Chevrolet Aveo Sedan

moparbad

The Aveo I drove MSRP was $14,210. A Honda Civic with VP is only $700 more.

backy

Chevy will have to up the rebates and discounts on the Aveo to sell the higher-priced models against the likes of larger and well-equipped low-priced cars like the Aerio, Forenza, Spectra, Elantra GLS, Focus, Neon SXT, and Sentra--and even the lower-end Civics. The ECHO and Scions will be tough competition too with their better reputation for reliability. The Aveo may be a steal at $8-9000, but at $14,000 the value proposition is highly questionable IMO.

npgmbr

I personally never thought this car would sell well for GM, but in the past few weeks I have seen quite a few of these little cars. Seeing them in person I tend ot like them much more.

Not sure about other areas of the country but looks like they're selling in the Metro DC area.

fdanna

I've only seen one in the Boston area and it had CT plates.

frenchcar

I know where the engine comes from but I wonder who makes the automatic transmission and how long it has been around?? I think it has a shift gate set up so it must be fairly new.

bigdaddycoats

Given that they usually only like "sporty cars" I would say the review is very positive. The Aveo has some nice touches that competitors do not. Personally I would like to see just a little more horsepower and 15" wheels.

jchan2

for a $10,000 car, the Aveo isn't bad.

moparbad

Isn't bad does not = good;)
The $10,000 version has no AC!

jchan2

for $10,000, what else could you have? A Rio? I don't think a Rio is better than an Aveo.

backy

No, but an Elantra is. A/C, full power, automatic tranny, side air bags, 138 hp VVT, 15" wheels etc. etc. all for under $11k. It's the same problem that makes cars like the Rio and Accent doubtful unless you want a "heat and go" car with a new-car warranty for the lowest possible price.

bigdaddycoats

Apparently 2847 people liked them enough in Feb.

backy

I wonder how many were purchased by rental car companies? Also it would be interesting to know how many were base models vs. LSes.

jchan2

I'm sure a little over half went to rental agencies. And the rest, 1423 Aveos, went to the garages of happy people.

muffin_man

The C&D review was definitely positive, and I have seen quite a few Aveos around lately. The $7999 ads in the paper really get my attention though. Although to be fair, at times I see Accent ads for $6500 and Rios for $5999.

I want a test drive, I found it interesting that it was faster than the xB, which I found to be perfectly decent.

pat

Consumers' Most Wanted Vehicles for 2004 Survey is posted and ready for your input!

jchan2

one time I saw an ad for a Rio at $4995.

frenchcar

Last week while in Phoenix I saw an Aveo priced at $5995 until I read all the fine print. A few months ago I looked at the $6995 Kia Rio but it did not include an automatic or air and I didnt quallify for the military or former owners discounts so the price to me was $10,200 as I would want it equipped. The fine print usually says it all if you can decipher it.

backy

It usually looks something like this (but much smaller of course):

Invoice #44393 only [which we sold last week]. Must qualify for all rebates, including Loyalty rebate, College Graduate rebate, Armed Forces rebate, Business Owners rebate, Trade-in bonus, Challenge rebate, and Leap Year rebate [available only on Feb. 29, which was a Sunday and we were closed].

frenchcar

The new Consumers Report Annual Auto Issue makes a nasty low blow snide remark about the new Aveo just as the car is coming out and before they road tested it. This is fairly typical for them as They are one of the most prejudiced and one sided publications with many contradictions, errors, opposite information on different pages as if there are too many different people with input in different sections . I have been reading them for 40 years now and they get worse by the year as they try to expand it. They had their favorites 40 years ago and still do today and other makes cant get a fair shake. Once they dont like a brand they never forget or refuse to stay abreast of whats happening in reality. They should stick to refrigerators.. When a car company gets big or important or is suddenly popular with the public then they change their opinion and not before. ANYONE ELSE NOTICE THIS OR FEEL THE WAY I DO?? I have owned some great cars that they trashed for years.

jchan2

It reads something like this:

KIA RIO- $4995

No air conditioning or automatic transmission. Includes loyalty rebates, military discount, Kia Year End Closeout Cashback, college graduate rebate, fleet discount, trade in rebate, rainy day bonus, salesman sportsmanship incentives....
Only on invoice #4945GF520X, which was traded to a dealer in California last week so we could get more Sedonas.

jchan2

OLDSMOBILE ALERO- ONLY $9995!

fine print:
Manual transmission, no options. Must qualify for Oldsmobile Owner rebates, miltary discounts, fleet discounts, trade in rebate of $5000, college graduate rebate, year end closeout bonus, christmas day discount (we're closed that day) bad weather discount and Mr. Qualifysforeverydiscount in the book discounts.
Only valid on car #MF85820S98042P and #3MLKFOF15204058X. Both were traded to some dealer in Hawaii that had a customer waiting.

iluvmysephia1

they don't even keep up with those brand names that aren't mainstream popular. They are basically a non-carmag-entity to me.

fdanna

I do not agree with the judgment on CR. Nor do I see how a conclusion that they are one of the most biased publications around can be reached. What is the basis of such an acusation?

