For someone who’s a devout fan of hatchbacks, the turn of the millennium was a dark time. What was an ubiquitous body style less than 20 years before was now a niche offering. It seems that most Americans had associated the hatchback with either cheap, entry-level transportation (Chevette) or unmitigated garbage (Citation). Note: I’m not saying that GM killed the hatchback market, but they bear some responsibility. Toyota made this abundantly clear with the Echo. Instead of the cute hatchback available in other markets, including Canada, we were offered probably the ugliest 2- and 4-door sedans to ever grace our shores. So, if you were in the market for a hatchback back then, your choices could be counted on one hand.
The event that put us in the situation of car shopping at this time was being told by my mechanic that Ed, our 1986 Chevrolet Nova was no longer worth fixing. I was insistent that Ed’s replacement not be another sedan. My wife acquiesced, but she insisted that it have four doors and an automatic, as she had grown tired of driving a stick. I was amenable to that, since we still had the Sentra.
In early 2000, if you wanted a compact (not sub-compact) 4-door hatchback, you could choose a new VW Golf or a used car. Seriously, that was it. While the Subaru Impreza wagon looked kind of like a hatchback, it was still too “wagonish” to sell to my station-wagon-hating wife. Fortunately, unlike personal luxury coupes, hatchbacks started to make a comeback. Chrysler got the ball rolling with the stunning PT Cruiser. Hyundai and Mazda brought over the Elantra GT and the Protege5, and Ford introduced the 5-door Focus. The ones that really grabbed our attention, however, were the Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe. At the 2002 Virginia auto show in Richmond, Pontiac had a white one up on a stand. “I want to sit in that one,” said my wife, who also hates white cars, as she pointed to the Vibe. Unfortunately, it was roped off, but I took her over to a Matrix which was on the floor with the rest of Toyota’s lineup.
The Matrix and Vibe were hatchback versions of the new 2003 Corolla, with all three being introduced around February 2002. Interestingly, neither car resembled the Corolla nor each other. They were also assembled in different factories, with the Matrix coming out of Toyota’s Cambridge, Ontario plant and the Vibe from the GM/Toyota NUMMI joint-venture in Fremont, CA, replacing the Chevrolet Prizm. Coincidentally, Ed came from that same factory!
While the Matrix skewed more toward the boy-racer Fast & Furious crowd, the Vibe, in base trim, looked like a mini-SUV with its roof rack and lower body-side cladding. In all-wheel drive form, it was more of a spiritual descendant of the late, great Corolla All-Trac than the Matrix. Attractive Pontiac styling and Toyota reliability. Does it get any better than this?
There was only one problem – I didn’t know how to buy a new car. Yes, I did accompany Dad on a few purchases, but that was a long time ago. Since he had passed away, I couldn’t exactly call him for advice. While doing some research on the internet, I came across CarBuyingTips.com, which had all of the information I was looking for. Most importantly, there was a downloadable spreadsheet which could be used to determine the appropriate price to pay. The one aspect of buying a new car that I recalled definitely not liking was after the price of the car was agreed upon, the dealer then added several fees that they claimed were required (“Advertising Fee,” anybody?), which opened up a new round of negotiations. I discovered that the founder of the site, Jeff Ostroff, was also from South Florida and had attended my alma mater a few years before me. I e-mailed him asking what he thought about negotiating an “out-the-door” price? He said as long as both sides agree on the meaning, there was nothing wrong with it. I then modified his spreadsheet to account for the sales taxes and all of the fees required by the State of Virginia, which I found on the web. I was now fully armed and ready for war!
Although I found the Vibe to be much better looking than the Matrix, being a new model, there were no rebates. Furthermore, the invoice price and MSRP were close together and provided little room for negotiation. Who the hell buys a GM car without a rebate? Focusing my attention on the Matrix in XR trim, which had a much wider spread between invoice and MSRP, I e-mailed several Toyota dealers to tell them what I was looking for and willing to pay. Some dealers didn’t respond at all, a few told me that we needed to come to the dealer to discuss price, but one salesman said he had exactly what I was looking for and asked me to call him. “You need to understand, the Matrix is really hot right now, and we’re selling every one we can get our hands on at full sticker.” Yeah, right. Uh huh. Have a nice day.
