Unique Motors

2008 Chevrolet Cobalt

Editor: New Car Test Drive
Highly competent compact coupes and sedans.

Walk Around

The Chevy Cobalt is built on GM's Delta platform, which it shares with the domestic Saturn Astra and European-market Opel Astra. But with its single-bar grille and bowtie emblem, Cobalt looks like a proper Chevrolet small car right down to its shoes and socks.

Body panel fits are extremely tight. So tight, in fact, that there are no rubber trim gaskets around Cobalt's compound complex headlamps.

The fastback coupe bears a resemblance to the Cavalier it replaced in 2005, right down to its high, rounded tail and triangular rear quarter windows; though in fact Cobalt shares little with its predecessor but its looks.

The Cobalt sedan looks less like its curvier Cavalier ancestor, and more like a contemporary small sedan, with a tall roofline and short, chunky tail.

The coupe weighs about 50 pounds less than the sedan, although it's doubtful anyone but a professional race driver would feel the difference on the road. Same for the sedan's slightly better front-to-rear balance: 59/41 vs. 60/40 for the coupe.

Cobalt is longer, wider and lower than most of its direct competitors and its interior dimensions and trunk capacity are comparable for the class.

Interior

The design theme inside the Cobalt is simple and straightforward. Materials are decent and the fit and finish is good. Overall, it's comparable for the class. There's just enough chrome trim here and there on knobs and instruments to brighten things up without a lot of glare from the shiny parts. Instruments are large, well placed, and easy to read, with nice graphic treatment throughout.

Cobalt uses different seats in the different trim levels, each with detail changes in foam, padding and trim. We found plenty of fore/aft and rake adjustment for a 6-foot, 4-inch driver, plus seat height adjustment with a ratcheting handle. The LT seats were very comfortable and grabbed us in the fast corners exactly where we needed to be grabbed and held. Even better were the optional leather-trimmed seats, which come with electric heat.

The available Pioneer seven-speaker sound system with the Delphi AM/FM/CD delivers good sound and includes a huge subwoofer mounted on the left side trunk wall. For 2008, all Cobalts now come with XM Satellite Radio.

The heating, ventilation and defroster system worked quickly and intuitively.

The LS comes with manually operated windows. We don't mind this, but it takes a lot of cranking (about four and half times around) to wind the windows up. The urethane steering wheel that comes on LS and LT models feels cheap. The leather-wrapped wheel that's standard on Sport and optional on LT is much nicer.

Rear-seat passengers pay a price for the coupe's sporty looks. Headroom, legroom, and hip room are reduced by 2 inches, 1.5 inches, and 3.5 inches, respectively; enough to make the difference between a comfortable place for adults and one best left to pre-adolescents. Up front, the coupe actually offers more head and legroom than the sedan, but only by fractions of an inch.

The trunk in the sedan is wide and deep with a low lift-over height, and almost 14 cubic feet of capacity, more than competitive in the class, though the opening to the trunk seems relatively small. Cobalt does not use space-eating gooseneck hinges on its decklid, opting instead for simple outside corner hinges and two hydraulic assist struts. The coupe has an even smaller trunk opening, making it difficult to stow a thick suitcase. A 60/40-split, fold-down rear seat with a trunk pass-through feature adds utility to both sedan and coupe.