If their data comes from their subscribers, where is the bias? If I buy 3 lousy washing machines made by the same company but sold under different brands and then a new 4th brand is introduced and touted as "all new" but is the same old stuff, would it be biased to be cautionary to it? Clearly not.

There are many disgruntled Daewoo owners out there. GM did the dishonerable action of disolving Daewoo USA and rebadging the car for Chevrolet. If Daewoo could have succeeded on its own merits, this would not have happened and, moreover, this action supports the claim by consumer reports that their cars leave little to be desired.

In a sense, GM is banking on the consumer's short term memory and their lack of knowledge of the Daewoo/GM relationship. This is irrelevant to the argument, however. What is relevant, is that it's perfectly valid to draw conclusions based on past experiences.... we do this every day. How many times will you go to a bad restaraunt? How many times will you visit a city that you had a bad time in? You instinctively draw on past experience and make a conclusion.

Given that no one is raving about Daewoo quality and reliablity, it would be logical to express extreme caution about a car that, if sold as a Daewoo, would be doomed because of the name. CR does, however, leave the door open to judgment after a formal review.

The data will speak for itself.

(Now, if you want to about Consumer's magazine, as opposed to Consumer Reports, THEN you would have a valid argument about bias. A "best buy" rating from them is bought and they accept advertising from the manufacturer. It's a horrible publication that confuses people into thinking they're the same as Consumer Reports.)

backy

I accept that CR is biased, just as any publication that offers opinions is biased in one way or the other. CR is upfront with its readers as to what its biases wrt vehicles are: reliability, safety, and overall competent performance are CR's major biases in recommending vehicles. Other publications have different biases. For example, C/D is very clear that their #1 bias is on how a car handles. They tend to ignore reliability in their ratings (witness the Focus being on their 10Best list since the car's inception, despite all the quality and safety problems in its first few years). And MT tends to favor hot performance more than anything, although they also have a bias towards clever engineering, which came out in their COTY award this year (Prius).

I appreciate CR for what it is--another source of information about cars, with a lot of data points on reliability. But as with all car reviews I read, I consider the bias of the source and make up my own mind based on my own experience and needs. I don't need someone to tell me a car looks good or bad, or a turn signal stalk feels cheap--I can decide those things for myself.

jchan2

is biased. Everybody is. It's different people with different taste reviewing the exact same cars.

iluvmysephia1

biased. And I think that extends into what kind of food we like, what type of people we like to hang out with, which religion we choose(better not tread any further there!!), etc. As to cars and CR, I realized that when Kia released an updated Kia Spectra design and CR reviewed for the new model year the OLD Kia Spectra design they were and still are biased to the point of being a ridiculous non-entity. I will pick a copy up at the store and browse it but, honestly, I only spend about two minutes leafing through it's sorry pages and by the time I throw it back on the shelf I wonder why I even picked it up. Not worth the energy used IMO. There's way better sources to look at and Edmunds.com is one of them. Their reviews are WAY more accurate than CR's. Not even close.

bigdaddycoats

Just does not like domestics - they mention something to the effect that the interior of the new Cobalt does not appear to be on par with the imports. What? How can they possible know this already when the car is not on sale until fall. I make my own opinions but many people look to these publications for guidance.
Another example - the new TL is given a recommendation. How can this be? Totally new car and platform that has only been on sale since fall and already they can recommend it based on previous platforms and generations???? Yeah good one!!

fdanna

Bias is not the same as judgment criteria. Bias is: "I don't like X brand cars, therefore all brand X cars are bad."

Judgment critera are: Handling characteristics, performance, reliability, etc...

It's not a question of liking or not liking domestic models. And even if it were, it has nothing to do with the Aveo, which is Korean. The models score based on how they perform. The final verdict comes from reliability data submitted by subscribers.

You could argue that all CR subscribers are Korean and Domestic car haters, though you'd be stretching.

fdanna

The Acura TL is a twin to the Honda Accord. It's a safe bet that the reliablity is going to be equivalent. This is a fair conclusion. Just like, Chevy TrailBlazer will get the same reliability numbers as a GMC Envoy, or whatever they call it these days.

The Cobalt is not on sale, but it was available for the press to see at the Detroit auto show. They were able to touch and sit in the cars and gave a preliminary opinion. I don't see the problem here.

bigdaddycoats

TL is on the same platform as the Accord, but is a very different car. They are arriving at conclusions based on past experiences.

