I was not exactly charmed by the current-generation Malibu when I reviewed it last summer. Its Kamm-tailed predecessor had enough virtue to face the Japanese-brand midsizers squarely on their own turf and come away with at least a respectable, stylish showing, but the current car is a retrograde step in everything from its regrettably truckish styling to its lowered-expectations driving dynamics.
Turns out that I’m not the only person, or corporation, if that’s not the same thing in 2015 anyway, who feels that way. If you’re renting at certain airports, you’ll have the chance to enjoy the Malibu at the same kind of deep discount it currently requires in order to slip the surly bonds of drab GM dealerships. I asked a rental-industry insider why that might be so.
My friend was guarded in his response to my question, which was, basically, “Why is a Camry considered so much more valuable than a Malibu as a rental car?”
“Well,” he responded, “As traditionally utilitarian cars become nicer, they are given new classes. The 200C is classed differently than the Cruze which is considered a midsize car. If you book a midsize, chances are you’ll get a Cruze but a 200C is an upsell.” Fair enough, but that doesn’t explain why there’s a specific category for “full-sized cars” that also happen to be Malibus, and that category happens to be much cheaper than regular “full-sized” cars like a Camry.
“It’s all done internally for depreciation reasons,” was his response, but when I pressed him I found out that the rental car companies are a lot more sensitive to the market’s desires than you might think. Consider, if you will, the new-generation Impala. Once upon a time, all Impalas were considered the same kind of upgrade, whether you got a leather-and-buckets LTZ or a fleet special with a bench seat and no insignia on the tail. I’ve paid about the same for both, with no warning as to what I’d get when I booked.
Nowadays, however, the Impala LTZ lives in a different category from the LS and LT. Although even the mid-grade model impressed our own Bark M. when it arrived in the fleets, if you want the Zen Impala, so to speak, you’ll pay more.
But that doesn’t answer the question of why a car that is priced heads-up against Camry and Accord finds itself heavily discounted as a one-night-stand. Maybe it’s the channel-stuffing to fleets that New GM swore off with all the conviction of David Crosby waving his hand at a proffered bottle of liquor. If the rental companies pay less, I suppose they might consider passing the savings along to me, the rental customer.
Alternately, perhaps they’re tired of people like me who view the current Malibu as the all-time rental booby prize and will therefore raise hell not to spend a weekend behind the wheel of one. With this new pricing strategy, we have a chance to put our money with our mouth is, so to speak. And who would want to put their mouth on a Malibu?
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