(Despite my COAL series being over, there was a little more left to skim off the mine. It seems appropriate to run this on the heels of that series. JS)
It was early June in 2021. Tim knew this phone call would be coming. He answered on the first ring.
Me: What you are doing?
Tim: Filling out an incident report.
Me (with a sinking feeling): Is it for a certain gray Impala?
Tim: Yep.
Such has been the life of this Impala since our last update. Similar to what John Steinbeck wrote about the Jobe family truckster, it’s been to Hell and back on its belly. Even better, its anticipated service life isn’t even half over. So what has happened?
We had our last update about this Impala in July 2019. At that point our heroic Impala had 20,773 miles on the odometer and it seemed as if General Motors should at least send me a thank you note for this car having sold a few more Impalas. I guess their note got lost in the mail.
At this point I believe I owe General Motors a thank you for building a car which has proven itself to be as stout as 190 proof moonshine and as tough as chewing a mouth full of roofing nails. But I ought not be surprised; this is the same company that built 5,438,103,462 Cavaliers that kept running and looked like death warmed over longer than most cars existed.
In February 2020, I took a trip to the company facility in the town of Salem. With a population of 4,600, Salem is one of an abundance of towns around the state being in the 4,000 to 7,000 population range.
Upon leaving Salem, I was driving north on Route 19 toward Steelville, another of these small towns and the self-proclaimed “floating capital of Missouri” due to the abundance of canoes on the nearby Meramec River. Midway between Salem and Steelville I heard an unwelcome “pwooooof” from the trunk.
A coworker was with me. Startled, he began inquiring if we had a flat tire or if something on the car had blown up. I told him it was nothing of the sort but did not tell him what it was. Sometimes it is great fun to keep a person in suspense.
After pulling off onto a county road a few miles later, I popped the trunk. The powder came rolling out like snow blowing in a blizzard. The poorly restrained (rather, unrestrained) fire extinguisher had discharged.
Stopping at the company facility in Steelville, we attempted to vacuum the mess out of the trunk. “Attempted” is the operative word as the exhaust from the shop vacuum was blowing the dust right out and covering the entire car. The upshot is one could clearly see every fingerprint on the exterior. It looked like something from one of those dozen or so Crime Scene Investigation shows.
The downside was both front windows were down due to being quite warm that day and the powder had blown into the interior. Oops.
Leaving Steelville, we continued north on Route 19 to return to Jefferson City. As we approached Cuba (no Castro family there), I saw traffic stopped on the north side of the railroad bridge over Route 19. Getting closer I saw a chunk of concrete bouncing around on the pavement.
As I got closer, figuring I could avoid the errant chunk, there was a loud “WHAM!”. Another errant chunk of concrete almost succeeded in coming through the windshield. Naturally, the windshield had spiderweb cracking and had deformed where the concrete hit. Thankfully I could still see, so we continued on our way back.
Both of these events happened within two hours of each other.
Adding to the luster of the trip was our breathing in the powder which had blown into the interior of the Impala. It was making us powerfully thirsty. We won’t think about the side effects of inhaling the stuff.
Fast forward about a month, to March 2020. I had been sent home to work and had asked to park my beloved assigned Impala at my house. Even though I am ostensibly office-based, there are still things I have to investigate and attend to in the field and figured having the car at the house would better allow me to avoid others.
In late March, there was a severe hail-storm in Jefferson City. I knew it was a bad when the banging on the roof was deafening, combined with the broken pieces of hail stones landing on my deck being breathtakingly large.
This is one of the smaller hailstones. This landed near my backdoor; the hail was so large I had fist-sized divots all over the yard.
There were similar dents on every surface
Not so good was having parked the Impala in my lower driveway. Thankfully no glass was broken, unlike many vehicles here in town. Interestingly, this Impala was parked next to my 1991 Dodge pickup (you can see a wheel in this picture), which acquired all of one minor dimple in the hood.
That hailstorm was so bad nearly every structure in Jefferson City got a new roof over the next twelve months. During the Summer of 2020, for about fourteen hours per day, the sheer number of nail guns being used sounded like gunshots in the distance.
