2000 Daewoo Lanos S review from North America

Radiator housing broke at about 35,000 miles, although to this day I don't know the exact reason for the break.

The manual window "roller uppers" (sorry can't think of the proper name at this minute) have a tendency to come loose and consequently the windows don't stay up tight. This allows annoying little wisps of air to blow through. May seem like a minor problem, but is a real nuisance when your driving on the freeway and have to lean across the seat to roll it back up.

Radio/cassette player has a "anti-theft" device that shuts it down if the radio is stolen. Unfortunately it works too well and the radio turns off during general use. Sometimes wait 2 to 3 months (to lazy/busy to take it to the dealer) before it kicks back on and I can use it again. This has happened numerous times in the past 2 and a half years that I have owned the car.

Most recently had a problem when I started up the engine. It began rocking quite heavily and the engine light came on. Took it to a local mechanic and they said the compression in the second cylinder was low, but that it would be ok to drive it the short distance to my house. Took it to the dealer next day and they said the compression was fine (it did seem to fix itself when I drove it home from the first mechanics) and they switched the spark-plugs (don't think that had anything to do with fixing it though). Anyhoo, same problem happened two weeks later so I took it back and they said the fuel injector was dirty. They cleaned it and it doesn't rock anymore although for the first week it was a battle to get it to start. We noticed that the problem seemed to occur when I did a cold start, but now it's working a lot better. Still makes me nervous though.

The car has ok power, enough for everyday use.

The handling is pretty decent and since it's a small car you can park it just about anywhere.

Although I would never buy a Daewoo ever again I have to say that for the first 2 years that I had this car I experienced no major mechanical problems. I didn't drive major distance and I didn't put a lot of mileage on the car so maybe this is the reason that it performed decently. Unfortunately in the past few months there have been quite a few problems that don't make sense considering that I have had regular oil changes and a 30,000 mile check up.

If a buyer is looking for a car I would say that he/she would be better off buying a used Toyota or Honda (those are the two that I'm familiar with) as opposed to a Daewoo. Although it performed alright, I doubt that it will hold up over time as other brands have. Parts are hard to come by and people who know Daewoo's are even harder to come by. There are just a lot of cars in the same price bracket that perform a lot better than a Daewoo. Shop around.