I have a 2003 Impala that also does well on fuel economy, particularly using regular fuel and considering the size of the car. The only thing that is disappointing is that Chevrolet cut absolutely every corner possible in building these cars. Never in my life have I seen such poor quality and workmanship. Exactly how bad does a company have to be to fail to even clear coat the paint in the door jambs, under the trunk lid, under the hood and to use particularly poor quality interior materials? Although it runs well and gets admirable fuel economy, with only 43000 miles on mine I'm not sure how long I want to keep it. If Chevrolet took so many clearly obvious shortcuts in building the Impala, how many unseen shortcuts did they take? With that in mind, I won't use anything but the best lubricants and filters on the vehicle. I seriously doubt that it is built well enough to take much abuse. Heck, my seat heaters constantly go out, the automatic climate control system has been out 3 times, the cat converter has plugged twice, the transmission developed a problem to where it lost reverse and I've had 2 "half shafts" replaced in the steering column in only 5 years and 43k of easy, mostly highway, driving. It's never sat outside a single day since I've owned it, so the exterior looks fine still. I'm just worried what other shortcut by Chevrolet is going to bite me next. Maybe it's just GM suffering from such poor quality in workmanship, I don't know. I've never seen any other brand go so far as not finishing the paint job to save money. I think quality lubricants and filters will be the only thing keeping this car going.