I knew that my local auto mall had a base, front-wheel drive Vibe in “Satellite” on their lot. After a brief internal struggle (Who the hell buys a GM car without a rebate???), I worked up my spreadsheet, and we went to take a look. Another nifty tip I learned was that the sales representative does not need to accompany you on a test drive, nor does the test drive need to be a quick ’round-the-block jaunt that tells you next to nothing about the car. After informing Kevin, our salesman, that he would be staying behind, we took the Vibe on a 50-mile trek on all kinds of different roads. Afterward, we got down to business. It was mostly painless, with the only memorable line from Kevin being, “If you negotiate an out-the-door price, then the actual sales price of the car won’t be an even number!” Whaaaaaaaaa? Apparently, this is important to some people.
Shortly after e-mailing the Toyota salesman to thank him for pointing me toward the Vibe, we took “Shadow” on his first road trip. I had read a long time ago about a man who owned a Camaro with 250,000 miles, and he attributed its longevity to breaking in the engine via a cross-country trek. Who was I to argue success? We didn’t have the time to drive cross country, but we did drive him nearly 500 miles to Cincinnati, OH, stopping in Charleston, WV, to drop off Ed at the Good News Mountaineer Garage. We met up with my sister, who drove down from Manhattan, and visited all of the houses we lived in during our time there. The best part of the trip was celebrating the season opening of King’s Island (Trivia question: Which popular family television show from the early seventies prominently featured King’s Island in one episode?)
We found Shadow to be a fun, efficient and thoughtfully designed car. Besides the stylish Pontiac split grille, the Vibe was one of the first, if not the first, modern hatchback to feature the canted, half-moon-like rear quarter windows. Over the next 15 years, many hatchbacks and compact crossovers would copy this design. Another neat feature was the glass window in the rear hatch could be opened separately to make it easier to carry longer items or to retrieve something when there wasn’t enough room to open the hatch.
Inside, the steering wheel was the only hint that the car was related to the Corolla. It’s my understanding that Pontiac designed the interior of both the Vibe and Matrix, but Toyota must have provided the materials because it didn’t look or feel as cheap as full-GM Pontiacs. The sporty, deep-set, permanently back-lit, red instrumentation with chrome trim rings was accompanied by automatic on/off head lamps. Personally, I believe every car that has permanently back-lit instrumentation should have this feature and is why you see so many cars driving around at night without lights on. In the Sentra, for example, I always knew it was time to turn on the lights when it was too dark to see the gauges. Also included were a two-prong household-style outlet, cell-phone slot in the console, several storage compartments, and rugged yet comfortable seat fabric. A lot of those features are common today, but were quite novel in 2002.
Most impressive was the cargo area. From the brochure, “Vibe’s innovative built-in rear adjustable cargo system…features chrome hooks and eight tie-down anchors, which easily slide forward or back, accommodating loads of various sizes.” With fold-flat rear and front-passenger seats, you could carry quite a bit in the Vibe. As much as I liked the retro-cool look of the PT Cruiser, the Vibe was not only far more fuel efficient (26 city/32 highway vs. 19/25), it also had more cargo room. To keep cargo from sliding around, we put a laundry basket back there and secured it with bungee cords to the chrome hooks. Worked like a charm.
Downsides were few. The biggest issue was engine and road noise, as there didn’t appear to be a lot of sound deadening material. In addition, while handling was great even with the base 16-inch wheels, the Vibe crashed over bumps and potholes. Another issue was that even with the adjustable steering column in its lowest position, the steering wheel was still too high and too far away for a fully comfortable driving position. Finally, in that first year when most people were still unfamiliar with the Vibe, we kept getting asked, “Is that an Aztek?”
Shadow was my wife’s daily driver for the first 10.5 years we owned him, then became mine for the last year and a half. Looking at his service history, we really didn’t have any issues until that 10th year. First, an oil leak necessitated the replacement of the timing- and valve-cover gaskets. Shortly thereafter, the air conditioning condenser crapped out. In total, we paid a relatively small $8,142.35 for regular maintenance, tires (including snow tires) and repairs over 12 years, or just under eight cents per mile for the 104,000 we drove him, with all servicing performed by the dealer.