The Cobalt was available yes, but the were pre-porduciton models. To make as assessment of these is not accurate.

fastdriver

I think that ALL the car mags/consumer mags should make RELIABILITY their NO. 1 criteria and then go from there! However, they wouldn't be able to do that right off until the car was on the road for a while. While the AVEO may be a Daewoo, how do these "experts" know if the AVEO is the EXACT same thing as the Daewoo? In this economy, if this Daewoo was so bad, I don't think GM would be that stupid to rename/rebadge it a Chevy and hope to "fool" people.

This is all speculation right now anyway. Time will tell how good the AVEO is after it's been on the road for several months.

fastdriver

jchan2

from the reviews and people who post here, the Aveo isn't as bad as you might think it is.

chrisducati

I am here to tell you that one can buy one of these cars for cheap. If a dealer wants to move one of these cars he will get you into it at almost any cost. This last fall I went with my sister looking for a cheap new car. Her local Kia dealer advertised low prices on the Rio. when we arrived they had about 10 Rios to look at. All but one had auto trans A/C ,CD, power upgrade ect.... They had one five speed base with no a/c or radio. If you have ever been in St. Louis in the summer you know no A/C is a joke. Anyway, The dealer was honest and quoted the sale price but stated that they wanted to move the 2003 cars. the salesman showed the stripped car, And like most people my sister thumbed her nose at no A/C. As we started to leave the Salesman said would we she buy one the others depending on price. My sister stated her top dollar for a Rio and with in an hour she had a fully loaded Rio for about $8900,that is including tax tile and license. She had no trade in . If I remember the sticker was something like 12700. That is over a $4000 dollar savings before TT&L.

iluvmysephia1

a good looking small car with that fantastic warranty of Kia's. For $8900 that's a GREAT deal IMO. That is exactly what GM is competing against and if they don't deal smartly and eventually concede and knock some off the price people will go to buy a Hyundai Accent or a Kia Rio or even a Suzuki Aerio hatch or sedan or a Suzuki Forenza(the Forenza is rather sharp looking and is another Daewoo design, it's a new design from Daewoo they call Lacetti in their home market. The Aveo is the Lanos replacement and the Lacetti/Forenza is the Daewoo Nubira replacement). Long story made short there are a lot of choices and I'm just wondering how badly Chev wants to sell these Aveo's...how low will they go, how low will they go?
     chrisducati-I'm 100 miles due SW of ya in Rolla and a summer here w/o A/C would be like being forced to listen to rap music ONLY and no rock music for an entire summer...akin to being in hell for three months!

backy

Forenzas (S) advertised this weekend for $10,999, which is a lot of car compared to the Aveo LS--albeit not a hatchback. I priced out what a loaded (every possible option) Elantra GT would run when the local Auto Show discounts come into play next week, and it would be a bit over $13k (with owner loyalty rebate). Both Suzuki and Hyundai offer a superior warranty to the Aveo. And there's the low-priced Kias as has been mentioned. So IMO Chevy is going to have to get the prices down and bump up the warranty to match its Korean competition. It's a tough world out there to launch a new car. Aveo's big advantage: Chevy dealers are everywhere.

jchan2

if someone waits till year end, there should be some great deals on leftover 04 Aveos.

iluvmysephia1

what about those about to buy? A buddy from another chat site has got two Chevy dealers bidding for his buck as I type this, for an Aveo hatch(he was gonna go sedan but just changed his mind). He can walk if conditions aren't met. I'm talking FAIR conditions-it is a new car, you know! Anybody know what this GM SmartBuy deal is all about? He mentioned that there is a program with that name and that it is one thing he is mulling over right now.

jchan2

get an Accent or Rio on the cheap right now.

npaladin2000

That's GM's new name for a lease, in extremely simple terms.

The rest of this is what I've heard and read...seems to make sense, but it's not like I have personal knowledge of any of it. Because of a court decision, no one offers leases in NY state anymore, because the leasing company is now responsible for liability if the owner of the car hurts someone in an accident (that set SOME precedent). Rather than endure the flood of successive lawsuits, car companies simply stopped offering leases in NY state. Hence "SmartBuy" which is a loan with payments approximating that of one of those forbidden leases, and a balloon payment at the end of the term.

Nice thing about it, though, is now you're guaranteed an opportunity to buy the car at the end of the leas...err, I mean SmartBuy. I understand some leases might not have offered that.

