let that bland-mobile give you a bad image of Cobalt) and on GM's European-market Opel Astra.

Safety blemish: GM recalled 1,378 Cobalts last November because their headlight reflectors might loosen, tilt and blind oncoming drivers. That's according to files at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. GM and potential Cobalt buyers hope that's an aberration, not a harbinger.

Safety sheen: Cobalt with optional side air bags scored well on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety side-crash tests. It did well in other IIHS crash tests, too, and IIHS says: "Taken together with ratings in the side-impact test, the Cobalt and (Toyota) Corolla equipped with optional side air bags now are the highest-rated small cars overall in the institute's crash-worthiness ratings."

The test cars were a nicely equipped LS priced close to $18,000 and a supercharged SS coupe, also well furnished, that will sticker at about $23,000 when it hits dealerships soon.

The impression they left was that Cobalt is an attractive proposition because of its responsive personality and overall good chemistry. But it's too small inside, especially in back, even judged by little-car standards. And a few ragged edges suggested the build quality's not yet first-rate. An example: Upholstery didn't fit well around the holes for the poles that hold the rear-seat head restraints.

Things gone right:

• GM has its unpredictable electric power steering tuned right. Cobalt's doesn't feel as if there is sand in the steering gearbox.

• Brakes seem to work at a rate somewhat consistent with the pressure you apply to them. That's rare in GM vehicles.

• The automatic transmission shifts without undue pause. The manual in the supercharged SS (no automatic is available) whips easily from gear to gear.

• Both engines have plenty of beans to let you scoot about and enjoy yourself.

The non-supercharged engine claims an adequate 145 horsepower, but feels as if it has more, even with several people aboard.

The 205-hp SS is heck on wheels, a first-rate screamer that'll surprise and delight you much of the time.

• An oil-life monitor means you can change oil according to how you drive, not every 3,000 miles or 7,500 miles, according to the manual. That's owner- and environment-friendly. Thanks, Chevy.

• The back seat has three sets of child-seat connectors, not just two. You can strap the kid chair in the middle, which is the safest spot and gives junior a good view forward between the front bucket seats.

• Controls make sense. Nowadays you almost have to buy a cheap car or a work truck for that to be so. Cobalt's radio adjusts with a fat volume knob on the left and a tuning knob on the right, the way it once was and still ought to be. The climate control's three simple knobs adjust where, how hot and how much.

• The hood is held open by a small shock-absorber-style strut instead of a dirty, sometimes painfully hot, manual prop rod.

• The steering wheel is well sized and the rim nicely shaped, making it inviting instead of off-putting as some GM steering wheels are.

Styling, especially the sedan's, is just saucy enough, embracing neither the juvenile, in-your-face look nor the generic small-car appearance. A trunk-mounted spoiler, usually beneath contempt on a four-door family car, seems almost OK on the sedan because it sits low and close to the trunk instead of calling attention to itself. Not so on the coupe. A look-at-me airfoil sticks up so high it interferes with vision out the back window.

Chevy says you can buy a subtler spoiler from GM parts. Great move: Give 'em the ugly one, make 'em buy the good-looking one.

Unpleasantries:

• That back seat. Mercy. Smaller cars have more room. Cobalt is a few inches longer than a Ford Focus or Toyota Corolla, but has fewer inches of rear legroom and 3% to 8% less passenger space overall.

A cup holder on back of the center console leaves almost no legroom for a middle, rear rider. Good thing it's easy to put a child seat there because nobody old enough to dress himself is likely to fit.

• Front seats in the sedan feel like sacks of rocks. Amazingly, the rocks are positioned about right, so the seats aren't as uncomfortable as they promise to be. Just hard.

Optional Recaro bucket seats in the SS coupe are comfortable but the angle of the cushion might not suit everybody.

• The instrument panel has been "dumbed down." It provides only a gas gauge in addition to the speedometer and tachometer. "Simplification," Chevy calls it. An insult, some drivers might say.

You can monitor the coolant temperature via the driver info display, but it shows only one thing at a time, so you can't simultaneously check temperature and fuel economy or oil life or miles traveled.

• Height-adjustable front safety belts don't slide high enough for some users.

• The engines, their pep and dash notwithstanding, whine and grumble, discouraging you from enjoying their frisky personalities.

The supercharged engine is unearthly quiet at idle, however.

• There are no grab handles in the ceiling above the rear seat. You don't need them to get in and out, but you do need them to hang dry cleaning. The small coat hook, though better than most, is inadequate for more than a few hangers, or for the thick plastic type.

Despite the gripes, Cobalt is an inviting car, assuming you and yours fit. It is satisfying to drive, and the good IIHS safety rating provides peace of mind. You don't feel sentenced to Cobalt for lack of cash to buy something better, but rather that you chose it on purpose.

Much is new, so you might not want to be the first on your block to get one. But based on how it looks and drives, Cobalt is a neat piece of work.

2005 Chevrolet Cobalt

• What is it? Small, front-wheel-drive car replacing Cavalier. Available as sedan or coupe. Built at Lordstown, Ohio, factory where Chevy parent General Motors invested $1 billion on retooling and quality improvements.

