It's actually in the hatch.

 

Ah. Had that on my 3rd gen.

 

LOL, that made me think of a funny "rental car" story.

We had the Lightning in to have the seat cover replaced on the drivers side. It is a common problem where the bolster rod cuts the padding and damages the cover. Anyway, Ford Country was great and ordered the parts with no arguement........ they even fixed it the way guys on the internet recommended. Anyway...... enough of that.

Anyway, we told them we needed a loaner because of the baby. They don't have their own loaners, they send you to Enterprise Rent-a-car. When we get there, I ask what kind of car we are getting. The guys tells us "that Cavalier over there." I told him he was crazy. There was no way I was putting us and our baby in that awful little car (my mom has one......... about the only good thing I can say about it is that it does start and run), and ask him what else he has. We ended up paying $11 to get a Mitsubishi Galant (they didn't have much else), which sucked........ but not nearly as much as a Cavalier.

To make a long story short, the Lightning was done in 2 hours. We had put 6 miles on the rental. What a waste of time.

My moms Cavalier is a 2001. It has 38,000 miles. Everything in it groans, rattles, and clunks. The brakes feel like garbage, and the auto trans is making noises (along with shifting like crap). You get the distinct impression that the rear beam axle is going to fall out, and the whole car is going to do the Keystone Cops thing. What a pile of sh*t!!!! The only reason she has it is that they were the only ones who would get her out of her upside down car after her bankruptsy (due to the death of my step father who did nothing to ensure her future). She was paying $459 a month for it till she just refinanced it. I pay about the same for my '03 Mazda Tribute ES 4x4 that is fully loaded. Sure wish I had the money to buy her a car (or that she had a boyfriend who isn't a loser........ thats another story).

 

http://media.gm.com/news/sales/010712salesanalysis.html

Carp and moan all you want people, but read the sales numbers and weep... GM is selling these things like hotcakes.

-- For example, in June 2001, Cavalier, Malibu and Impala were among the top-10 cars sold in the U.S. Chevy was the only manufacturer with three cars on that top-10 list.

If quality were truly so horrid, why would sales continue to increase, or even stay high?

I have my own loaner stories... one of which - I got a loaner a few months back. It was a small 4cyl econobox. Some kind of foreign make. I was actually quite impressed. Had a lot of power (you know, considering...), the controls were legible and ergonomic, and no obvious flaws. The irony: the car was so utterly devoid of character, I cannot recall the make or model! That's one area where the Focus shines. Say what you want about the quality problems... but the Focus is a cute and distinctive little car.

 

Well, I can give you a real good reason they sell....... in one word.

CHEAP !!!!
CHEAP !!!!
CHEAP !!!!

0 Down
3000 Cash back plus
0% financing and
0 payments till 2004

This is what local Chevy dealerships are selling on Cavaliers. Add to that the fact that there are more Chevy dealerships than any other kind on earth....... and you got your answer.

You could wrap a turd in a tea leaf...... and if you gave these type of deals on it, it would sell.

Further examples..... Hyundai Excel when they came out: CHEAP and sold like hotcakes..... even though they sucked. Current Kia's: CHEAP and they sell well.

Cheap sells. It sells because mommy and daddy would rather give Junior or Missy a brand new car with a warranty. Of course it is a benefit that it is cheap to insure also, and not exciting to drive....... so that maybe Junior or Missy will stay alive till it is paid off. Last but not least, fleet sales. Cavaliers are the staple diet for the rent-a-car market because they are.......... CAN WE ALL SAY IT TOGETHER........ CHEAP !!!!!

I agree on the Focus. That is one great handling small car. Almost got a SVT Focus (ZX5), but went with the Tribute as it was more practical with baby....... and dogs (can you picture 2 adults, 1 baby with car seat, a Rott, and a mix in a Focus??), and AWD (we get snow). Plus, the Tribby is amazingly fun to drive....... it does need better side bolstering on the seats though, for when I play speed racer.

 

lol C'mon, it's not like the thing is a death trap for crying out loud.

