2013 Impala LTZ

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Right now, I'm driving a 2013 Impala LTZ from National. Even though the car is from National, it is out of the Missouri Enterprise fleet, through Elco Chevrolet on Manchester Road in St. Louis.

It has been in service since a few days after Thanksgiving of 2012, and the odometer reads 7800 miles.

It is hard loaded... power sunroof, Bose sound system, heated leather seats, 18" wheels, and on and on. MSRP is over $32000.

However, it is difficult to overlook that this car is still based upon a model that has been in production for nearly 15 years.

Chevrolet is likely heavily discounting these last year models to the rental fleets, which is fairly obvious considering that Enterprise would put one hard loaded like this into the daily rental fleet.

The ride is nice, however, it gets choppy as soon as the 18" tires find broken pavement, then there is a a chop in the ride and a boom through the cabin. I blame the tire/wheel package for this. Something less than a 50 series (Goodyear RS-A) tire would likely behave much better.

Handling at interstate speeds is neutral, maybe a little twitchy with cross winds. Cornering is spot on, especially for a car of this size, even when one is going a little too fast.

The Bose sound system is everything that I expected. Wow. It is Cadillac quality.

The bucket seats leave a lot to be desired. Very little support, and they are hard. They feel like an old time bench seat. I suspect that this is due to this car being a staple in the law enforcement fleets. The seats need to be wide and relatively flat for officers who are wearing gun belts.

The 3.6 liter VVT engine is fun to drive, but the transmission is unpredictable. Sometimes, the transmission is spot on, and the car is a rocket. Other times, the transmission stumbles around and acts confused. Is this from rental service? I don't know. But if I owned this particular car, it would be going in to the dealer for that to be checked out *tomorrow*. Could be just a programming issue.

It has already seen one oil change, it has a Microgard oil filter on it now.

Rear visibility is horrid (as when backing up or changing lanes), but is no worse than a Taurus. I could see out of my folks' old Park Avenue MUCH easier, and it was a larger car. I don't care for the mirrors on the doors either. They need to be a little bit larger for my liking.

The interior is a mish-mash of all sorts of plastics, in all different styles, shapes, and textures. The car really shows its age with the interior. Fortunately, GM is doing much better with its interiors in its new models.

It is too bad that GM couldn't get the 2014 replacement into production a few years sooner.

All in all, I can't complain a whole lot, as I'm paying $15.78 a day to drive this.
 
Originally Posted By: mrsilv04


However, it is difficult to overlook that this car is still based upon a model that has been in production for nearly 15 years.

The ride is nice, however, it gets choppy as soon as the 18" tires find broken pavement, then there is a a chop in the ride and a boom through the cabin. I blame the tire/wheel package for this. Something less than a 50 series (Goodyear RS-A) tire would likely behave much better.

Handling at interstate speeds is neutral, maybe a little twitchy with cross winds. Cornering is spot on, especially for a car of this size, even when one is going a little too fast.



15 years?
lol.gif
the W body came out in 1988. GM held on to this almost as long as Ford held on to the Panthers.

I've always said that it was a good freeway chassis. My ex's Lumina had 14"s and it was a great freeway car. It could cruise 70mph+ as well as any FWD Audi.

The 2013 Impala LTZ is a pretty good looking car.....until you see the 2014. Then it's kinda' "Oh. Yeah....not so much." I suspect they will be increasingly discounted soon.
 
The last of the W-bodies. They're not "bad" cars by any stretch. They're certainly not standout cars, either. For a generally reliable V6 automatic FWD appliance with loads of room, it does hit the mark quite nicely, though. It's a good car for families. Parts/repair cost should be pretty low since it's only been around in one form or another for 20+ years. Not to mention they made a lot of them.
 
The early Ws had that stupid single fiberglass leaf spring suspension.Throwback to old Ford Model T days I guess.Everybody made fun of Chrysler keeping the K platform going from 1981-1995,well GM had the X/A body running 1979-late 1990s,and Ford ran the Tempo/Topaz,Escort,and Taurus for a decade or more too..the 2.5 Iron Duke ran from 1977-to the mid 90s,Ford's Essex V6 went 1981-mid 2000s,the small block Ford (260/289/302/351) ran 1962-1996 and so on...No wonder they have to resort to restyling every few years,the mechanicals were always the same.
 
guess that means the C5 and C6 corvettes (possibly even the C7?) were [censored] then too, since they also used single transverse leaf springs... front AND rear.
 
Overall mileage was around 25.5 mpg, which was 70% interstate (at 72 mph on average), 20% highway and 10% city.

The oil filter has been written on with a Sharpie with the date "2/13/13", so it got an oil change last week. Probably its first change, considering it had 7,400 miles on it when I picked it up.

7,400 miles is quite a few, in my opinion. I wonder what the OLM was at when it was changed...?
 
Since the weekend is over, the Impala LTZ has gone back to National/Enterprise.

Final observations:

Something is up in the transmission on this unit. I was pulling away from a stop light yesterday afternoon, and I distinctly felt two "thumps" in the transmission that definitely shouldn't have been there. Since it is a rental, who knows what has happened to this car in the previous 7400 miles that it has logged already. Maybe someone has gotten it in in two feet of snow, and did a GearHeadTool to it. Who knows.

Since it was an Impala, I was able to refill it with E85 before returning it to National. That saved me about $8 on the fill up. Another benefit of renting a model such as this.

As much as I liked it, for me, the seats alone would be enough of a deal killer to keep me from buying one. The driver's seat was *that* uncomfortable for me. I'd much rather keep the *much* simpler and *much* more comfortable seats out of my Silverado.
 
I had a 2008 Impala with the 3.5L. It blew its head gaskets at about 60,000 miles...fixed under warranty but not very impressive IMHO. The car was OK otherwise and capable of up to 34 mpg under the right conditions. The newer drivetrains (3.6 and 6 spd. auto) were an attempt to upgrade this aging platform...don't know that it was very successful from the sounds of it. What's up with these transmissions?...Ford and GM "jointly" designed this 6 spd. auto from what I understand and they seem to have a lot of issues (seemingly more problems with the Ford versions)...disappointing at the least.
 
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