Late in the eleventh year, I was side-swiped by a Sequoia-driving idiot who didn’t understand that when there are two left-turn lanes, you can’t jump lanes mid-turn. As you can see in the photo above, the damage appeared minimal, but the impact beam had been hit and necessitated the replacement of the door. Since the lower body cladding had faded, all of the cladding – including the bumpers – needed to be replaced to look uniform. Therefore, the other driver’s insurance company handed me a check for over $3,000, more than half the value of the car, for damage that could probably just be ignored.
However, I was never fully comfortable driving the Vibe, especially since it had been my wife’s for so long, and had tired of the noise and harsh ride. We also had a family member who was coming home shortly from 30 months in…um…a “safe” place…and would be in need of transportation. We thought Shadow would be perfect for him, and we’d put the insurance money toward a new car. Unfortunately, before going away, he had been leasing new cars every 3 years and really felt he deserved better than an old Pontoyota. After two years of neglect, the engine seized one night on his way home from work. According to him, as he was standing there in the silent evening waiting for the tow truck, he swore he heard someone, or something, say, “You never liked me.”
The most important lesson I learned from Shadow, aside from letting family members handle their own transportation needs, is that when you hold onto a car, it’s far more important to get one you can love than to focus on how much money is on the hood. So, yes, I am the person who buys a GM car without a rebate.
Are those plastic wheeltrims stock?
Yes, this car was completely stock. The only thing I ever changed was the radio in 2011, when I had a Bluetooth-compatible stereo installed.
I really enjoyed your write-up.
What an ungrateful family member!
I never got a decent ANYTHING from my family, much less a nice car. Usually just some garbage they didn’t want and somehow assumed we did.
Back in the day I gave a relative two cars. The first was decent, but was turned into garbage within a year, and the second was almost garbage when he got it and he sorta tried to maintain it. Depended on what substances he was using at the time I guess.
The consensus in my family is that my brother is something of an ingrate. He stole from us and generally threw stuff back in our faces growing up. Yet even he would show gratitude at a car. When he got out of jail, someone handed him the keys to a 20-something year old Stratus and he loved that thing to death.
I hope your brother got help for his substance problems.
Trivia question — “Which popular family television show from the early seventies prominently featured King’s Island in one episode?”
Answer — The Brady Bunch
You win. If you can ever get a hold of the “Pop-Up Brady” version of this episode that Nick at Night aired many years ago, it’s hilarious.
Yes, I knew that too! And for bonus points, my family stayed in the same hotel across from the park. It did not look like a single thing had been done to the place from the time the Bradys were there in the early 70s until our stay in the late 2000s.
I think The Brady Bunch AND The Partridge Family both featured King’s Island in at least one of their episodes.
I also think the Matrix/Vibe was the final car jointly produced by Toyota & GM under the NUMMI joint-venture.
Fun fact: The NUMMI plant (first opened in 1984) was bought by Tesla in 2010 & became the Tesla Factory. It was originally the General Motors Fremont Assembly site (opened in 1962, closed 2 decades later).
For anyone who still watches broadcast television, MeTV airs The Brady Bunch every Sunday for 2 hours in the afternoon and Antenna TV has the Partridge Family on Saturday (exact times are always changing on this channel).
The NUMMI cars long ago had been discovered to be a way to buy a Corolla without having to pay a Toyota price. But without those big, typical domestic rebates, they were a hard sell to those who didn’t understand that. They were expensive for a domestic, but cheap by Toyota standards.
The Vibe was one of the best. Well-packaged and well-built, the Pontiac interior was tops, and the Pontiac radio was better than the Toyota. I’d go so far as to say the Vibe was better looking, too, body-cladding and all. Unfortunately, there was an engineering defect with the 5-speed, and they were known to grenade around the 100k mile mark.
Still, to this day, it’s one of those ‘cockroaches of the road’ that can’t be killed and are occasionally seen being driven around.
I have two friends who own Vibes. One has a 2003 like this one while the other has a 2009, the last one. The one who owns the 2003 dosen’t like it because she claims that it’s terrible handling in the snow.
That’s true with the stock tires. I learned that one night when I had to pick up my wife in a snow storm. As I was climbing a hill toward the on-ramp, the Ford Explorer in front of me was kind enough to stop and let another car in. He was able to go again, but I sat and spun my wheels for several minutes until I could find some traction. A decent set of snow tires solved that problem.
