Welcome back! Yesterday it was two white cars; today it’s two black cars as we look at the opposite scenario: cars that are still around that you have probably completely forgotten even existed. But first let’s look at yesterday’s results:
Ha! My evil plan came to fruition: I got you all to vote for a middling, lackluster GM product – over a Honda. Step one complete. Step two, well, you’ll find out soon enough.
But first: I was driving home from work yesterday, listening to an album I hadn’t heard all the way through in quite a while: Arc Angels, if you’re curious. I got into the second half, and came across a couple of songs I had completely forgotten about, until they started. Lots of albums have songs like that, and they’re usually buried somewhere in the middle of side two. They’re not bad songs; in fact, they’re pretty good, but they don’t stick in your head like the hits do, or resonate with you like that one that reminds you of that one girl. And I got to thinking: Some cars are like that too, not bad, just lost in the shuffle and forgotten about – until you see one again. So I picked out a couple of cars from the middle of side two of the used car market. Forgotten? Yep. Gems? You tell me.
2007 Chevrolet Cobalt LT – $3,500
Engine/drivetrain: 2.2 liter dual overhead cam inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Everett, WA
Odometer reading: 164,000 miles
Runs/drives? Just fine
Chevy’s Cobalt was the replacement for the often (and often unfairly) maligned J-body Cavalier. It shared GM’s Delta platform with the Saturn Ion, and much hoopla was made when it was introduced about it being a whole new breed of small car. In truth, it’s not too far off the Cavalier mechanically, and you can only tell a Cobalt from a late-model Cavalier if they’re parked next to each other. Not surprising; most of GM’s “revolutionary new ideas” are either a hot mess, or much ado about nothing. But that’s why we love GM around here: it’s like that crazy uncle who always has the best stories.
A livelier version of the Cobalt, the SS, is celebrated in enthusiast circles for its supercharged (later turbocharged) engine and “holy crap, this is no Z24” performance. But the base models like this one fly so far under the radar that they’re practically invisible. I remember renting one of these once, and it was fine. It did car things, and nothing about it annoyed me. I guess that’s good enough for some circumstances.
This one seems to be holding up well after 164,000 miles. GM interiors from this era are a sea of cheap-feeling plastic (I’ve heard a joke that they went from “Body By Fisher” to “Interior By Fisher-Price”), but surprisingly, it all holds up well. Cars like this looked cheap and tacky inside when they were new, but sixteen years later, they look exactly the same.
The seller says that this one’s 2.2 liter Ecotec engine and four-speed automatic run just fine, but it’s being sold by a dealer, so don’t expect much more detailed information. But it looks pretty good in the photos.
2012 Mitsubishi Galant ES – $3,500
Engine/drivetrain: 2.4 liter overhead cam inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Roseville, CA
Odometer reading: 208,000 miles
Runs/drives? “Fabulous,” they say
Remember Mitsubishi? Yeah, they’re still around. This car isn’t though; they stopped making the Galant in – wait, that can’t be right – 2012. Yep, this “no, it’s not a Camry, really” sedan hung around almost until Obama’s second term. Long since stripped of any of the cool features of the earlier models like the turbocharged all-wheel-drive VR4, by 2012 the Galant had become ruthlessly ordinary. Perhaps that was to be expected of a car built in a town called Normal.
This one is pretty nice, though, with leather seats and a bunch of power stuff, all part of the ES trim level, I imagine. It’s a four-cylinder, and by this point all Galants were automatics, so it’s not going to get your heart racing. But it has chugged along faithfully for over 200,000 miles already, so it must be doing something right. The seller says all the power stuff works, too, as does the air conditioning, important with the black seats.
It’s in good condition except for this one rather unsightly boop on the nose. I wonder if one of those paintless dent removal places could take care of that, or if it’s accessible enough on the underside of the hood that you could just pop it back out again.
It’s a handsome enough car, and obviously well-built; I saw quite a few of these for sale north of 200,000 miles and just picked one from the middle of the price range. I can’t comment on how these drive, really – a friend of mine owns one, and she likes it well enough. I’ve only driven it 100 feet in reverse, when she was too nervous to back down our treacherous driveway in the dark. Can’t get much of a sense of a car from that.
So there they are, a couple of decent-looking also-rans for what seem like reasonably fair prices. These aren’t “Hotel California,” and they certainly aren’t “Life In The Fast Lane;” they’re more like “Pretty Maids All In A Row,” but that’s a nice song too. What do you think? Rental-spec Chevy, or end-of-the-line Mitsubishi?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
While I don’t think the Cobalt is quite as durable in that “runs bad longer than many cars run at all” GM way as the generation of vehicles that preceded it, the powertrain is stout and the car should be fine as cheap wheels.
I think if the mileages were reversed, I probably would go Galant. I kind of liked this gen of Galant when it originally came out, but not enough over any of its competitors which outclassed it before it even hit the market.
This Galant is not a Galant, it’s an awful Australian-planned concoction, based on the P41 platform (Mitsubishi 380).
