2000 Daewoo Lanos review from North America

It is absolutely essential that you keep up with general routine maintenance, particularly with fluids. When you do, it runs very well with no problems at all. When you let maintenance lapse, things begin to break down in a rapid and expensive manner. If you fix it and then go back to timely upkeep, the car will again become problem free.

You must replace the timing belt at around 60K miles. This requires also replacing a water pump, due to location. If the belt is not replaced, it snaps and the engine is a write-off.

The paint on the rear bumper faded badly, but the rest of the paint is great.

Head gasket blew at 62k, but showed signs (which I ignored) of leaking for months prior.

Suspension is a little squeaky, like an old spring bed sound.

Headlight connections jiggled loose regularly until I had them soldered on. You could tell it was about to happen because the dashboard indicator for high beams would light up for no reason. Then I'd know to pop the hood and reseat the headlight plug (very accessible). Soldering fixed this.

The car gets very stuffy inside unless the air is on. I have to have the air conditioning or at least the fan on 100% of the time.

As long as you perform routine maintenance, it is a very solid, reliable car.

Actually, I too often ignored the maintenance, and it still was extraordinarily reliable for years. I have driven 62K miles in 9 years, and never had to take it into the shop except when I drove over something that punctured a pan (not the car's fault) and when I ignored my fluids for 2 years straight and stressed the head gasket (then ignored the head gasket).

It doesn't have the little luxuries like power doors or a CD player, but it is a solid car.

The only reason I would hesitate to buy another when mine eventually dies (it hasn't) is that Daewoo is out of business. I was badly burned by the warranty, which was not honored by Chevrolet after Daewoo went defunct.