A great buy! See, even the domestics can turn out a good car when they put their mind to it 🙂 In all seriousness this is likely the only Pontiac I’d seriously consider of the last two decades of their existence and those wheel covers are some of the best looking ones (i.e. most alloy wheel looking) ones made. I believe there was also an alloy wheel on the higher trims that looked basically exactly the same.
Bummer about the fate of the car but you score some karma points for offering it up.
If the Aztek had looked EXACTLY like this, but had been stretched to fit the chassis/platform it used, I would think it could have sold much better.
When the Vibe first appeared I thought it was a pretty good looking car, though I did notice a majority of drivers were women…I wonder if Pontiac or GM knew that?
BTW, the 2nd generation car? Looked like a bar of soap.
Agree on Gen 2… it was non-descript. Gen1 was a well-styled car, certainly better than the Matrix IMO…
I always liked these too. Count me as another fan of hatchbacks. But wow, that luggage area cover got a serious case of the droops.
I am also amazed at how much minor repairs cost these days. I got a little teeny scrub on the quarter panel of my 89 Cadillac when some lady pulled into the parking space next to mine and the rubber bumper edge scrubbed across my paint. Because the car was old and used single stage lacquer paint, I had to go to some specialty body shop to even find someone who would give me an estimate. It was something crazy like $2k on a car I had paid $3500 for. No, the car did not get the repair.
The cover was just a cheap piece of vinyl that attached to the D rings. We used it once or twice, then just left it folded up under the floor.
There are many dual left turn lanes within a mile of my home in the Greater Toronto Area. I always assume that the person beside me is going to cross-cross lanes, very rarely am I disappointed. I have had many close calls and always have my hand over the horn ready to blast it. Don’t understand why it is not part of the driver’s license testing.
I like these Vibes – definitely my favorite American-branded small car.
I drove one once, when my wife’s uncle visited us, and he drove a Vibe. Uncle Alex and his Vibe were somewhat legendary in our family. Alex is now 97 and still drives, and he until about age 95 he drove ridiculously long distances… alone and at night. This one time we were visiting family in Missouri and one morning, Uncle Alex shows up unexpectedly, having driven 550 mi. through the night from his home in Michigan. He was 93 at the time.
Following a quick nap, Alex said he’d like to go visit some other family members elsewhere in Missouri, about an hour away. I offered to drive him (in his Vibe) so that he could rest. I liked the car a lot, though I remember it being noisy, and I came away even more impressed with the Vibe than I had been before. Plus Uncle Alex wasn’t exactly known for expert maintenance practices, so I figure if he could drive a 100,000+ mile Vibe virtually trouble-free, than it’s a pretty solid car.
The days of paying full MSRP for any car are starting to feel like a distant memory, like earning a decent interests rate on a savings/money market account.
Vibes were one of the few domestic brand cars (along with the Prizm) that one saw folks actually being new out here in Toyotaland. The Matrix was very popular, and there’s still a lot around. But oh, the second generation of them was so ugly, which undoubtedly hastened their demise. I wonder who was responsible for that, Toyota or Pontiac? Yuck.
Considering the number of styling misfires by both companies, it’s hard to tell.
I’m still driving a hatchback it hails from 03 but the bodystyle is still on sale from various companies, drop the back seats down and it can swallow an amazing amount of stuff.
I always liked these and even considered buying one but multiple reports called them underpowered and that’s a non-starter for me.
Your family member’s attitude is just sad.
I daily drive a base 2009 Matrix with the 1.8 litre engine. It’s no race car, but it can easily keep up with modern traffic. The upper models could be had with a 2.4 litre engine if you require more power.
When I bought our 2001 New Beetle in late 2000, I used an Internet car buying service, essentially an online broker, and it was painless and cost-effective. The car in exactly the right color and spec was found in Southern California, trucked to a dealer in the Bay Area who was the dealer of record, and then tricked to our house with only 20 miles on it. I got to test drive it, and after that wrote a personal check and gave it to the delivery driver. Painless.
I’ve always liked the Matrix and Vibe, spiritual successors to our ‘93 Corolla wagon with the tall wagon style I liked in the ‘80’s.
Have you used it since?
I’m enjoying your series, Adam.
We still have our Matrix, which is also a 2003, and our ownership experience is pretty similar to your Vibe. In our case, the oil leak turned out to be from the rear main seal, which transformed the garage floor into a toxic waste site in short order. I also replaced the Double Din sized Delco radio with a bluetooth unit in 2012, and then last year, a Sony touchscreen unit with Apple Car Play, so the Matrix still feels somewhat modern. At 152K miles, I feel I still have plenty of time left to enjoy it.