Mitsubishi Australia was known for having managed to get a beautiful car (the Diamante) and build it in a way were everything Japanese lasted forever and everything Australian was crap. Our 2002 Diamante’s front rotors had to be resurfaced every 12000 miles. Using AUTO on the AC eventually killed the in-dash valve (a $1000 job to replace). A known issue by the dealer.
The leak of the heater dripped on an unprotected $7 relay, killing it – that would leave the transmission stuck in first gear – another full dash removal to replace (the relay being this time inserted in a ziplock bag).
BUT, the Diamante was beautiful otherwise. To look at and to live in. Not to mention it could be had with AWD and a 270 Mivec V6 in Japan (we only got the 3.5 “regular” V6 in the US).
Then came Olivier Boulay, who killed the brand’s existing design with one brushstroke, fixing the only major issue of the existing Diamante (replacing the 4-gear auto, straight shifter tranny with a 5-speed one, equipped with a ladder shifter or whatever it’s called, with a sequential selector – the only real issue of the original Diamante, where downshifting attempst sent you straight from 4th to 1st), and then killing it with atrocious bubbly eyes.
The P41 was Boulay’s design. I heard there are cars that looked more ordinary, but I haven’t seen one in person.
Using the Galant name for this 380 derivate is an insult to the name. All the previous Galants before it were beautiful to look at, and usually interesting to drive in. They had a beautiful mid-90’s V6 AWD wagon which was one of the best looking wagons ever made (especially with the black bacground Euro/Japanese headlights).
This car was pitched in the USA as part of something called “Project America”, which was supposedly Mitsubishi’s effort to design something that would appeal to North American buyers in the red-hot midsize sedan segment. So it’s funny to learn that all of that was just marketing-speak for a car that was disliked all around the globe.
The other funny thing is that Mitsubishi had already been a fairly successful with the previous versions of the Galant sold here. They were well-styled and well-liked cars, and the biggest knock against them seemed to be the fact that Mitsubishi dealers scraped the bottom of the barrel in terms of their “No credit needed” sales tactics.
Then the Project America redesign brought a thoroughly boring sedan that had none of the styling cachet of previous Galants, and seemed to do nothing better than any competing vehicle. Whatever goodwill had been earned by the previous models now evaporated. After that, the bottom seemed to fall out of the market for Mitsubishi here, and over the next few years they would cancel most of their lineup and limp along until the Nissan investment brought back some signs of life.
(Full disclosure, I drive a 2018 Outlander which is based on the Galant platform & has the same MIVEC V6, and am very happy with it.)
The Cobalt will need a new ignition cylinder at some point. And then it will need a new one again. And again. Despite the seriously flawed design of them, GM refused to actually do anything about it beyond changing the part number (despite the part being the same), and so if this is one of the few cars it was recalled in, it doesn’t matter – the replacement is literally exactly the same as the original.
Trust me, I had to go to my state’s AG office to force GM not to charge $400 to replace a clearly defective part in a Cobalt, after having to do it twice in 75,000 miles in an ION.
Oh, and when it fails, the car gets stuck on. In a manual you can at least stall it, but the only way to shut off the auto is to disconnect the battery in the trunk.
I thought GM was forced to redesign the ignition after all the bad publicity from peoples’ cars shutting off and crashing. But it is GM we are talking about . . .
Doesn’t the Cobalt have an electrical gremlin where it won’t recognize that you’re in park or neutral so it’ll refuse to start? That on top of the ignition cylinder issues is a no go for me.
Neither of these do it for me. I’ll go with the Gallant due to it being bigger, having a nicer looking interior and being more practical .
I’ve driven both cars as rentals. The Cobalt had the absolute worst interior ever, it made my 03 Focus look like a luxury car. Also, doing a u-turn in that thing was awful, it was not agile at all, nor did it handle well. The Galant was a sea of cheap plastic. I cut my arm on the driver’s side arm rest. The engine had enough pep. However, I’m sure this car is on its 10th owner from a buy here pay here lot and on borrowed time due to deferred maintenance, so Cobalt it is.
Cobalts are the absolute worst cars. My ex gf had one, and it ruined me with anything GM. It was terrible to own, drive, and repair. I’ll vote for anything other than a Cobalt.
A friend still dailys a 1994ish Mitsubishi Diamante wagon! For her, I’ll vote for the Galant.
The good ol’ Aussie Diamante. The Diamante was a completely different beast, those were nice cars!
I’ve driven a Cobalt and…uh…I have no recollection of the experience. I’ve detailed a couple and they have quite possibly the cheapest feeling interior I’ve ever encountered.
I don’t know much about Galants either. I’ve known people to have earlier models than the one listed here, and the refrain was always the same: you can’t kill it. So I voted Galant.
Neither? Neither. Thanks!
I’d rather have a cobalt with hubcaps than a late-ish model galant. Man…they really dragged that nameplate to a bad place.
If I ever get diagnosed with hypertension or insomnia, one of these might just be the cure.