• How soon? On sale since November. SS supercharged coupe is arriving at dealers now. SS model without supercharger is due this summer as a 2006 model.

• How much? Base sedan and coupe start at $14,190 including $565 destination charge. LS sedan and coupe start at $16,485. LT sedan starts at $18,760. SS supercharged coupe starts at $21,995.

Online car-shopping services say you should be able to pay roughly $300 to $500 less than the dealer's invoice cost, thanks to dealer discounting and a $1,000 GM rebate.

• How many? Chevy forecasts 200,000 a year, about evenly split between coupe and sedan eventually.

• Who'll buy? Chevy says target buyers are 25-35 years old, as likely to be men as women, as likely as not to have a college degree, probably married.

• What's the drivetrain? 2.2-liter, four-cylinder, overhead-camshaft engine rated 145 horsepower at 5,600 rpm, 155 pounds-feet of torque at 4,000 rpm.

SS supercharged coupe has 2-liter, four-cylinder rated 205 hp at 5,600 rpm, 200 lbs-ft. at 4,400. Five-speed manual transmission is standard on all models, four-speed automatic is optional on non-supercharged models.

Non-supercharged SS due this summer as a 2006 model will have 2.4-liter, four-cylinder rated 170 horsepower.

• What's the safety gear? Expected bags and belts. Anti-lock brakes and side-impact, head-curtain air bags are optional. Without the side bags, the Cobalt scored "poor," the worst rating, in side-crash tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. With the bags, it was rated "acceptable." Cobalt's IIHS front-crash scores are "good," the highest rating.

• What's the rest? Standard features include power steering, brakes; air conditioning; AM/FM/CD stereo; height-adjustable driver's seat.

Other standard features vary considerably by model. Get more information at www.chevy.com.

• How big? A few inches longer but otherwise similar to Honda Civic sedan. Cobalt sedan is 180.5 inches long, 67.9 inches wide, 57.1 inches tall on 103.3-inch wheelbase. Coupe is the same except 180.3 inches long, 55.7 inches tall.

Sedan's passenger space is listed as 87.1 cubic feet; coupe's as 83. Trunk space in both is listed as 13.9 cubic feet.

Weight ranges from 2,808 to 2,989 pounds depending on model.

• How thirsty? 2.2-liter engine is rated 24 miles per gallon in town, 32 on the highway with automatic transmission, 25/34 with manual. Supercharged engine, available only with manual, is rated 23/39.

Regular-grade gas is specified for both engines.

Trip computer in LS sedan test car with 2.2-liter and automatic showed 17.8 in around-town driving. SS supercharged test car's trip computer showed 16 mpg around town.

• Overall: A nice surprise but too small inside.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/...0-cobalt_x.htm

[goblue]

Ouch...well most of the problems are easily fixed, except the biggest one...

What happened to the back seat? What a terrible design oversight

I thought the Ecos were up to honda and toyota standards, what went wrong there? This is not the first place they have been criticized. This is ridiculoius that GM can't build a quiet engine. This is an even playing field, OHC vs OHC and GM can't get it right? Maybe the OHVs simply suffer from bad NVH engineering as well. How hard can it be! My gosh, take a honda motor, tear it down and see what they are doing.

Seat padding, well the last Civic I was in was hard as a rocks as well - maybe they benchmarked that?

He shows some bias on the brakes comment. They hav'ent been class leading in the past, but were not the worst.

Who actually monitors coolant temperature anymore? There's only 3 computers and 2 idiot lights at the ready, as well as a display that no doubt pops it up when it exceeds a threshold - what more do you need?

Gas mileage is not very good, the 2.2 needs to be downsized to a 2.0 and have full VVT added to get back to 2.2 levels.

Can't wait to read the WSJ article. Heard its even worse.

So much for minimal rebates on Cobalt.

[HEMI300C]

I couldn't even squeeze myself into the backseat of a Cobalt sedan. There was NO space whatsoever. I can't believe this is 2005, and something so fundamental was so fundamentally flawed. I mean, why get the four door if the back seat isn't useful?

[Darc Requiem]

Originally Posted by HEMI300C

I couldn't even squeeze myself into the backseat of a Cobalt sedan. There was NO space whatsoever. I can't believe this is 2005, and something so fundamental was so fundamentally flawed. I mean, why get the four door if the back seat isn't useful?

HEMI how bad is it in comparison to the Cavalier? I'm just curious. I don't really use my backseat much if at all. I would still like to know though.

[Tone]

The April Car and Driver also reviews the Cobalt and it's a pretty decent review. Interestingly, they report that the hard seats are very comfortable:

"... the Cobalt's front seats seem unduly firm and unyielding -- at first, anyway -- but then you realize why it's the once common attribute the Cobalt shares with a Porsche. A few hours in the chair, and your back and thighs are fresh, supported in all the important directions by orthopedic good thinking wraped in premium cloth."

I can remember when enthusiast magazines hated the seats in Camaros and Corvettes, so Chevy getting such good seats into an economy car is a very good sign.