One of the photos you included shows the back-lit instrumentation. This is great, but, when the sun is low in the sky (especially behind your shoulder), and a shadow from one of the window pillars casts over the photocell on the dash top, the lighting dims to night mode. Only it’s not dark yet, and you can’t see the instruments at all. I’m sure Toyota addressed this faux pas at some point during the run of this design. Did that ever happen on your car? It’s my only complaint.
To my eyes, yes, the Vibe is the better looking of the two, and then they really lost it with the 2nd gen Matrix.
Thanks Ohwonesten. My current car also has a similar, or the same, sensor, and it’s quite hypersensitive. I don’t remember not being able to see the instruments, but they were quite dim when the lights came on during the day. I’d rather have it be hypersensitive than not sensitive enough.
I see quite a few Vibes still on the road- their basic Toyota goodness has made them long-lived if you take care of them. The instrument cluster picture really shows the dual-origin of this car. The red lighting is all Pontiac while the font was Toyota standard for the day (my Yaris used the same font). It would be nice to have the automatic on/off headlights in my xD. It’s the first car I’ve had with Toyota’s optitron (what they call their permanent back-lit illumination) display and there has been more than one occasion that I didn’t realize I hadn’t turned the headlights on yet! “Why is that guy flashing his headlights at me…oh….” Anyway, your Vibe was a good-looking car and, as Paul noted, the better-looking one. I think I said in a comment on another post a while back that the 2nd-gen Vibe was styled like a nerd’s shoe. Thanks for another interesting write-up to accompany my Sunday morning coffee.
Thanks Matt. One of our current cars also has permanently back-lit instruments and manual headlights, and both my wife and I have forgotten to turn them on when it’s dark. At least it has an “auto-off” feature so you don’t drain the battery. When it’s dusk, and I remember, I turn the headlights on and leave them on until the point where we’re not driving anywhere else that night.
Vehicles driving around at night with their headlights off due to backlit instruments has become so commonplace, there should be a regulation requiring auto headlights on vehicles so equipped.
These are great cars. I bought a used 2004 Vibe GT in 2011 which had the higher-output motor and a 6-speed, which was pretty fun. Drove it for several years, without trouble, then sold it to my sister, who gave it to her daughter who is still driving it as a college car in Bozeman, MT. I still miss it sometimes. At one time, I also had a friend in NYC who had an AWD 1st gen Vibe, and a friend in San Francisco who also had a GT.
It looks very Kia designed with a rebadged name for US market .
If Pontiac were surviving until year 2020 , slogan would speech ” We build excitement !
Buy it right now before coronavirus will close all dealers(hip) “
I loved the styling and packaging of the Vibe when it came out. I had a growing family by then so we got a ’98 Odyssey instead but I always wanted to have one. Too bad about the harsh ride. I also remember reading that the paint was thin and the hood was especially vulnerable to rock chips.
In the first year or two the brochures even mentioned you could get a supercharger from GM parts – I’ve never seen one in person but thought it was cool.
The supercharger tempted me, but the $3,000 price dissuaded me.
I had a white (Frosty) 2003 with the body color-painted cladding (an option at the time) for 12 bulletproof years. It’s definitely true that they were red hot at the beginning. I ended up waiting 6 weeks for mine. The dealer said he was getting it from another dealer, but when I saw the build date, I think it was ordered. They were a better buy than the Matrix and had the nice aluminum roof rack.
Very reasonably priced and tons of great/innovative features. The cargo area, flip-up glass and fold-flat front passenger seat allowed me to carry a ridiculous amount of varied stuff, including ladders and 6′ paintings. The household outlet was my savior when we got hit by 3 hurricanes in 6 weeks in Florida. I would sit in the car and charge my shaver, phone, etc.
I loved that car. The styling was great and aged wonderfully, and it was really fun to drive. I had the base engine with 5-speed and the alloy wheels. Can vouch for the paint being thin. I was constantly getting chips on the hood. Otherwise, quality was fantastic. I only did routine maintenance and maybe shocks/struts. Seat fabric was very durable and the interior plastics were hard, but didn’t feel cheap and were rattle-free.