 

Haha...thats because you can talk a dealer down to $8-9K on one. I wonder if they added the Aveo so they can not go so low on the J-Body?

 

Cavalier was one of, if not the, best selling car in Chevrolet's lineup before the insentives started up post-9/11 as well.

You need to also realize that those 0% deals and $3000 cashback offers are pretty much across the board... so for every person who can now buy a new Cavalier, there are people who would have bought a Cavalier, and moved up to a Malibu or something else.

It's all on a sliding scale.

 

http://www.iihs.org/vehicle_ratings/...y_midinexp.htm

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/NCAP/Cars/2002Cmpt.html

 

i hate the interiors on the newer j-bodies
they all look like they're made by fisher price... the sunfire is the worst by far!

i don't remember the first j-body interiors to be this cheap looking

 

Well, when one goes back and reads your comments (which aren't atypical for GM's small cars), it's damn hard to see anything but their problems. What's a Cavalier owner to say - "Well, the car is a rattletrap, the interior sucks, the steering and brake feel is horrible, they're difficult to work on, and they're underpowered - but GM does so many other good things that it's hard to be upset with my purchase!". Uh, no. Hopefully you're at least understanding why there's so much anti-GM sentiment out there - it ain't just F-bodies that have been pissing people off (and at least with an F-body, you get some styling and performance to offset the problems).

It's funny that LightningGal picked a Mistu over the Cav. Mistubishi has had some rather serious engineering problems for the last decade, including covering up a ton of safety-related recalls.

 

This may be true, however, what looks better........... $3000 off of a $12,000 car, or.......... $3000 off of a $22,000 car????

If you are in the market for cheap, what are you going to buy???

Also, I can think of no car other than the Mitsubishi's that offers no payments for 6 months or more.

If you think that car is sold on its merits instead of the fact that it is CHEAP, then I have some really nice ocean front property in Yuma that you may be interested in. About the only truly apealing aspect of the Cavalier is that it is cheap. The type of people buying them today are the same people who bought Hyundai Excels when they first came out. Same mentality........... and this is what the car is marketed to......... the lowest common denominator.

Remember that I also said that the Mitsubishi sucked, but that it was the only other car they had available at that time. It was better than the Cavalier, however that is not saying much.

 

FWIW - 1996 Sunfire SE (bought new) - 133,000 miles (few of them highway) - uses maybe 3/4 qt between changes - currently gets 30 mpg with me behind the wheel in CITY driving (just filled up today) - everything still works as it should (no dead defroster, etc) - easily the most reliable car I have ever been associated with, three months ago we loaded it up and drove out here to AR. My $.02

 

I just had a 2003 Cavalier for a rental this past weekend. IMHO, not a bad car for the price. Yes, the interior is cheap, but not a whole lot worse than my Zed. They seemed to have raised the seating position up for 2003 which improves the feel immensely (I rent Cavaliers about once a month, so I get to sample a lot of them).

At least the exterior has aged well. Even today, 8 years after its last re-design, the rear 3/4 view is one of the best for a small coupe. Unfortunately the new front and rear facias are a step backwards from 2001 (I didn't like the 2002 re-do either).

The best part was the new Ecotec engine. That's by far GM's best 4-banger, and on par with any Honda or Toyota. It was a bit growly at idle, but it pulled cleanly and smoothly up to its ~6000 rpm redline. It was even so good on gas that I was going to have more fuel left than I needed to have returned, so I tried to burn some extra fuel by keeping it in 3rd and cruising at about 80-85 for the last hour of my trip (yes, rental cars do get abused). Not only was it acceptably smooth at 4000-5000 rpm cruising, but I still couldn't burn enough fuel to get it down to where I wanted it!

 

There are cheaper cars out there than Cavalier... so "cheap only" doesn't fit all situations.

Also, I do think the accross the board incentives move people up... A lot of people say "I have 'X' amount to spend on a car... gimme the most expensive thing I can afford"

If tat $3000 rebate pushes them from a Cavalier sedan to a Malibu, I bet a lot of them jump to the Malibu.