Comments: 1-15, 16-22
Not a single thing.
Recently I had to duck out of a lease on a different vehicle because of excessive driving. I needed something cheap and efficient. Called up the local Chevy dealer and nabbed an Aveo for well under $200/mo.
Price aside, however, the Aveo stands well on its own in a crowded market.
The first thing that occurred to me in the weeks following the purchase was just how much quieter the Aveo is than my previous car, a Pontiac G6 (and I could buy three Aveos for the cost of one G6 at the price I received). The car rides fine over bumps and dirt roads. The front wheels have a tendency to lose their footing a bit, but it's to be expected. The ride as a whole stays calm and quiet.
The Aveo is roomy inside in the front seat. I have a good pal that was so impressed with mine, he went and got one himself. He stands six and a half feet tall and weighs in at about 320. No joke. You will find room enough in the front of this car. The rear is somewhat less appealing, but I've hauled a full car-load of four passengers around for an extended period and didn't receive any complaints, so it can't be that bad.
Options are limited, I miss having A/C, for example, and the stock radio was AM/FM ONLY, no cassette or CD. So I did the right thing and put two 12" sub-woofers, a head unit, and replaced all the stock speakers. Not a single problem with it so far, and it went a long way towards making the car more suitable for extended commutes.
Car is surprisingly grippy and acceleration is actually not that bad, so long as you're willing to put the pedal down. There's no power below 2000rpm, it comes on pretty well past that, but the real fun starts at 4200rpm. The engine winds up and actually puts reasonable power down, perhaps something to do with that variable geometry intake. Holding the lower gears as long as possible nets decent passing and merging power. Just be willing to stay in third until 70mph when getting on the highway if traffic is heavy. Despite all this revving and the down-shifting I do, I have averaged 34.4mpg over the whole of the 4000+miles I have on the car right now. Started off around 31 and has gotten steadily better since. It is a little unnerving to see the tach at 3200rpm on the highway, but it's not exactly noisy, and I suppose the short gears are really necessary given the lack of power in the Aveo's little engine. Larger wheels and tires would bring this down a bit, and I intend to swap my 13" wheels for some utilitarian-looking 15" aluminums in the near future.
I catch a bit of flak for owning such a small-looking car, but once people get in, feel the ride, hear the sounds, and marvel at the gas mileage, that full size truck starts looking pretty bad.
Aveo is cheap, very efficient, and even though it lacks some basic things like air conditioning and a center armrest, it's proven perfectly adequate so far. While I miss the added power of my previously V6-equipped cars, the fuel economy more than makes up for it. This college student is pretty impressed.
Thanks for the mileage update. 34.4 mpg average is pretty dang good.
Listen, don't you value your life or the people you will have to escort in this death trap?
Death Trap? This car has better crash testing scores than a lot of LARGE cars, minivans, and SUV's! Do some research before making ignorant remarks like that.
I agree with the person calling it a death trap, sub-compact vehicles when involved in an accident are almost always totalled.
I seriously doubt the manufacturer is providing a concise truth in reference to crash testing.
A sub-compact is like an aluminium beer can that will fold up in the very same manner.
I owned a subcompact and accidentally drove over a very low curb causing complete undercarriage damage, the car was rendered totalled.
I would never put my life or my family's life in a sub-compact, they should not even be allowed on the road.
Couple of points here.
First, Chevrolet/Daewoo does NOT test the vehicle on behalf of NHTSA, the Administration crashes the car itself and draws its own conclusions, so far as I know. Chevy cannot lie to inflate the Aveo's safety rating.
Second, as of '06, all Aveos have side-impact airbags, which is a huge step towards a safer vehicle and resulted in a four-star side impact rating to go with that already-impressive five-star front rating.
Third, if you were to tear the exterior of the car off and look at the passenger compartment on its own, you'd find that the Aveo's cabin is essentially a great big steel box designed in every way to redirect impact force from the occupants. NHTSA says that if I'm hit by anything short of about 3000lbs, the odds are better than 90% that I will not suffer any serious injury. Sounds fine to me. Yes, a 250-series truck CAN ruin my day. But that's an issue no matter what I'm driving.
The Aveo is about as safe as it can be. Bottom line is, I needed a new car for under $10,000, and I got it. Maybe when I have money to throw away in buying an excessively large vehicle with hauling capacity I don't actually need and fuel economy 1/3 of what I'm getting now, I will.
Yes, this whole safety argument is amusing. No one questions SUVs being safe, even though they are the ultimate death traps. You are 43% more likely to die or be injured in an SUV than in any given car (yes, even an Aveo) in any given accident, and that's according to independent statistics from both the insurance industry and other record keepers.
Or maybe you just didn't notice all the huge warning stickers in SUVs stating "driving this vehicle is not like driving an ordinary car".
But it's the old Titanic argument - if it looks safe it must be safe.
I agree with the Aveo owner, I have 2 (2005 SVM 4 door and a 2006 LS 5 door) and these cars are some of the best investments for the money around.
