The Impala is a nice car and with the 3.5L motor, it gets pretty decent fuel economy and is peppy I think. It can easily get 30+ ...depending on how you drive it.

 

I can get a solid 32 and sometimes up to 34 on the interstate at 70 MPH. It has plenty of zip for me and is a comfortable ride.

A couple of cans of undercoating may help on the water splashing noise but that is something that should have been done at the factory.

 

Dampening sound is what I was talking about. I know they put it on at the factory but you can be sure it's thin or just the minimum thickness. Kinda like builders put insulation in you attic, as thin as they can get away with (or R20 by code). Adding more won't hurt at all.

 

You went through like 2 a year? Sorry but thats just silly. That is, unless you have a couple of wives and several daughters who are all terrible drivers.

And every new era car (~1990 and up) I have ever ridden in make horrible noises going through puddles. (Gwampa, I know what you're thinking ).
I drive trucks and SUVs... so comparitively, any car makes terrible noises in the water.

 

Splish splash I was taken a bath.....yeah it's probably more the noise from the drive components making noise moving through the water. Hey, what about the tranny code? Good, bad or shouldn't I ask?

 

That's not that many cars if you think about it. Consider how many car you can have over 45 years if you have a car, the wife has a car, 2 kids have a car each, you have a truck and the antique in the detached garage. The first 9 years I drove, I worked at a used car lot and I would drive a car until I got it fixed up to sell. I would sell it and buy another. If you do this 4 or 5 times a year, it doesn't take long to have a lot of cars. My company cars were cycled through two years each and over 31 years, I had 14 new ones and one used that I acquired from the fired employee I replaced.

Anyway, my Impala has more splash noise than all of the cars I have had in the modern era (90+) that was mid-sized or larger. I didn't expect it to be nearly as quiet as my 93 Park Avenue of 98 Town Car but I expected it to be quieter than my 94 Intrepid or the three Mercury Sables that were forced on me.

 

So now I have to purposely drive through some big puddles and see.......but there aren't any around right now.

 

I wish I could say that. My motorcycles are sitting in the garage waiting for dry weather. I hate riding around in a cage when the bikes are sitting at home.

 

My agency has bought about 8 or 9 Impalas since 2001 and while I like them as daily drivers for most people, GM has missed the mark on the police car market. Front wheel drive cars dont take the abuse that RWD cars do it seems. The acceleration is not there nor is the high speed stability.
I have driven one for a few months though, as an unmarked admin car and it did well under those conditions. I hope GM follows Ford and Dodge's lead and makes a v8 RWD car for the PD market in the coming years.

 

With the new govt. regulations regarding fuel efficiency and pollution, I suspect it will go the other way. The V8 RWD will disappear from Ford and Mopar and you will have FWD police vehicles from all that survive.