Also, C&D reports their tester was quiet and refined:

"Even approaching the 6500 rpm shift point, your ears hear just a distant thrum from the engine room, its noise dampened by specially molded acoustical panels, doubled up door seals, and sheets of multilayer Quiet Steel ..."

They do mention the tight back seat and that handling feel is a step behind the Mazda3 and Ford Focus, but it left me with the impression that the Cobalt is very competitive for someone looking for a nice, refined small car such as a Corolla or Jetta -- very impressive for what is a Cavalier replacement!

[vdoh182]

most of th negatives seem miniscule, the backseat of my civic has a about 6 inches of legroom behind my seat, jetta my mom test drove was even worse, if u want more room get a bigger car, this seems like a good car idk what u mean it wont sel w/o giant incentives, does anyone have the sales figures.

[HEMI300C]

Originally Posted by Darc Requiem

HEMI how bad is it in comparison to the Cavalier? I'm just curious. I don't really use my backseat much if at all. I would still like to know though.

From what I remember of the Cavalier, the Cobalt has less space.

Originally Posted by vdoh182

most of th negatives seem miniscule, the backseat of my civic has a about 6 inches of legroom behind my seat, jetta my mom test drove was even worse, if u want more room get a bigger car, this seems like a good car idk what u mean it wont sel w/o giant incentives, does anyone have the sales figures.

The 2005 Jetta I sat in had MUCH more space in the back. It's not an issue of getting an externally bigger car, rather, people are going to look for a car sized like the Cobalt with more room internally.

From the time they went on sale in 2004 until the end of February, Chevy has sold 19,860 Cobalts. During the same period of time, approximately 26,258 Cavaliers were sold.

[spudglo08]

Because the Cav's were pretty much being given away^.

[GMfan2381]

Originally Posted by spudglo08

Because the Cav's were pretty much being given away^.

^Exactly, Huge rebates on the 05's. Ive owned 3 Cavaliers and have had no problems in the back seat. My friends sister has a VW Jetta and my knees touch the back of her seat when Im in the back. When some reviewer tells me the back seat is cramped I think "yeah, well pretty much every backseat is cramped." As for fuel economy, yeah theres room to improve there. Whiny engine? I test drove one and found the engine pretty much on par with the Civc in terms of noise, maybe my ears are bad... The first Cavalier didnt have a Tach or a Temp gauge... So anything more then a Speedometer is more then welcome in my book.

This guy seemed to be pulling for things to gripe about. Im not saying the Cobalt is the end all be all, but its higher on the bar then he put it. Either way Im getting a SS when I can afford it

[Slack]

The suprercharger nets -2/+5 mpg compared to non supercharged 2.2. Impressive.

[espo19047]

Originally Posted by HEMI300C

From what I remember of the Cavalier, the Cobalt has less space.



The 2005 Jetta I sat in had MUCH more space in the back. It's not an issue of getting an externally bigger car, rather, people are going to look for a car sized like the Cobalt with more room internally.

From the time they went on sale in 2004 until the end of February, Chevy has sold 19,860 Cobalts. During the same period of time, approximately 26,258 Cavaliers were sold.

Most dealers had a much smaller inventory of Cobalts vs Cavaliers in that time period..The Cav had a five thousand dollar rebate a few months back in direct competition with the Cobalt...So what..

[SilverZ]

Sales: Cobalt sales are still on the incline... and cavalier deals on bloated inventories are hurting that rate of incline.

Back Seat:
legroom 853 mm 914 mm 898 mm *851 mm For cobalt, civic, corolla, and jetta.
headroom *958 mm 946 mm 943 mm 937 mm For cobalt, civic, corolla, and jetta.
You car 'experts' should learn how to use the comparison tool on the OEM's websites, it would help you get a fact or two into your posts.

Bottom Line: Another review that cant balance pros and cons of a vehicle to come to a fair conclusion. They chose to compare the cobalt vs the absolute perfection, as opposed to its competition, which is misleading - especially in economy car territory. BTW everyone, the Jetta is thousands more expensive and is one of the worst deals in this segment - its downright uncompetitive if you compare value, quality, design, and performance.

[Squachy]

Considering much of the rear seat issue really is based on how tall a person is (and thus how far the front seats gets pushed back), i dont really see a "General standard" for how big a back seat is adequately.
Unless all manufacturers base their numbers on a single size (say like 5'10")
or average size much of the room in the back would vary.

If you were 6 feet tall i dont think you'd have any leg room if u left the seat as is and sat in the back.

However when the car is supposedly a little bigger than some of its competitors, on average it SHOULD have a little more space inside should it not?

[s113]

Originally Posted by HEMI300C

From the time they went on sale in 2004 until the end of February, Chevy has sold 19,860 Cobalts. During the same period of time, approximately 26,258 Cavaliers were sold.

That's actually not too bad, considering the Cobalt coupes are just now starting to come in and the SS's are very hard to come by.

[Kar Krazie]

I think the Cobalt is a very nice car. The interior looks very upscale. It will catch on, especially when the coupes are out and the SS is not so hard to come by.