1999 Daewoo Matiz from UK and Ireland - Comments

I have recently bought a Matiz and am having a problem. when I pull away or brake hard I hear I knocking noise from below the car. I have had it in two garages; no one can find out what is causing the noise. has anyone else experienced these problems? Any ideas; please email me at d12bees@hotmail.co.uk.

Hi I have a 2001 Matiz and have just experienced the "dreaded manifold water leak problem". I wasn't sure what it was until reading comments on this board, but have found it really helpful. I guess what it's made me do is realise I'm not going to chase good money after bad by repairing the fault.It's a shame really because the little car has served me well, although the engine management light has been on for 4 years! I wasn't prepared to pay the Daewoo garage £70 to hook up to their computer and then tell me that it's a little probe that's failed costing another £50!At the end of the day we all want the best deal we can get for our money and at the start the Matiz fits the bill, but you need to run it into the ground as it isn't worth much after a couple of years. When thinking of buying a new Matiz ask the salesperson what he would allow you on a trade in after two years, then watch him stutter the answer.

I've had my Daewoo Matiz (1999 model) for 3 years. Has been trusty so far until recently. Inlet Manifold has gone, water was pouring straight out and the water tank would empty in a few minutes. This forum has been very helpful, didn't realise it was so common. Have been told it's going to cost me around £350 to fix. Car only worth about £500. Not happy, but have had a good few years out of it. I've always had problems with changing from first to second gear too. Definitely time to get rid though and no, I won't be getting another one.

Hi, I have a silver daewoo matiz se plus and have had no end of problems with it since we purchased it as a first car for my daughter, first the yellow engine light started coming on and then it would stall when you braked this got so bad we then took it to a dealership as these were the experts!!! to find that to clear the problem we would need to replace the water pump, manifold a-intake and have a service which we did, it ran great for 10 months and the same problem appeared again stalling and cutting out!!!, took it again to the experts!!! and was told that it was the catalytic converter this time, ran again for 3months and guess what same problem, we have now spent £1,200 on parts and labour trying to keep this heap of tin on the road to no avail!!! and no one seems to no what the problem is so please take note of this and have a second thought about buying a matiz.

I have a 01 matiz engine over heated so I bought a second hand engine fitted it now it won't start have fuel but no spark it was lying for about 4 months could ecu have lost its memory.

I have had my 2004 Matiz from new. The main problem I encountered was the engine management light coming on. After several visits to the dealers to gt it checked under warranty, and reset, a sensor was replaced. I noticed a pattern to the light illuminating, and figured that as long as I didn't let my fuel gauge drop below half, then it doesn't illuminate. It is nearly 1.5 years since it last came on - I think there is a problem with the fuel outlet from the tank being too high, so if fuel levels drop below half, when you turn a left corner the fuel slops away from the outlet, air gets sucked in the fuel pipes, and engine management light illuminates.

So, to preven engine light coming on, treat the half way mark as empty. It works for me.

Hi! I have a 99 Deawoo Matiz. I parked it up outside my house last night; I got in it at 2pm the next day and now it won't start. I have checked my oil and spark plugs and petrol; it turns over but won't start. Any help would be good, thanks.

I have a 1999 Matiz, that cuts out after driving for a while, the engine MIL light comes on and it loses power and cuts out. It won't start for about an hour while the engine cools down. It was suggested to replace the distributor; it seems to be a common problem.

To anyone who has experienced the dreaded inlet manifold coolant leak on a Daewoo Matiz. I am currently repairing this on my sister's car. When the engine management light illuminated she carried on regardless until steam (or smoke as she put it) started pouring out.

Fearing that the cylinder head gasket had gone as well, I obtained a full headset of gaskets and removed the cylinder head. I have found it to be OK, but the plastic inlet manifold has failed. What has happened is that part of the plastic inlet manifold (at the end above the water pump) is acting only as a cover to blank off a water channel. This is simply just bad design. The planned repair will be to simply cut off that end of the plastic inlet manifold and to blank off the water channel it covers on the cylinder head with a small piece of sheet aluminium. Job done and done relatively cheaply.

By the way, to all those wrestling with removing the inlet manifold in situ. I found that the only really practicable way to do it is to remove the cylinder head with the inlet manifold still attached. Hope this helps!

Paul Pierce, South London.

I have a V reg daewoo Matiz, and in the past week, it has jumped about like a kangaroo, then refused to start, only to be fully functioning an hour later. The engine light keeps coming on; on monday it started fine in morning, then cut out at end of road and now it sits outside my house refusing to start at all. Got it booked in at garage for thursday but not sure what to tell them - just read comment above about the petrol being over half to work properly. Mine is on the first quarter line; could this be the problem? I am not impressed with this car; only had it 6 weeks. Does anyone got any tips on how to drive this car properly?

My daughter has a Matiz which had speedo problems. I've changed the speedo head which was easy. However the fuel gauge has stayed on showing half full. Do I need to reset this? If so, how. Thanks for any help.

