This car is a looker. The front fascia does it. The standard Malibu is turned into not only a sportier-looking car, but a car more upscale and astute in appearance. The SS treatment brings a very strong chin to this car - a feature key to the new Chevy SS look - and bigger openings to let intake air and cooling air into the places where they need to be - a simple performance necessity, and a design trait in keeping with the Chevy SS heritage. The upscaling of the Malibu's appearance comes not only from the more bold yet handsome lines but also from the increased use of chrome, especially front and center on the Malibu's nose. Fog lamps almost always look cool, and they certainly do in this application, having been placed on each lower front corner of the front fascia, set in a silver rim and flanked on both sides by an attractive mesh.
The interior is a very large step up from the cloth garb of the base Malibu. The SS label front and center on the steering wheel adds a touch of dazzle, and decent quality leather covers all seats. A revised dash design featuring upgraded materials and sportier instruments make the car look not only more performance oriented but also higher quality and higher class than the base model. Inside and out, the Malibu Maxx SS is a thoroughly more valuable looking car than the standard Malibu Maxx, independent of its endowment of enhanced performance. And, we must admit, this car looks simply infinitely better in that dark blue exterior with black interior than it does in any sort of tan or gray or beige exterior with light tan interior.
The powertrain is greatly enhanced with an extra 39 horsepower. The torque is immediately on tap and the motor is strong. Under normal driving, the Malibu SS’s motor sounds like an inexpensive American V6, but it sounds healthy one at that when you lay into the throttle. The standard Malibu Maxx felt properly powered; it was responsive, it accelerated without undue hesitation, it could handle whatever load of people and cargo you could fit inside it. The SS treatment simply takes ample power and makes it amped up power. It is a hotter wagon, with more power than you need, from a functional standpoint. This is fun to drive, stomping your foot as you please, getting wheelspin from a standing start or through a corner, feeling the seat more firmly against your back as the pushrod V6 pulls strongly. It is sporting.
The automatic transmission shifts quicker the harder you stomp your foot down. It is pretty smooth, fairly quiet in operation and generally amicable in normal operating mode. The rest of the driveline, through the wheels, seems to work well. There is no wheel hop, although that may be the result of this not being quite enough torque per this car’s weight and spring stiffness. There is also no noticeable torque steer. This is a good thing, as there is plenty of torque to move you and let you have fun with your family wagon, but without too many drawbacks from the front wheel drive setup.
The suspension is much stiffer than the standard Malibu, and provides notably improved handling. Turn-in is good, roll is reduced - largely due to the strut tower bar visible behind the very interestingly shaped intake manifold in the engine bay, and overall performance feel is adequate for a lively family wagon. The stiffened suspension does begin to show the limits of the structure, as some chassis flex is now detectable, where the softer suspension of the standard Malibu hid this weakness. The ride is still supple, though more of the smaller bumps in the road do make themselves known to you. This ride quality is certainly the right accompaniment to the engine treatment of this Chevy SS. The driving experience is fun and, within a streeting context, capable. This has no place on a track or autocross course as-is, but it is enough to make you smile while you work the wheel trying to get the back end to slip out a bit on a long sweeping on or off ramp, drift and zero out your slip angle, then swiftly floor it and spin the tires and understeer your way out of the corner. You can leave a large variety of vehicles at the light, and look good doing it. And you can enjoy an American low price with high cargo capacity and interior space functionality and flexibility that comes standard with the Malibu Maxx package. The Malibu Maxx SS puts the fun in functional.
The steering is good for this class. Where cars like the Camry have come to adopt a traditional Buick/Cadillac feel to them, some Chevrolet sedans have developed a steering feel more firm than that of, say, 1980s and 70s American cars. This makes those modern Chevys feel more lively, mechanically sound, reassuring, involving, and high performance. It is a driver oriented feature. Many prefer the luxurious feel of the Camry's steering, the feeling of electronic command and push-button response; but those who choose the Malibu will prefer the right to feel, to engage, to steer. This is no Corvette, but it is indeed a Sport wagon.
At $23,265, it is at least as much a bargain as a standard Malibu Maxx. It offers more power than just about anything in this price range, and it offers lots of cargo room, too. The interior is not something that will drive fear into the hearts of the competition, of mere mortal vehicles, but this Super Sport wagon offers great Chevrolet value to those who desire evolved American design.
The Malibu Maxx SS wagon is no 3 series wagon. It's lots bigger. So it's slower, with less crisp handling, and it's less fun to drive. It is not as stately as an E-class wagon, nor is it nearly the price. It is a good performance step up from the standard Malibu wagon, with no loss in functionality. It is smaller than a minivan but for five occupants it reaches a good level of functionality and it is loads more fun to drive. GM could do well to make the standard Malibu more like this and make this performance model better earn its SS badge, but the value per the MSRP is tractable and good. This is not the type of car that we would leap to slap an SS badge on, but it is a family hauler whose image we will hold in our memory files of Chevrolet performance vehicles, if as nothing else than a good start and a good value.