Before the Impala could get fixed, there was a push to get more vehicles to field staff to minimize interaction and exposure as the nature of their job did not allow remote work during the pandemic. Thus I called Tim. I told him his facility could benefit from having more units and told him to come get this Impala for himself.
Tim happily took the Impala where it spent the next thirteen months in the Lake of the Ozarks area. I saw it a few times during that period and Tim was the only person who drove it. Nearly every time, Tim told me of some recent mishap involving wildlife. He hit opossums, a bobcat, a fox, a few skunks, and several raccoons. One of those raccoons, which he thought was dead, wasn’t. He had drug it about a quarter-mile when he heard it start hissing. He said there was fur stuck somewhere under the car from that escapade.
Upon returning to the office in May 2021 I told Tim I’d call him when the Impala needed to come back. When I called, as seen above, he had just broken a headlight from having hit a quail that morning. Tim warned me the front air deflector was held on with a pop-rivet from having annihilated some other critter, so I better not look at it for too long.
The headlight got repaired and I got my beloved Impala back. Despite all its bad luck, I had missed driving that car. It is comfortable, quiet, and has a delightfully refreshing amount of power from its 3.6 liter V6. If only GM had built an Impala like this twenty years sooner…
Now fast forward to November 2o21…I had business with the officers at Troop I of the Missouri State Highway Patrol in Rolla (pronounced Rah-luh). Adjacent to the Patrol’s troop office is a commercial drivers license testing facility.
I’m not using pictures from the event so anonymity can be maintained, but it was this size of truck
When we left, I asked my (now former) assistant to drive as I had a few texts and calls that needed a response. As we were departing, we got stopped in the driveway behind an eighteen wheeler. I was sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala in my own little world, planning and strategizing.
Something told me to look up. That eighteen wheeler was rolling backwards toward us. I told my (now former) assistant to get us out of the way.
Before this statement could travel across the car, there was a loud noise with an unsettling amount of grinding.
Yes, that eighteen wheeler hit us. He also pushed us 28 feet. We were almost shoved into a Patrol vehicle that was right behind us and witnessed everything. The poor CDL student did not hear the car horn nor did he feel he was shoving over two tons of Impala and people.
It took the patrolman to fly around us with his lights and siren on to get the student to stop moving. I also now have even more respect for Mansfield bars.
When we finally stopped, I got out of the car and could only start laughing. It was all so damn stupid, I didn’t know what else to do. At this point, the CDL instructor walked back my way, saw me laughing like an idiot, looked at the patrolman and said “that’s a fail”.
Yeah, no shit.
While the Impala looked mostly okay, all the gaps between doors, fenders, and header panel were now wonky. Ultimately, there was well over $5000 worth of damage to my beloved assigned Impala.
A quick aside about this…the body shop could not work on the Impala until early January. I was told it was okay to drive the car, but knowing how things now tended to go when this Impala is involved, I left it parked. One day I was needing to head out. My (now former) assistant and I walked down to the garage to get a car.
Our wise, savvy, and perceptive yet refreshingly profane and unfiltered service attendant saw us walk in. I told him we needed a car. He is a joy to talk to and always puts me in a good mood; we get along famously. Looking directly at my (now former) assistant he said (with a big smile on his face):
“Shafer, you better drive. You let this other guy drive all he’s going to do is wreck the mother f–ker. Every f–king thing he drives comes back wrecked.”
Yes, don’t worry, I’ll drive.
One morning mid-May, I went to open the trunk. In the garage where the Impala was parked, there are a few parking bollards so one doesn’t back through the adjacent wall. The Impala had been parked such that the rear bumper was quite close to one of the bollards.
Did you know that when opening the trunk lid on one of these Impalas, the lip of the trunk lid extends beyond the rear bumper during its arc? I didn’t either until then. The trunk lid got stuck on the bollard and put a little orange paint on the lip of the trunk lid.
Every story needs to end on a happy note. Well, this one does. As of two days ago (edit: this was written in early July) I can attest to the anti-lock brakes on this Impala working flawlessly. I was on Route 179 on the north end of Jefferson City when an old man in a battered Toyota Sienna did not yield in a right turn lane and nearly hit me.
