Okay, my car is in the shop getting a water leak and some issues where the dealer messed the paint up fixed. They gave me a 4 door base Cavalier loaner while it is in the shop. I must say this is the morst horrible little car I have ever driven. I think it is like a 2001 so it is somewhat new. My complaints....

-The cup holders are a 1/4 inch deep...I pulled out the lot and in 5 seconds had a soda rolling around under my feet.

-The steering wheel is somehow uglier than the Camaro

-The auto shifter is the same unsolid feeling POS in my Camaro.

-Guages are hard to look into for anyone over 5'9"

-The transmission shifts like a 60's muscle car with a shift kit...literally slamming you in the seat.

-You can feel the motor shaking the car at Idle.....and I looked...that's no small block under there.

-The car is hard to get into...I have two gashes on my kness from this morning adventure getting in. Maybe I am used to an F-body.

-There is clunking coming from the rear.....worries me it is about to pull a "Focus" and loose a wheel.

-For some reason there is a headlight dash that stays on during the day unless you turn the headlights on. Is this GM's horrible joke way of having manual DRL's?

-The doors closing sound the same as throwing an empty soda can in an aluminum trash can.

-The think has all of 120 HP and has the worst tourque steer I have ever seen....you would swear you were driving a 5 second Civic the wheel jerks around so hard. I would hate to shat happens with the turbo version.

-All the armrests in the car or either placed wrong or not meant to be arm rests.

-The seats are way to hard

-The suspension is the harshest I have ever seen...it is so stiff you would swear you were driving a Le Mans racer or something. Sadly this is a short lived illusion.

I think the car knows I hate it because this morning both the security and Service engine light came on. Luckily it didn;t break down or anything. I convinved the dealer to give me a different loaner tonight...all I know is it is a "mid-sized GM Product"....so I will be back tommorow with another review

This all leads me to wonder....

How can GM not make money on a car this CHEAPLY made?

 

heh, the J-body must've paid for itself a few years after coming out.. probably by 86 or 87, so after that, it's been pure profit. Hey, if it's ain't broke, don't fix it. I've had similar dismal experiences with 'em, but the production numbers don't lie. those little snots still sell very well..

I wouldn't mind finding a low-mile 82-83 J2000 for a beater, but they are pretty much extinct. zero relevant info online..

Useless fact of the day: I think the J-body is the only line that was used by all GM passenger car divisions at the time (Cavalier, J2000/Sunbird/Sunfire, Firenza, Skyhawk, Cimarron)

gt

 

The J-car is old... no way around it.

MY2005 will fix that with the Delta replacement.

 

Cheap crappy car yes, but no worse than the competition. Be glad you can afford to drive a better car!

 

I had a brand new Malibu loaner last year..

I was very pleasantly surprised.. quiet, comfortable, much nicer interior than my Camaro... only real drawbacks was it was boring and slow. If I didnt' know any better, I'd think it was a Toyota.

 

I have been driving my moms 95 mazda protege until i get my firebird insured, and I can say almost every single thing you said about the cavalier, except for one or two things. its a terrible car. and its so slow it cant even get out of its own way. i swear i was on the highway, and i floored it to pass someone, and a ford windstar whooshed by me like i was braking!

here are some things i dont like about the protege:

cd player wont turn off when the car is off. if you leave the car long enough, it drains the battery.

i pressed the power lock switch and it fell inside the door somewhere. i know theres no friggin way the lock switch would fall out of my firebirds door!

cupholders cant be used if the shifter is park. gotta take those drinks with you when you get out of the car!

the controls for the a/c are not back lit or anything, so i have to turn on the dome light to adjust them when its dark.

did i mention it was slow?

Wheres this superior import quality at? if I want a nice, quiet, smooth ride, ill pick my firebird over the mazda anyday! AND my firebird has over 180,000 very abused miles on it.

 

Holy crap! Next, we'll be reading that Branden traded in his Camaro for an IS300 and is hosting a love-in with Threxx!

 

Water leak huh? Where is it leaking from? T-tops?

Didn't we have a discussion here not too long ago where you vehemently argued that 4th gen tops were NOT leak prone?

 

Those rental/loaner cars are treated awful. I'm sure this leads to some, but not all, of the problems you mentioned.

This is a new one, Branden slamming poor GM quality!

 

Daxs is right. those rental or loaner cars get beat to hell and back. we had a neon rental about a year ago and that thing had all kinds of issues. one really bad thing was the tranny always shifted at way different points in each gear and it bucked like a damn horse every time it shifted.

but the j-body is old like others had said. my sunfire was built solidly and didnt have 3 quarters of those issues but i do agree on the cupholder thing. take a sharp quick turn and bye bye coke. other than that and some other peeves it wasnt that bad of a car and it toasted all but the best compact cars out there. still nothing like the power and ride quality of my camaro though

 

You do know that Mazda is Ford, right? Mazda used to be japanese. And don't get me wrong, much of their company and management is still based in Japan. But they are completely controlled by Ford, and with a few minor exceptions, all of their cars are just rebadged fords with a few things tweaked here and there to keep the average joe from realizing he isn't really buying a japanese car.

 

Oh God...when I had my Eclipse worked on (slight body damage from no-fault), I rented a car from a Ford dealer...a Focus Wagon. This thing was the ugliest POS I've ever been in. And it got HORRIBLE gas mileage. It only had 6k on the clock, so it couldn't have been that abused. Geez...I was never so glad to have my car back...too bad it was a month later. Stupid Mitsu...

 

Most Mazda products are designed and engineered by Mazda. Sometimes, they are shared with ford. I wouldn't call any of them "rebadged Fords".

I don't think those cars have ever made a profit and have been "broken" since they were introduced in 1982.

I got one as a rental last year - it was nothing less than abysmal.

 

And the other side of that coin is that if you DO get a rental or loaner that has as much as 15K on the clock, and it is still running well, looking good, and not falling apart, you KNOW you are in a well designed and built vehicle.

Rental agencies are very keen on feedback, and if they get all bad reports on a unit, they will usually drop them. Likewise, they stock-up on the models that get repeat renters and good reports. Look what most fleets have heavily stocked, and you can bet that's a well-designed and cost effective model. (It may look like a +urd though! )

Branden, ALL car makers have duds - the law of statistics demands this. Maybe you just got one of those occasional duds. I'm sorry to hear your new wheels are in the shop so soon too, but I give you KUDOS for buying domestic and making the bastages GET IT RIGHT. That's what more of us need to do to make the domestics keep improving their products.

As far as your smacking down a GM model... I don't know what to say. I must now advance you 1(one) "Get Out Of Jail Free" card which you may redeem during any flame war with me about Ford model launches or recalls!

 

Now they gave me a Saturn SC2......the hell continues. This thing is so unconnected with teh road it isn't crazy....the pedal feels horrible and so does the stearing. Does seem alot better built than the Crappalier.


I can admit where GM ****s up....I just think alot of what they do get right is overlooked.