Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Popular New Cars
Popular Used Sedans
Popular Used SUVs
Popular Used Pickup Trucks
Popular Used Hatchbacks
Popular Used Minivans
Popular Used Coupes
Popular Used Wagons
Comments
Certain classes of people manage money and assets very poorly, they get into binds and can barely afford to make car payments and insurance, let alone any maintenance. They do buy many different brands and models, but a preponderance of the $250/month car customer will buy a new Kia or Hyundai, even though they really should only be in a $165/month car.
You know that commercial on tv with the guy mowing his lawn, talking about his nice house, car, etc and payments up to his eyeballs.
Forgot to mention, add the fact that many of the lower end cars are much less tolerant of neglect than cars that were designed a little better, and you have disaster on the way.
I really don't know what you mean by "less tolerant of neglect". If you fail to maintain any car, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Try not keeping the fluid levels up on a Lexus, for example, and see what happens. Its "better engineering" will not help you when the transmission fails, the engine seizes, or the A/C stops cooling.
When refering to the class of people, not meaning any socio-economic or other class, I mean people who do not manage assets or money well. i.e Most people who cannot manage money well do not maintain assests well, i.e. car.
Having been in engineering, a car or other electronic or mechanical system that was engineered to sustain a higher level of operation beyond normal will take a greater level of neglect and abuse before failing. In addition with different engineering specifications, they (the manufactures) pretty much know given a certain design criteria and manufacturing tolerance what the mean of failure due to normal use will be for a given component. It is a critical balance between cost and reliability.
Take the Geo Metro 1.3L engine, well designed, used very little oil, as a result was more tolerant of oil neglect, sludge damage would occur after 10s of thousands of miles of neglect. Take the 2.0L Chrysler engine (or the early Saturn engines), known to use oil, if neglected very long oil level would get too low and engine would seize up well before 10K miles.
The Daewoo Lanos 1.6L/Aveo 1.6L is generally a good engine, but does require some 'normal' attention as all cars should have. Timing belt replacement due to the interference engine design comes to mind as a biggie. Seen lots of Lanos on ebay with broken timing belts at 65K-70K, past the recommended 60K.
Back when I was 20, I fell into the 'class' of people that was not very smart about managing money or credit. I wised up pretty quick and it took years to get things right. Some people on the other hand simply do not take care of money or assests well at all. Like the old auto mechanics saying, you can pay me a little now for maintenance and preventative repairs, or pay me a lot later.
Hope this is a 'better' explanation and with the examples more explanatory.
For a small car the ride is well controlled, relatively quiet (luxury compared to my 96 Metro), nice interior, good feature content. $8,000 gets a fully loaded certified 2004 hatchback with less than 20K on it.
What new cars does the Aveo compete against for the $250 a month buyer?
Hyundai Accent or Elantra
Toyota Echo, maybe a stripped Corolla.
Maybe a stripped Honda Civic.
Dodge Neon, with big rebates.
Ford Focus base with rebates.
The Suzuki low end lineup, Aerio, Reno, Forenza.
Given the current Hyundai/Kia warranty, more people who are first time car buyers, or are only approved for a $250 month payment are chosing those cars. Given the recent improvements in quality, it makes sense.
I think GM did the right thing in bringing the Aveo to the line-up. If they would only look at the warranty and include 'free maintenance' or a maintenance package with the sale of the car, it would go a long way.
I also spoke with the GM "representative" about this...they are like the secretary in the old Mission Impossible TV show/movies, as they have no "knowledge" of any problems...
BTW, the Daewoo Kalos AKA Chevrolet Aveo is now sold in Canada in more disguises. The Suzuki Swift, the Chevy Aveo, The Pontiac Wave. All the same car.
And they are all over the place. A huge success in Canada.
As for front end grill modifications, I also would like to see some. And im sure there are a lot already out there. I was thinking of that myself, along with the Cobalts; front grill. It looks like it wouldn't be a clean cut with the OEM grill, and the whole grill would have to be replaced.
1- It loses time, but in my case, it appears to be related to running the car. If you leave the ignition off for several days, the time loss doesn't seem to occur. By time loss, I am talking about 1 to 2 minutes a day.
2- Sometimes, the clock simply resets itself to an arbritrary time. This happens to my clock approximately once a week.
I suspect that the resolution to this problem is simply a filter on the power input line to the clock, as I suspect the ignition "spikes" the clock with excess voltage/current each time the car is started.
My plan is to wait until there are enough Aveo's out there with this problem so that there will be enough folks complaining about it for GM to finally issue a fix for it.
