Ken S

Last week, Machelle and I made a trip back to NJ, to visit my friends and do some quick siteseeing along the east coast.. NYC, Alantic City, Philly, Baltimore, DC.. And our rental car was the Chevy Aveo, 4 door, auto, manual locks and window, AM/FM, AC and heating.. 1900 miles on it. I also had a chance to drive a few of my friends inside it too..


First impressions of when the car pulled up.. Laughter. "It looks like a cute green turtle!" And thus the name stuck, "The Turtle" On the road, we drew an occasional odd glance from other people, probably because nobody's ever seen it before, and even odder that it has a Chevy nameplate on it..


The truck was suprisingly big inside.. The interior was okay.. They startegicly put better materials, like at the door handles and parts of the steering wheel.. AC, FM controls were easy to use, everything felt good. My only gripe was the inside panel of the door.. If you press against it hard enough in certain areas, you can see in flex and move in.. The fabric seemed good, seats were comfortable, although I wish the steering wheel could telescope out a bit. Machelle and I are 5'6 and 5'7 and we fit fine in the front.. My taller friends, 6'3+ looked tight in the front passanger, but he assured me he was relatively comfortable (well as comfortable as he could get in a small car like this).. Again, back seats were a lil tight, but this is a compact car.. Overall, I think they did a good job with the interior for what it is.


Machelle didn't have any complaints about the interior at all.


Driving the actual car.. off the light, it had some decent pep for what it was.. Normal driving, the car was very quiet and smooth. no extranious vibrations, bumps, creaks, etc.. All the bigger bumps of the road came in with a solid muffled thump and thats it.. no excesive bobbing or moving. Nice. It pleasantly surprised all of us.. All my friends after sitting in it for a while said, "wow, this car rides pretty nice actually" It wasn't till the really bad stuff till your reminded that your in a small light car.. even then, no clangs rattles or anything. Just solid thumps and being slightly jossiled. Visibility was good. Basically, it was a comfortable carefree car that you can forget that your driving.. It holds speed at 70 mph decently well on the highway.. Although on a pretty windy drive back from Alantic City, you could feel the wind blowing the car around.. Drasticly different feel from a 3500 lb sleek aero Camaro..


When you floor it, the engine burrs and you don't seem to be accellling much faster, like all cars in this class.. Doing a few relatively quick turns, the car drives well.. Didn't notice anything eyepopping..


Averaged about 30 mpg, between 70% highway and 30% city driving.

Gripes.. The shifter.. Just didn't like how it felt and when it moved around.. I would have liked a more traditional straight slot with a button on the side.... I think they engineered it so the driver side door has to be locked only when the door is closed.. So when you step out, you have to use your key. Trunk lid feels a dinky.. The clock reset twice on us in the first day, but never bothered us again?


Oh, my sister backed into the passanger rear door with the back corner of her 99 Camry.. The bumper corner crumpled in and smashed a tailight.. The Aveo only suffered some wavy dents in the door, but besides that, its fine.. Good thing I got the extra coverage...


Overall, we liked "The Turtle" . Based on this experience, we would definatnly consider it if we were shopping for a low cost new compact daily driver.. Common things said by other people were, "hah, the car looks so cute!" and "Huh, well, this car actually feels and rides nice" "Oh that trunk is bigger than I thought"

1990 Turbo Grand Prix

Good review. Thanks. I'll have to let my customers know this when they ask about it. Seems like a nice car.

JEDCamino

I didn't know they were even out at all. I'll probably go check one out when the local dealer gets them. Not something I'd buy, but I still like to look at new vehicles that I've heard about here.

ckt101

Uhhhh, don't press on the inside panel of the door, problem solved.

guionM

We have them all over the place out here in LA. I don't know it it's people actually buying them, or renters here from out of town, but they are pretty common here now.

Good report. Not our cup of tea here, but it's great to hear about actual experiences with other cars here from real people.

I try to rent something different everytime I have to rent a car, and post my impressions here.

Joe K. 96 Zeee!!

I got a chance to examine one at the DC auto show. Looked decently put together. I wasn't disappointed.

I'm assuming you drove the sedan since you mentioned "trunk". Personally I liked the hatch back much better.

Pandamonkey

VW has had that on their cars since the early 80's.
I like it.
My wife has never locked her keys in the car because she's forced to lock the door with them.

Good review man.

JEDCamino

I know Hondas at used to be like that, too (may still be). Although, if you lift up on the outside door handle while locking the inside lock, it works. However, that is quite a bit of trouble.

Z28x

THe car sounds good, good repot. Lets not forget that this car starts at $9,995 so it isn't going to meet the standards of a $30,000 car owner.

redzed

1. Couldn't you wrangle an upgrade at the rental counter?

2. Isn't Amtrak a better way of traveling between NYC and DC?

3. Is there any reason for a car as small as the Aveo to exist in the United States?

Joe K. 96 Zeee!!

Actually, Amtrak can get a little pricey. I travel to Annapolis fairly often and a trip to Baltimore/DC was more than $120 round trip on Amtrack.

On the car side, throw in gas (less than $40 even in my car), tolls (maybe $20), and a bite to eat. In addition there's convenience of traveling/stoppeing when and where you want and have transportation at your destination.

When I was in Europe I loved the train system. Here....well, give me a car any day!

95GRNZ

Interesting... Sounds like it's well built.

Found this quote a bit funny, though...

TS

Ken S

No, and top it off, I had to pay an extra $10/day fee for being under 25 (I'm 24... the local Enterprise in Oergon never charged me before).. I even tried to dealing with them, saying if I get the extra insurance converage on the car, could they waive the $10/day fee? Nope.. So I didn't feel too bad about it when my sister backed into it, since I'm paying an extra $10 + optional insurance coverage. Not like they were going to give my money back if I returned the car in perfect condition anyways.


I think the base rate was only like $15 a day or something. A nicer midsized car would have been about $25 a day.. thats an extra $70 for the week trip, plus more gas being burnt. That extra $70 is a dinner out at a nicer resturant . Let alone I was already paying an extra $10/day for being underage... what bs..


The car inside is about the size of your avg compact car.. like a civic or corrolla.. and last time I checked there are tons of those sold in the US. Up front it fit the two of us comfortably, and stowed all our luggage and then some in the trunk and back seats. In back, you can haul two people around okay.. but wouldn't want to be stuck back there more than an hour or two.. So obviosly if you want a small cheap comfortable convenient transportation, these types of cars are your ticket.


Actually, for the most part, I was staying in my home town Cherry Hill, NJ. its about 1.5 horus away from NYC, and 1.5 hours away from Balt, and 20 mins away from Philly. We basically would drive up for a day or two and drive back. then head to another city the next day. At 30 miles a gallow, $15 of gas gets us 300 miles of traveling.. Not bad. Amtrak is expensive and annoying.. Just one trip would have costed the same amount as the rental car for a week. Or you could probably hop and skip along the commuter routes and buses.. but that would take forever... Top it off, alot of my friends I know are scattered in suburbia in NJ..

And yes, we took alot of public trans and walking when we were actually in the city.. When we arrived back in Oregon, our ride from the airpork flaked out on us and so we took the lightrail back home. a 25 min car ride, turned into a 90 min literail ordeal, plus waiting in the cold to switch lines lugging our luggage.. PLus would have been even longer to wait for a bus to bring us to our neighborhood (but luckly I got someone to pick us up at the station).. Now I remember why I hate mass trans in general.

Oh, and I spelled trunk wrong.. And yea, it was the 4 door with a trunk.. not a hatchback.