I had to go Cobalt. That will probably run forever. I had a Galant as a rental back around 2012 and just remember thinking how outdated it felt then. The Cobalt’s are kind of fun in a toss able way, and it should be cheap to keep running.
My ex gf had a Cobalt, and that car ruined me from buying anything GM in the future. It was the ultimate POS.
Same, man, same.
I’ll take the Mitsubishi
Accord. Oops. MitsubishiCamry. No, wait. I’ll take the MitsubishiMaxima. Oh, shit. MitsubishiMazda6.You get the point, I’ll take the Mitsubishi.
The Galant is like a fake car driven by NPCs in video games. The kind where you’ll steal it if you need to get back on your mission fast, but would otherwise run around until you found something better.
The interior of the Galant looks clean. I can’t tell if the Cobalt has a clean interior because it looked like shit from the factory.
Neither of these cars hold any appeal for me. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the Galant because it puts more mass and material between me and the teenager in the SUV watching TikTok while they run a stop sign.
Oh wow, this one’s a struggle. They’re both so… unwantable.
Cobalt is cleaner, lower miles and all, but I still would rather deal with orphaned car parts availability and the dents and dings as the Galant is a much nicer place to be while beating around. Though the Galant seller hides it better it seems that both of these rides are from Buy Here/ Pay Here chop shops though.
I’ll take the Mitsu”bitch”i…
My wife used to have a Cobalt (decent looking for replacing Cavalier) and it was pretty good til ALL THE RECALLS! Ignition switch/fuel leak/etc etc etc
I used to always change oil & on that it had just a paper filter (no outside plastic) in it’s own canister (you just took a rubber cap off to replace, which needed a big socket to open, I still have it too)
Yeah, also the Cobalt had like 10 recalls and the ignition switch fiasco they actually knew about 10 years before the recall
And the recall didn’t cover every year of Cobalt, nor did it fix the issue – they changed the part number, but the new part was identical to the old one. Same problems and all.
One of my good friends bought a 5-speed Cobalt LT coupe new back in 2007 and drove it for 14 years without issue before trading it in late-2021. I drove it a few times and found it to be a thoroughly decent, if uninteresting car. I have no experience with this era Galant, other than it seems like every one I see is completely clapped out. So Cobalt it is.
“Chevy’s Cobalt was the replacement for the often (and often unfairly) maligned J-body Cavalier.”
Every Cav I ever encountered was complete rubbish.
Anyhow, onto today’s terrifically tepid twosome. . .
*yawns* I’m sorry, what was the question?
Whoa! The votes were 50-50 (142-142) before I voted! (That’s the most exciting thing about today’s entrants.)
My ex had the Pontiac version of the cobalt. My main complaint was that the sunroof cut into my headroom too much. Seeing as this one doesn’t have a sunroof I voted for it. Car was fine as far as I remember, don’t remember her having any issues with it. Mitsubishis were never common in my area so I can’t imagine parts being as easy to come by as they will for a GM product.
It’s gotta be the Cobalt for me. It looks like it’s been better cared for, has fewer miles, an it’ll be easier to find parts for.
Both feel a little high: Chevy for the quality (the whole package, really) and Mitsubishi for the mileage and hood dent. Drop $500 and I’d still take the Galant. It would show pretty well with that dent fixed and is a decent driver.
The Cobalt reminds me of my first car — a bare-bones basic Cavalier coupe owned by my parents. Clean up the glaucoma headlights and go.
The Galant is fine for someone who carries passengers more frequently simply because it’s bigger and has more doors. If you’re ever putting a friend that you like in the backseat, don’t make them suffer the indignity of climbing over the folded-forward front seat in a coupe.
But if you’re like most people who drive alone the vast majority of the time? The coupe is fine.
I can’t believe the number of Cobalt votes here. Have any of you been in/driven a Cobalt before? This was the car that many of my peers bought out of necessity, all of which have refused to even consider a GM product ever again. I get this is one of those “hey it’s a Chevy, and this one will run poorly forever!” but even these days you can do way better for $3500.
GM finally got things right (sort of) with the Cruze that replaced this POS.
I couldn’t click the Galant button fast enough. And it’s just ok.
I think the mileage of the Mitsubishi is swaying a lot of votes in favor of the Cobalt. This Galant looks well cared for so the number doesn’t bother me, but 200,000 miles seems to be a psychological barrier for a lot of people.
I have driven a Cobalt. It wouldn’t be my 1st choice for transportation (or even my 40th choice), but they are cars that can generally be driven places. A Cobalt is better than walking or riding a bus.
Both of these are in the mileage range and reputation range of “I could either get 500 miles or 50k miles out of this, and I have no idea which.”
I do agree that the ‘2’ spooks a lot of people. Me included.
My college roommate bought one brand new back in the day. As it was ace of base it was ludicrously cheap. With a short shifter installed it was plenty peppy and good enough for running around. That car got passed around our friend circle. Everyone is still talking many years later so it was fine.
As much as I deeply dislike the Cobalt, a stick would make this a harder choice for me.