A well designed compact (by the way Aveo is not classified as subcompact due to their huge interior for the size) can resist well big collisions protecting its occupants as well as some big "safe" clunkers (remember the 2001 Montero slip-overs??). All 2006 Aveos even have side airbags standard!
Law of physics always apply, an a F250 can made a huge damage to any car (compact, mid-size and full) but remember you pay the "protection privilege" at the gas pump... America is the land of freedom and choice he-he! Aveo is a car to carry you through life without much fuss and enjoy simple things...
The latest Autoweek listed ratings for "teen friendly" cars such as the Aveo, Corolla and such based on NHTSA crash test results. The Aveo got four or five stars in all categories, the same as the larger Accord and Camry, and MORE than the Ford Fusion. And, of course, no SUV gets five stars in anything given how unsafe they are.
With regards to insurance company policies on the declaration of a total loss. If the amount of repair exceeds (depending on independent company policies) 70, 80 and sometimes 90% of the vehicle value it is declared a total loss. A unitized monocoque body construction is very costly to repair and this car is not worth much money wise. Do the math $8500.00 of body, frame, suspension, airbag, paint, towing, labour, mechanical costs = total loss. Doesn't mean this car is any more or less safe than any other car on the road. Driving is more dangerous than automobile manufacturers want consumers to know, people die in crashes every day.
My son and I experienced a crash in a 2005 SVM last month. we walked away with only abrasions from the seat belts. The car was totaled out, as it had heavy front end damage.
Today I took the insurance settlement and bought a 2007 SVM hatchback.
The storage area will hold my mountain bike and it gets 35 mpg. For a work car and a payment under $200 the decision was easy.
The ride is OK, but I'm only in it for a 25 mile drive twice a day.
Chevy now covers 100K miles under warranty.
Yeah, GM is so smart, they had to plagiarize Hyundai.
A car being totalled in the realm of today's car market is not a sign of the safety of the car. Most cars involved in a head on collision will be totalled afterwards, regardless of make or price. They're designed to work that way. They're called Crumple Zones. The front end on the car will look like an accordion, but the driver and passengers will walk away.
I've driven small cars like these for most of the last seven years, including a good bit of highway driving. The only thing really "dangerous" about cars in this size category is the effect of side winds. It's a function of the car being light, not being small.
While you could argue that it's a downside to the subcompact market, the fact is that more and more manufacturers are making their cars lighter and lighter, regardless of size. They're using more plastics and aluminum to decrease the weight of the car and improve fuel economy.
Virtually every car on the market, unless it's a mini-van, SUV or full sized family car weighs under 3k pounds. As long as the design is sound and the aerodynamics are up to par, weight is a lot less relevent than it used to be.
Sorry, but the Nov 20th comment could not be more wrong. Today's cars weigh significantly more than similar cars of 10 or 20 years ago (depending on model). The reason is mainly due to the safety factors. Airbags, crumple zones/safety cells, and the rest add weight.
I know. I owned a Ford Festiva and now own an Aveo. There is a huge difference in their "substantialness". Same thing with the 89 Civic Si I owned and a 2007 Civic Si.
The substitution of lighter metals and plastics cannot mitigate all the safety equipment needed and their associated weight.
My general point on the 20th was that there are very few cars on the market today that are going to stand up well in a head on collision with a SUV because the size/weight comparison is so far off. Most cars today will be "totalled" in a head on collision because that is what they are designed to do. The days of the 1957 Chevy with 1/2" thick chrome bumpers that could take a head on into a brick wall at 20mph and still yield a drivable vehicle are over.
Having said that, I too own a Festiva. It's a fine car for what it is. And, I will yield that one to you to compare it to the Aveo with the understanding that the Festiva had NO safety features in it at all, other than Automatic seat belts. It's also smaller than the Aveo.
I couldn't find specs on the 89 Si. Found them on the 90 Si and used them compared to the 2007 Si. While it's true the 2007 is about 600# heavier, it's also 20" longer and a few inches wider. There is less than.02lbs/inch difference between the two, despite the 2007 having a 25% larger engine than the 1990.
The latest trend is to make established entry level models (Civic, Sentra, Elantra, etc) larger than the older models and to create new entry level models. It may no longer be appropriate to compare the same model to that of 10-20 years ago.
But, your point is well taken and accepted, as I hope was mine.
While your point is well reasoned, it is still flawed. Yes, in a true head on collision the larger vehicle wins. But the reality is that SUVs and especially pickup trucks are 40+% more likely to kill or maim their occupants in any given accident, even with a subcompact car. Safety is, in fact, an illusion with these large vehicles. You simply can't defeat the laws of physics.
And the American cars of yore are simply myths. Why do you think highway deaths were so high in the 1950s? Not because the cars were safer and certainly not because people are better drivers today. It is simply the Titanic argument - if it looks safe, it must be: but it isn't.
Glad you have a Festiva. Fun as hell and amazingly reliable. It is smaller than the Aveo although its interior room is comparable.
The 1990 Civic Si is the same model as the 1989. They changed (for the worse) in 1992.