One other positive – the original Firestone Firehawk tires lasted for 61,000 miles. They still had tread but their performance in rain had diminished. Plus it has averaged over 27 mpg throughout its entire service life.
Overall, this Impala remains a great car – although GM should have built something like this twenty years sooner. Despite all it has been dealt, it keeps rebounding. Maybe one could wager that is the true talent of General Motors – they can build a car that is thoroughly capable of withstanding all manner of (ab)use. While I understand the reasoning, I hate these were cancelled.
These are among the best Impalas ever built and I’m glad it’ll be hanging around a while longer.
I just spent a week in Missouri, including driving from STL to KC and back. Apparently, I’m really lucky to have not hit any wildlife, nor have anyone/thing hit me!
If you were on I-70 for that trip, the wildlife to be concerned about was generally behind the wheel of a vehicle!
He’s Baaaaaack! 🙂
I remember being surprised at your positive review when you first got this car to drive. By now, I feel good that it still brings you some happiness as you continue to put miles on. This Impala will be like the 99% – it will do its job, get banged up and eventually used up. Maybe someday you will find one of the 1% come up in an estate sale or something and you can adopt it for yourself.
I now realize that I don’t see these around very often. It might be because I don’t notice them, or maybe their owner-demographic were all buying Camrys and Avalons by then. This Impala is like lots of cars – I don’t think much about them when they are new, but they prove themselves as worthy and I start getting interested just as they start to become less common.
Yeah, like a rash I don’t go away quickly or easily! 🙂
We have discussed the need to adjust our household fleet, but we just don’t know with what. However, the idea of a better trimmed Impala of this vintage has crossed my mind. One could certainly do worse.
These aren’t overly common even here in GM-Centric Land. It’s hard to know why. My affinity for this Impala has surprised even me, but it does hit a sweet spot between comfort, power, and size. All the various oopsies have taken some of the luster away from this example, but I still enjoy driving it.
A pity that GM always tends to axe a car line only after they get a competent product, after various iterations and years of trying. A greater pity that nobody wants a decent car anymore and that the only choice these days is a large pick up or a blobby CUV/SUV. I was after one of these a circa 2018, but couldn’t make the deal and ended up with a 3.6 Malibu instead. I really did like these Impala’s and the related LaCrosse. Next vehicle will probably be some kind of automated electric pod that I don’t need to drive.
Attached is a picture of the Impala that almost followed me home…the one that got away!.
That Impala looks like a nice one.
Speaking of Malibus, there is one that just showed up in the pool at work. I need to find an excuse to drive it sometime.
I have a black ’17 Impala LT 3.6 that I bought used in early 2021 with 32,000 miles on it at the time.
It is leaps and bounds better than the ’05 Impala that I had previous to it.
You are correct. This iteration of Impala is so vastly different (read as better) than the W-body versions it is almost hard to describe.
This vehicle was among the highly rate sedan as per Consumer Report, I always want to get a hand on it when I do car rental affairs, but never that lucky. Another American vehicle I want to drive is Ford Fusion. Set aside reliability, this Ford is better than Accord, Passat, Camry, Malibu, Sonata and Alitima.
I have rented Impala’s of the previous two generations. Hated them. The older one was mediocre in every way; the newer one was really nice but in most ways but had a few ergo and functional glitches that made it an unpleasant drive, at least for me. But its horsepower to mpg ratio was excellent.
It was a sad day when the final Chevrolet Impala was built at the Detroit/Hamtramck assembly plant on February 27, 2020 and GM exited the low-priced, full-size sedan market. At least they left on a high note.
I agree with Dean Edwards above about the lack of sedans for sale and my disgust of the massive trucks and SUV/CUV’s on the road.
That poor Impala has put up with a lot! Glad it’s nice to still drive. I’ve never had one, but I do have a 2021 Malibu LT and truly love it. I’m surprised at how many people complain about the 1.5L turbo and CVT. I’m not normally a fan of the CVT’s, but this car has impressed me and the more I drive it, the more I like the engine/trans combo. I like the room, comfort, quietness and the MPG has been really good (averaging 30.3 over 7,900 miles so far with combined city/highway in the LA area).
If consumer demand had not shifted away from sedans, the Impala would likely still be in production …..Despite the greatly improved platform in the last generation, sales slowed significantly.
