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You could pull my big old deville out of ditch if you ran a cable through one those push button handles... sturdiest door handles I have ever laid my hands on.
Yes; I have the same handles on my 1968 Chrysler Newport and they are very strong.
I just traded in my 2000 Malibu back in Jan. 2010. It had 135,000 miles on it. However, the engine mount bracket had recently been replaced. there was also the theft light problem. It would go on and the car wouldn't start for 20 mins. I had a lot of issues when I first got the car--mainly electrical. However, it was basically very reliable and very powerful. Unfortunately, I bought a Corolla, right before the recall started. Despite that, I am getting used to it, but for a while I really missed my Malibu. Like other people have noted, I liked the cupholder to the left of the steering wheel, the pick-up, the weight of the car. I do not know if I made the right decision by trading it in, but I'm not car repair saavy and really can't deal with too many repairs.
It is definitely a much harder decision when you have to pay the labor for the repairs. Things like engine mounts do not cost and are fairly easy for me to repair so I do not see that as an issue whereas someone that has to pay to have it done will.
We have a 2000 Malibu with 97K. I dont know if it has a timing belt or not. but where coming up on all the service checks. I dont know how reliable these cars are after 100 K. does anyone have one?
I don't care what Consumer Reports says or someone on a board says, I am NOT going to get rid of a car unless the car is causing me significant problems.
I have made a career of buying cars that are NOT recommended by CR at 60k and running the car until there is a major systems failure. Yet I have friends selling cars that they have never had problems with based on the fear that they ***MIGHT*** have problems in the future.
What is CERTAIN is that you will have car payments on a new vehicle.
I've owned older model cars from the early to mid 70's and have had plenty of opportunities to drive cars from the 60's and 70's owned by friends and family. EVERY single American car I've owned at some point lost a door handle which snapped off in my hands...Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, Dodge, Ford...didn't matter, they all at some point snapped off. They were metal too, not plastic.
If every American car you've driven has had the door handle break off then it seems like your the problem, not the car. I'm a 250 lb man and I've never been remotely close to braking off a door handle on any car. Oddly enough the only broken door handle anyone in my family has encountered was on a Honda.
This is like someone saying "I do 10 minutes of burnouts every day and I keep going through tires, Goodyear sure doesn't know how to make a tire".
The point is, take it easy on the door handle.
As for door handles; I have not yet seen a completely broken push button type. I have seen many of the pull up style break which is a common problem on many of the mid-seventies through late eighties GM cars such as the Monte Carlo, Cutlass, Regal, etc. family of cars. Also a common problem on the mid-seventies to early nineties Camaros and Firebirds. I have seen this many times on the eighties and nineties Mustangs as well. You would think after all of the years of these things breaking they would have done something to remedy the problem.
Ditto. On the push button door handles like the red Malibu I posted a pic of had, seldom did you ever see one break. They were robust.
However the pull up door handles like found on 1970-81 Camaro/Firebird break because they were made of pot metal and once the door bushings started letting the mile long overweight door sag, people would try to shut the door by lifting up on the door handle and using it to support the weight of the car door in an effort to get it to close. A BIG NO-NO!
Simply put if your bushings let the door sag, replace the bushings, and don't pick the door up by it's handle. It WAS NOT designed for that!
If every American car you've driven has had the door handle break off then it seems like your the problem, not the car. I'm a 250 lb man and I've never been remotely close to braking off a door handle on any car. Oddly enough the only broken door handle anyone in my family has encountered was on a Honda.
This is like someone saying "I do 10 minutes of burnouts every day and I keep going through tires, Goodyear sure doesn't know how to make a tire".
The point is, take it easy on the door handle.
The problem wasn't me, the problem was winter. The pull-up style handles always snapped off in winter. Granted most of these cars were already ten years old, but still, I've never had door handle problems with foreign cars. To GM and Ford's credit, they make their handles much better on today's models. Those push-button handles were indestructable, I just never liked that you had to keep your thumb pressed on the button to keep it locked while shutting. At least on many of them.
Those push-button handles were indestructable, I just never liked that you had to keep your thumb pressed on the button to keep it locked while shutting. At least on many of them.
IIRC, on GM cars that was done away with by 1970 or so. I know on my 1969 Nova you have to keep the button held in to lock it, but on my 1975 Nova you did not, and on our 1971 Nova you didn't have to hold it in either. Same way it was on my 1971 Malibu.
IIRC, on GM cars that was done away with by 1970 or so. I know on my 1969 Nova you have to keep the button held in to lock it, but on my 1975 Nova you did not, and on our 1971 Nova you didn't have to hold it in either. Same way it was on my 1971 Malibu.
You had to hold the button down on my former '70 Cadillac Sedan de Ville to lock the door and you did not have to on my former '71 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.
The problem wasn't me, the problem was winter. The pull-up style handles always snapped off in winter. Granted most of these cars were already ten years old, but still, I've never had door handle problems with foreign cars. To GM and Ford's credit, they make their handles much better on today's models. Those push-button handles were indestructable, I just never liked that you had to keep your thumb pressed on the button to keep it locked while shutting. At least on many of them.
I thought you were talking about the inside door handles for some reason, lol. My apologies.
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