Incidentally, Ford has something similar, called Red Carpet Purchase or something.

lngtonge18

Is that true about leases in NY? How can the leasing company be held liable? That's what insurance is for! That court decision doesn't make any sense!!

fastdriver

lngtonge18-

Yes, it's true. It also affected Rhode Island and some other state too. Another RIDICULOUS court decision just like getting burned by HOT COFFEE!!!!!

fastdriver

jchan2

is called Red Carpet Lease.

dispencer1

I brought up the difference in Warranty between the Aveo and other Korean cars to a friend - a salesman at a local Chevy dealer -and he said that it is hard to get financing on a Hyundai because of the immediate huge depreciation. It used to be a 50% loss when the new owner drove it off the lot. I don't know about now. By the way, the "Smart Buy" has a mileage restriction like a lease -I think it is 15k per year. I guess if you pay the balloon payment at the end you then own it and it doesn't matter. You can also refinance the "balloon payment" amount at the end of your low payment time span.

fastdriver

dispencer1-

"..it is hard to get financing on a Hyundai because of the immediate huge depreciation."

That may be, but their sales AND quality are right up there! Better than many other models out there right now.

fastdriver

jchan2

if you drive a car in the ground or put a ton of miles in a short amount of time, by the time you trade the car in, a Hyundai with 110,000 miles will be worth just slightly less than a Honda or Toyota with 110,000 miles.

dispencer1

I agree with you totally. The Hyundai is a really good car now. I was just repeating what I was told. I haven't owned one nor have I tried to get it financed -I assume that my credit union would treat it like any other new car. I went to the Dallas Auto Show last weekend and the Aveo has some really tough competition. The other Korean cars for around the same price have more standard equipment, a great warranty, and have a more conservative design. I rented an Accent last year and drove it round trip from Albuquerque NM to Clovis, NM and back(215 miles each way). It was comfortable and had adequate power -a nice small car.

mht_in_la

Lots of interesting tips today...

1. A note to myself regarding GM's SmartBuy -- move to NY, lease a car (I mean SmartBuy) and drive around without insurance. Better yet, run over my boss and walk free ;-)

2. As to the difficulty of financing a Hyundai -- therefore it's best to buy and own it for a long time since the depreciation is high in the first few years. After 5 years there will be very little depreciation. If you keep it in good condition, this is the best deal.

3. I agree that Aveo still cannot compete with its Korean peers in terms of value and warranty. I bought an Aveo hatchback a few weeks ago (photo link: http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mht_in_la/album?.dir=/b13a&.- src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com- /mht_in_la) and paid just over $10k (out the door) after $2,200 GM rebate. Without the rebate I would go for Korean instead.

npaladin2000

Nice try with #1 there, but the reason why it's a "SmartBuy" now is because it's a LOAN, not a LEASE. You hold the title, not the bank. Run over your boss, and not only are you fired, you're sued for $1 million. Have to make sure that only people who can't afford it get sued for it, after all.

And incidentally, the payment APPROXIMATE that of a lease...but they're generally a bit higher. Some of them, from what I hear, are drastically so; it depends on who you're dealing with. But we NEVER EVER get those hot lease deals advertised on TV (Fine print reads "Offer not available in NY State").

I know RI got hit with something similar, but most companies just limited their lease lengths there, rather than eliminate them all together.

Personally, I think it's annoying that I can't lease my Mazda3 (I know, I keep vacillating first Elantras, then Outbacks and WRXs, now the Mazda3 and Volvo S40...I'm in this forum researching cars for my grandmother. Besides, the Aveo IS kind of a cool vehicle). The car on my profile needs a new prefix of "Paperweight"...the valves and valve-lifters went and it's too expensive to fix. I need a vehicle ASAP, and a lease would make it affordable to get something in the 20k range. Now I have to do some financial dancing instead since the GSA auction yesterday didn't pan out (Lack of leases here has driven prices on used cars up...the stuff sold for over dealer retail in some cases, and the dealers were happily paying that price). Sorry, had to rant a bit there...getting a bit OT.

Anyway, a curse on stupid court precedents. "Iiiiiii Love New Yooooooooork." Not.

Incidentally, additionally, you can't register or drive a car legally in NY State without insurance. And with a loan, you're required to get collision ( $500 deductible max, I think).

If you still want to move to NY, I'll gladly trade and go to LA.

fastdriver

mht_in_la-

Well, did you get that ZAINO POLISH yet? I want to see what you think about your black AVEO parked next to that other black BMW at work that you thought looked so good.

npaladin2000-

"Incidentally, additionally, you can't register or drive a car legally in NY State without insurance. And with a loan, you're required to get collision ( $500 deductible max, I think)."

SAME here in CT, but there are a TON of people driving without insurance which is why those of us who PAY our bills have such high insurance rates to compensate for those who DON'T!!

fastdriver

lngtonge18

So, were there a bunch of cases of victims of car accidents from leased cars where the owner didn't carry current insurance, so they wanted someone to sue and thus went after the leasing company? And the courts actually allowed it, even though the leasing contract states you must carry current insurance? If this is the case, the courts have gone completely mad.