My 2017 Impala with the 3.6 consistently gets 30-32 mpg with cruise control on road trips.
The engine is only spinning at about 1850 RPM at 70 mph.
In June, 2020 I bought a gently used 2020 V6 LT Impala from a Chev dealer, which had about 20 used ones in stock. They had come from Thrifty Car rental, which was unloading its rental fleet because of Covid. It only had 3,200 km (about 2,000 miles). Got it for $Cdn 26,000 all in. I was very happy with the deal, but even more happy with the Impala. Roomy, comfortable, reliable, fast, and well equipped. Took it on a long road trip to the National Parks of southern Utah last month. Plenty of luggage room in the trunk. Averaged 30mpg US. Too bad GM discontinued them, but Crossovers/SUVs/trucks are where the money is now. GM was having to discount its large sedans to the point it was not a good return on investment. I no longer see many of the old GM cockroaches ( Cavaliers and Sunfires) as the newest date from 2005. But there are still plenty of W body Impalas around. For all the GM hate out there, they can build long lasting vehicles. I hope mine will be one of them.
Sounds a little like the trajectory Holden had they finally produced a good Commodore which suddenly became an imported Vauxhall then evaporated altogether,
You got lucky with that hail I saw a pulverised Holden Gemini/Isuzu I Mark that got hailed in Orange NSW, I had to be told what the car had been as it was unrecognizable,
but overall a reliable if unlucky car it should last a while longer,
Why is the assistant former?
I wonder which of the last Impala, Lacrosse, and XTS would be the nicest car. The Buick was short of trunk space and rear headroom, and 2018+ XTSs were de-contented (no MRC) but better styled IMO. My DTS is looking beat since I backed into a bollard at the fender (it was a short one in front of several tall ones) and someone’s trailer tongue punctured the rear bumper.
Thank you for picking up on that! He promoted out to a different job.
I was expecting a good, juicy story.
Another good read, you’ll be missed Jason .
-Nate
Thanks. I’m not going away…in fact, I’ve got something scheduled a week from tomorrow but it’s totally different that what you’ve been seeing these past few months.
Good to hear Jason ;
Some folks are good story tellers, you’re one of them .
Many moons ago my big brother rented an Impala to drive from Los Angles to Canada and I was able to ride shotgun .
I really liked it in spite of it being at least two times to darn big .
-Nate
Thanks for the update. I’ve been curious whether this car continued to impress you after the honeymoon was over.
I had been very impressed when renting Impalas of this generation, especially during a snowy visit to Kansas City in January 2016, where an Impala inspired great confidence on slippery roads. I hated the W-body mediocrity, inferior to the competition in every way, but this generation was a revelation in smoothness, quiet, and space.
I considered buying one 18 months later, but ended up with a Ford Fusion instead, which rode and handled more like the VW Passat it replaced. Alas, the Fusion was traded less than two years later due to front seats which proved really uncomfortable on long drives. I sometimes wonder whether I’d still have the Impala if I had gone that route instead.
Something tells me you’d still have the Impala had you bought it.
For my entire career, whenever I’ve been assigned a car (whether new or not) I have always been working angles to get a different one. Now, since the Impala, I have become very protective of it. Weird, given the circumstances it has endured.
Whether that is a product of advancing age (not likely) or of the Impala being that good (more likely) I have not had any urge to dump it. That’s a novel thing for me…
These are genuinely nice. I haven’t driven one, but my most vivid memory was sitting in one at the New York auto show a few years ago and pressing the Onstar button… and actually being connected to an operator. Guess they forgot to disconnect that on the show car.
You could have had some real fun at that operator’s expense!
If you had driven one of these, you would be quite fond of it. I fully realize all that has been written could be perceived as being of the Pollyanna-all-is-fabulous persuasion, but if this thing were crap I would be saying so.
My ’17 Impala also feels like it sits higher off the ground than the ’05 I had previously.
My ’05 always had issues with bottoming out, scraping the undercarriage and I felt like I was climbing out of a bathtub when getting out of it….floor felt so close to the ground.