Paul.

Hi, everybody. I'm from Palestine, we turned our cars to run on cooking gas because the Israelis don't supply us with enough amounts of petrol. And since then the engine light came on, now when petrol became available I canceled every part added for gas and put everything to its original way.

But the light still on, finally I discovered the solution.

The problem of that light is in the relay box and the ignition part under the edge of the hood under the windscreen.

Now my Matiz 2001 runs normally and no annoying lights.

Well I own a 2000 SD Matiz. It has given me no problems.

The only problem it gave that was leakage of water in cooling system, that is due to the water channel in the manifold got completely damaged. Well my mechanic fixed it up with m seal; a mixture of sodium oxide & more. After that the water level didn't go down. This is common problem problem with the Matiz with its plastic manifold. This is the only flaw the car has. Due to this my original water pump got damaged completely. I installed a new water pump; after this no problems.

I have replaced 2 exhaust pipes due to rusting. This is due to the Matiz having a really high performance engine, which displaces drops of water. If the engine splits drops of water, that means your car engine is running more than perfect, giving you best mileage under tough conditions. It gives me mileage more than 17 kmpl in the city & 22 on the highways.

Stop criticizing this machine; you need to give a little care to it, & the rest it will do it for you. It has run 50700 kms & is still running perfectly. Mind, Daewoo has produced the best cars in the world.

The distributor problem is faced due to the fast start of engine. When you start your car's engine, wait till the check light goes off, then only start your engine; that light is provided to check whether the fuel pump, injectors, valves are working perfectly, & distributors checks all the above mentioned stuff, so be kind to start your car after the light goes off.

Service your car's engine after every 5000 kms, change the fuel filter after every 20000 kms, clean your air filter after every 5000 kms & change it after 20000 kms. Clean the injectors only when the performance has dropped, otherwise don't mess with the injectors. Use only unleaded gas of only 1 company @ a time, and don't mix the gas of different companies.

Bought a Daewoo Matiz 0.8 in 2004 - it was 2 yrs old and had done 12000 miles then (this to me is essentially a new car). My reason for buying was that I wanted something economical and reliable. Took out a loan over 3 years thinking that this would be the only cost for the first 3 years and then I would have a free and still reliable car for a number of years after.

For the first year I was happy and had no problems - just put petrol in and drove. Then the problems began...

The wishbone arm on front wheel broke. Cost a lot to repair.

Then for MOT (at this point on a 3 year old car) had to get complete new brake pipes fitted as they were corroded (I saw this myself so wasn't just ripped off by the garage).

Since then its had a complete new exhaust system including the expensive front bit with the catalyst.

An injector went through a phase of stopping working then working again. Was about to pay to get it replaced but then it returned to normal.

The windscreen washer pump stopped and it is situated inside a wing so very hard to get at. The fan belt started squealing (very embarrassing especially when going flat out at 10mph up a hill).

The above was all before I had finished paying for the car, so was not happy. Also discovered that it is not anything like economical if you live anywhere near a hill. You have hammer it to get up anything above a slight slope and on long hills you can visibly see the petrol pointer going down. (the 3 cylinder engine just isn't enough)

Anyway, the really big problems began in the past 2 years. Last year it got a new clutch and gearbox as both basically disintegrated. This cost around the same as the value of the car but went ahead as I mistakenly believed that after this nothing else major could go on such a new car.

This year, my petrol tank has developed a leak - was quoted very high price for a new one. I decided to strip one off a scrapped Matiz and was on my way to get one when the old injector problem presented itself (or so I thought), so limped back home on 2 cylinders. On further inspection I had the joy to discover water spraying out of exhaust pipe - and the only way water gets here is through a blown head gasket. The only thing preventing the James Bond style smokescreen was the fact that the injector had stopped injecting so there was no fuel in cylinder to ignite and produce the steam.

I'm going to scrap the car as soon as possible, and will go back to my old car purchase method - buy something as old and cheap as possible and run it until it won't run any more - then go and buy another one. My experience is that this method is not too different to the new or nearly new car method - sometimes you break down, sometimes you have to fix it or pay for repairs - but sometimes you get 2 or 3 years free motoring.

I have the use of a Matiz that has been standing for some time and has had an intermittent squeal for as long as anyone can remember. There was also the new instance of loss of coolant. This car was only used for short distances but I started using it for 12 miles to work.

The car squealed on me and was clearly hot, and lost 1L of coolant. I added new coolant cap, and I am not loosing water. I do however have a squeal after 12 miles especially if at the end of 12 miles I sit at lights. The fan comes on and the temp gauge rises quite rapidly to half way from its comfort zone at 30%.

I have added ZX1 to the coolant and engine and petrol, which is what I do to any car. No squealing on the way home even when the temp went up when parking and revving to see if I could induce squealing.

The bearing covers on the rear wheels look rusty, and possibly dry, and there is a lot of road noise. Is greasing these bearings an easy job?