Car has less than 90,000 miles on it and its already headed for the scrapper. White paint started peeling off around 60,000 miles. New brakes 72,000. New tires 75,000. "Chg Oil" light was always constantly on even after oil is change. Many cheap plastic interior parts broken a long time ago. Interior seats have worn very, very badly. Engine started "ticking" when cold 63,000 miles. Sound always went away after car warmed up, but I should have known cuz that's what bombs do, they tick and blow up. Now at 86,000 miles motor is knocking.
Never buy a former rental car. They get driven hard and treated badly, which shortens the life of the car. My grandmother bought this car from Hertz with something like 30,000 miles on it. I got it from her at 50,000. Everything went to sh*t before 100,000. We took good care of the Lumina, but to no avail. The car looks like its 10 years older then it really is. First the interior which looked like hell by 60,000 miles. Paint coming off in large chunks by 70,000 miles. Motor started making noise at 60,000 miles, which turned into a knock at 85,000 miles. We took good care of this car, but it simply crapped out on its own. Which sucks because this car has sentimental value to me and I wanted to keep it forever. These are cheaply made cars, meant to be rented out and thrown away. If you got one with low miles, sell it while its still worth something.
I must say that ex-rental cars are something you should never buy. Sure you save money up front, but you pay it back when it needs brakes, tires, transmissions and engines!!!
My Lumina lasted forever until I was rear ended by a dodge ram... needless to say it was totaled! It had 200,000 kilometers on it and was all original, but I pampered it from day 1!
The interior did suck as far as quality goes, and the paint came off and it rusted everywhere.
Oh well, on to my next Chevy, a 2007 Monte Carlo!
Like you said, don't buy rental cars.
I'm the original author of this review.
UPDATE: Car is now at 90,000 miles. The "knock" I spoke was due to my sister driving the thing bone dry out of oil.. I added some Duralube engine treatment and a Lucas treatment later, and now it still has that lifter tap, but that goes away once again when the car warms up. SO glad I didn't scrap it, as I'd kind of jumped to conclusions there and thought it had a rod knock.
Just recently had to get the tranny swapped, but that's not the car's fault - Don't EVER go to those places where they send you a coupon in the mail for oil changes - they wrecked the tranny in my Lumina, my regular mechanic (only honest mechanic I know, shoulda gone to him in the first place) said the guys who did the coupon oil change must have jammed the car in drive while it was moving backward, or jammed it in park while it was moving forward, or something to that effect because the front tranny housing had a huge hole in it and the gears inside were sheared off.
Anyway so I jumped the gun a little with this bad review, guess my old Lumina still has a few more miles ahead of her if I baby her. Still ugly as sin with the paint coming off in chunks (seems to happen with all the white ones) and the damn cheap interior.
On a positive note, the stock sound system sounds EXCELLENT and the thing is built like a friggen tank in an accident - sister got T-boned in it pretty bad and it still runs like before, steering doesn't pull, and driver's door even still opens and shuts! Looks like hell though.
I will keep you guys updated, but YES I do recommend a Chevy Lumina now so long as it's not a previous rental (Like mine was!) and you get DAMN good maintenance records from the previous owner, cuz that's key. Thanks for reading.
-Andyk253.
Note: A Comments RSS Feed is available. New comments appear in the Members Area before the main site