JohnH
Followup: DRLs were changed to low beam sometime between '02 and '05. Has GM seen the light? (intended...) we can only hope. I did figure out how to disable the "feature" that leaves your lights on after you shut the car off. With low beam DRLs most of my objections to the lighting have gone away, while I am still not ecstatic about the auto headlights - I can live with them.
Actually the car is one of those love-hate things. It actually drives better than I have come to expect. There's actually a decent about of feedback through the steering wheel and brake pedal. It's still a wallowy pig, but nowhere near as bad as GMs I've driven in the past. (I called my '02 GTI a wallowy pig as well, so perhaps my taste in cars leans towards the go-kartish.) It's inoffensively styled, much nicer than just about every other GM design on the market, even if I wouldn't nominate it for any design awards. I was, overall, pleasantly surprised at it being decent. That said...
it's friggin' gutless. the 3400 is a joke in the Impala, it would be acceptable in a Cavalier maybe. It actually doesn't appear as a problem however until you actually try to accelerate quickly however - I have next to no respect for that whole engine family but the objectionable noises and vibes seem to have been mostly eradicated. It just doesn't have enough beans to get the job done. The tranny downshifts at a sneeze on the gas pedal, but it has to because of the gutless engine and super-mega-overdrive top gear (not really a bad thing, if you are doing a lot of driving on flat highways.) It's fairly inoffensive; if GM hasn't forgotten how to build a durable auto trans like Ford and Chrysler apparently have, I don't have anything bad to say about the tranny. Also it is decontented to the point of pain; IMHO the back seat would be inexcusable in a Hyundai and the fact that it doesn't fold down is ludicrous (yeah, I know, a folding seat is optional, but still... what is the point of buying a car that big if you can't haul stuff and don't want to sit in the back?) there are no gauges (yeah, I know, the 3800 gets a real dashboard but that wasn't part of the fleet deal) and there's still a few ergonomic gaffes like the parking brake, the shift lever that blocks the little thumbwheels for the dash vent, stuff like that. And the stereo is all bbutty and unpleasant - I'm sure it appeals to the ghetto crowd but come on, would a little sophistication really kill ya? Too bad they tied all these stupid other functions to the stereo; I would really like to try an aftermarket head unit.
So yet again GM manages to pee me off by offering (for a shockingly high price - sticker was something in the neighborhood of $23K) a car that still feels inferior to similarly priced offerings by VW and others that I've traditionally been interested in. Verdict: I can live with the car but I sure as hell would never have paid my own money for it.
Now if they'd get rid of some of the useless crap like the auto-light gimcrackery and offer a better engine, heated leather seats with a folding rear seat, and fix the ergonomic mistakes instead, they might have something... Maybe a police package would be more my taste, if I could get the fleet lady to order me one next time around :)
nate