Just seems like a sad commentary on GM, having such a nickel and dime problem of this nature, especially since digital clocks have been standard on cars for the last 20 years or so...you would think this would be an area where there would be no mis-understood issues....go figure...
I noticed it does it I think when going from 2nd to 1st right before making the stop (ie: at a stop sign, etc). No problems like this upshifting though. That seems to remain smooth.
I know GM doesn't listen but I wish they would offer a different interior color than tupperware gray. The Xtreme has black and the Kalos Dream has black. Looks good to me. Also I know there is a bunch of people that like tan. How about blue and red also. Adding color to plastic can't cost that much.
I will not hold my breath but how about the three door coming to the USA? Anyone heard the forecast for chance of Hell freezing over?
http://magazine.avtoindex.com/images/daewoo/2004/kalos_3.jpg
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.php?file=car.php&carnum=1799
People should be able to buy basic cars for transportation, the more options you add, the more troubles and costs you have.
As for the Prius unless i'm travelling a lot of miles a year, spending almost 30 thousand is a waste of money.From what I hear replacing the battery alone may cost three to six thousand dollars.
Hybrids cost thousands of dollars more to purchase than a comparable gas model. The savings in gas are short term and it will take on average between 5-7 years to recover the cost of additional money for this car. If the owner chooses to keep the car 5-7 years, now they have an issue within a couple years on replacing the batteries which are supposed to last 8-10 years. Batteries are expected to be less money ($1500-3000) at that time.
So one has to decided how long they will keep a car like that. Will they sell it at 4-5 years and not absorb the depreciation that will come within a few years on battery replacement, or will they keep a car like this long term?
Jeep recently introduced a diesel engine in the Liberty in which supposedly there is a short supply of, and people are waiting for deliveries. I ask why would someone wait for a vehicle that gets no better mileage than the gas version it's trying to replace. People are paying over $4000 over a regular Liberty to get a diesel engine that gets maybe one MPG better than the current 4 cylinder model.. How can people can be so misinformed and outright stupid.
For the additional money for the diesel option, and the small MPG difference, its really not worth it. Have you seen the price of diesel recently. Much more than regular unleaded in the Midwest.
I would love to own a small SUV, but the gas mileage on most of them is deplorable, so I think Jeep was smart in offering a diesel and I would gladly pay more for it. When your choices are getting a bog slow truck with so-so gas mileage, better performance with a noticeable drop in gas mileage, or good performance and the best gas mileage by a good margin, the choice is very clear for me even if some extra money is involved.
* Diesel fuel is subsidized in some European countries, making it cheaper than gas. In the U.S., diesel fuel is more expensive than gas--about 40 cents more per gallon the last time I checked in my neighborhood.
* In California and states that follow CA pollution regs, diesels cannot meet those regs today.
* Diesels have a bad reputation because of what they used to be like--rattletraps, noisy, smoke-belching, stinky. Modern diesel cars aren't like that, but there are so few of those in the U.S. that the perception lingers.
* Notice the emphasis on quickness for cars in the U.S. For example, Car and Driver complains because a new Ford can't do better than 8.2 seconds 0-60, and Motor Trend names the Chrysler 300 Hemi its Car of the Year. Diesels, especially those in small economy cars like the Aveo, are typically less quick than their gas counterparts.
Enough of that though,Why dont we use more biodiesel? The farmers are payed to grown nothing but corn and soybeans and that would make better fuel than food.
with the high gas prices you would think US automakers would start downsizing a lot more. I like the car commercials where there isn't a car on the road, hey I live in New Jersey, that's not gonna happen.
Thats one of the problems with our culture. 0-60 times are much more important than how long one can go between gas fill-ups. I don't even watch commercials on TV that promote 0-60 times.
http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/852615
I see Chevy has finally released body side molding for the Aveo. I would probably install the molding; too bad it doesn't come body color or transparent.
1st time Faulty radio with a nasty gremlin. It would turn on and off at will. Fade in and out. It was possessed. Must have been from KIRBY Vaccuums.
2nd time dome light that was shorting, electric shock when getting out of the car, leaky A/C system feeding back into the passenger side foot area, wind shield wiper arm assembly,
3rd time all the porblems from second time. So they say the had "Fixed the Aveo the second time" We had dome light problems that didnt get fixed til we said we are staying til it is done. We had to watch the guy to make sure he did it.
tommorrow Still getting the crap shocked out of us, carpets are mildewed because of the A/C leak and the new radio has started to act slightly possessed. Reccomend DO NOT BUY AN AVEO!!!!!
Factory told us we are using the wrong fabric softner for the shocking problem.
Have you checked to see if they will trade it for another car? They should ,,,,I dont care who makes the car every maker has lemons.
Good luck ...and sorry about your experience.....