When I am driving my ’17, it feels like I am sitting higher than the W platform Impalas
My Dad’s last 2 cars were both Impalas, a 2001 and a 2006, both bought new…the 2006 is still in my family. He previously owned 3 Mercury Sables in a row (one traded for the next; he seemed to have forgiven GM for the horrible 1984 Pontiac Sunbird that not only lost a timing belt with less than 1000 miles on it (bought new and maintained per manual at the dealer he’d bought it from) it went through 2 engines in less than 80k miles, and was junked after 5 years from new…his worst car as you’d probably expect.
I’ve not driven the newest Impala, but understand they’re quite nice, well turned out, but….based on my experience with the 2006, I don’t think I’m the target audience for these anymore…not so much because I’ve changed (much) but the car has. It is kind of like going from my 2011 laptop (which I’m writing this on) to a current one…got to crack the case to remove the battery, soldered in memory and processor, etc. The 2006 admittedly was the base model, without the fold down rear seat, but in my view they shouldn’t have even offered such a trim….by eliminating the trunk lock cylinder, the only way you can count on getting into the trunk if the battery dies is….to call for help and get someone to come with a jump box or another battery. If you carry your jump box in the trunk, well, too bad, you can’t even crawl into the trunk since there’s no fold down back seat, to retrieve it, unless you previously jury rigged up fishing line into the passenger compartment so you could pull the emergency release inside the trunk. To me, I’d gladly forgo some of the trim, radio, OnStar, or something else to get either a trunk lock cylinder or fold down rear seat (in retrospect, the former isn’t available for any trim level, the latter could have been avoided by bumping up the trim one level).
Does this happen often? No, probably not, but it is something I’d expect not to have to figure out in an emergency, especially in the middle of nowhere, where even help from OnStar might be hours away. To me, there are certain minimum functions that shouldn’t require electrical system to function for them to be useable (or they need a work-around that they tell you about, maybe in the owner’s guide). I’m sure I’m not the target market, most people would prefer the money to be spent on the touch/feel/appearance you see every time you drive the car, but to me if the design allows you to be painted in a corner in a situation you might not be able to avoid, they went too far in taking a serviceable vehicle and turned it into something else. Should the owner be expected to keep the battery jump box in the passenger compartment (I know they’re getting smaller, but even so, to me it is kind of like keeping your tools and spare parts inside the passenger compartment…maybe you might do that on a truck with open bed, but isn’t that one of the things you’d normally put in the trunk on a car? Other than luggage, what is the trunk really useable for? You could shave about 2 feet off the length of the car if you otherwise got rid of it (but the styling would no doubt suffer if you have an eye for conventional car forms other than maybe a hatchback with a stubby trunk).
As I get older, unfortunately I feel that otherwise I should be in the target market for something like this, or worse, they no longer make something I’d like to buy.
I prefer a car to a truck, like a roomy car, would prefer a bench seat (but know that ship sailed long ago). But to me, the 2001 was more what I’d like to buy (or maybe one of the Sables, particularly liked the 1994 he had). Maybe I’m alone in that. By the way, the bench seat came in handy when my Dad went into a wheelchair in one week (cancer treatment so strong he was no longer able to walk)….we were able to have him sit on a towel between the wheelchair and transfer board and pull him into the passenger seat from the driver’s seat. We didn’t want to trade the Impala for a handicap van (stopped using the car for long trips, only local trips to the doctors and hospital, and such a van costs easily at least 3x the price of his Impala…and sadly we lost him, since then we’d have had no use for such an expensive special purpose vehicle). Yes, this isn’t everyone’s need, but for a general purpose car, you’d hope not to lose function in the interest of form, that’s what I miss about older cars.
Glad you enjoyed your Impala, seems like it was otherwise an OK car, but sometimes it seems misfortune follows an individual vehicle…don’t know why, but even one of those things shouldn’t be too common to happen on a car, let alone happening to the same car at different times….even a “good” car might seem like a big problem if it seems to be a “bad luck” magnet.
I purchased a 2018 Impala LT in January 2019. I fell in love with the way it drives, the way it handles the road. Gas mileage is great. The Impala is a head turner. I will be driving mine until the wheels come off. Forever a Impala fan. I hate that GM stopped production. Definitely not a SUV, truck or van kinda girl.
Lisa