It became a running joke with my friends that I drove the “stool sample car” because Quest labs in the area had a fleet of white ones driving around that you would see constantly. I’ve always been cool like that. LOL
My mom passed in 2014 and I inherited her 2013 CX-5, and it definitely made the noise level and roughness (in its later years) of the Vibe seem more unpleasant. I eventually made the sad decision to trade both in on a 2016 CX-5, which has been great, but I still miss the fold-flat seat and flip-up glass!
They are still everywhere on the roads here. Pretty much daily sightings. Very few of the shorter, more cheaply-made and incredibly ugly 2nd generations around, however. Still mystified by how they could ruin a great product like that, but that was just one of Pontiac’s many bad decisions during the period.
As have keyed here before, my Family purchased Summer’06 a standard-engine, M5 Vibe which now sports ~500,000 miles (as a result of its design its odometer stopped@299,999!). Interior remains fine including all upholstery fabric, no rust, no paint (it’s Navy Blue) coat problems, no oil use, original transmission&clutch etc. On its third alternator, however. It remains the daily driver. My now-retired wife drove it week-daily for her nine months annual teaching contract ’06=>’17. Started it. Drove 60 miles. Parked it. Started it. Drove 60 miles home. It hauls a lot–especially with its back seats folded flat–and has been and continues as our vacation wheels. Cruises very nicely @90mph. Serviced at the dealership from where it was purchased except for three times: Oil change in Evansville IN, oil change in Palm Springs CA, and alternator replacement out in the rural wilds of S.MN. Appreciate what it offers so well, that when our son needed a replacement now two years ago we purchased the ’09 version, including the M5. He wasn’t that thrilled, but his price–0$–was certainly attractive! This was&remains a very useful vehicle.
It’s great to read that others have enjoyed the same experience with the Vibe.
My family had some friends from downstate that would come up to Chicago every so often to visit. The husband, every two years or so, would trade his Firebird in for a new Firebird. Always in white- I guess he didn’t want the neighbors to know he was buying new. Anyways, once the Firebird was gone, I wondered what he’d get. Well it was a Pontiac, and it was white, but it was a Vibe.
I don’t think he fooled the neighbors that time.
It was a good car though; I had rented a Matrix and the Pontiac was actually the better car. Maybe at that point Toyota just felt bad about picking on the dumb kid and wanted to throw him a bone.
I bought my 2000 Golf (my current car) in 2000; as you mention, it was prior to the PT Cruiser, Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe, and other hatchbacks.
I did get a chance to drive a Matrix in 2004, unfortunately for my Grandmother’s funeral.
I had rented another car but met my (now departed herself) youngest sister in the town where my Grandmother lived…my sister graciously let me drive (also because she really doesn’t know the confusing streets in the town, as we actually never lived there but visited many times as you’d expect).
It did drive a bit different than the Golf, but I liked it. I would say that the Matrix/Vibe
seemed to be more like a small wagon, with the extra window behind the rear doors
(though small). Maybe this is a quibble, since the difference between hatchbacks and wagons has kind of disappeared. The Matrix was automatic (I drive standard Golf) but seemed to be pretty peppy.
I’m kind of looking out for a replacement hatchback for the Golf, as it is 20 years old, but haven’t found much. I’ll probably finally bow to getting an automatic (mostly so others in my family can also drive it) but reluctantly, which probably will mean I’ll try to hang onto the Golf as long as possible. However the hatchbacks are again disappearing, like the Cruze Hatchback and the Forte 5 (at least in the US) so I might end up buying another Golf (would be my 3rd in a row) which wouldn’t be too bad, though I’ve never owned a VW with an automatic guess whatever I pick will be somewhat different than what I’ve owned (since I bought my Scirocco in 1981)
Lovely COAL story, Adam, thanks for shining a light on a deserving car. Had me a maroon 2005 Vibe w/ the base engine/trim, and a stick. By 2005 discounts were more readily available, so I was out the door for about 15k. It gave me 11 happy years and 185,000 reliable miles. My sole “trick-out” trick was to burnish the base version by having the dealership replace (for a reasonable $500) the standard steel wheels with the nice alloys that normally came with the AWD package (or some such). I may be the only one who ever noticed that my Vibe’s unpainted cladding (which I preferred for balancing the Vibe’s otherwise “too-upright” profile) didn’t “belong” with those alloys, but it made all the difference to me.