You might also look at the Chevrolet Sonic; new for 2012. Thank goodness it replaces the Aveo, and not a moment too soon. Had a car like the Sonic been available in 2009, I might have bought it instead of the Cobalt.
History repeats itself. Even though most other cars began using independent front suspension from the late 1930s, Ford hung onto the solid front axle and transverse leaf springs in the front and rear through the 1948 model. During those immediate post-war years, automobile manufacturers had buyers lined up and one usually placed an order and waited. Yet, even though cars were selling well, Ford was losing money. However, those Fords did hold up and held their value well as used cars. On the other hand, Studebaker, Nash and Hudson were ahead of the curve on engineering, and yet these cars had a high depreciation rate.
I would bet that the Honda Civic, despite seemingly falling behind Hyundai and Kia will hold its value very well.
I agree. There are those out there who still buy for longevity. Honda outboards are a case in point. They lag behind others in features. They aren’t as light as the competition. Their performance is middle of the road and since everyone, nearly, now makes four strokes, they hold no advantage there. But, they keep selling for one reason. You pull The rope or turn the key, they start and take lots of abuse when others roll over and die. I keep going back to Mercs which are excellent too because of their features and light transom and carry weight (important in old age). But, the Hondas I’ve had seemed impervious to the abuse I gave them.
Honda outboards (and other products) for that reason seem to hold value very well too. A friend who is a franchised dealer in Merc and Suzuki outboards has an old Honda outboard using the block from the original Odessey at his vacation home in Florida. He won’t part with it regardless of the newer models in other brands he could easily buy.
“jimster
Since the late 1990’s we have been responsible for the purchase of 19 new Hondas, the purchase of 2 used Hondas and all power equipment at our former home of 10 acres had to be built by Honda”
@jimster -
Good grief, do you ever keep your cars long enough to even test their reliability? In the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, we bought the following so far:
1997 Ford Taurus
1998 Toyota Camry
2010 Mazda6
All new. You’d have to have a massive collection to have bought 19 in that same time frame.
And you’d have to have been very lucky to get 19 in that timeframe with no problems - you’ve got complete overlap with the rampant transmission problems that affected the accord, odyssey, civic, etc… and even your civic hybrid has class action lawsuits over premature battery failure and Honda’s attempts to “solve” the problem.
We didn’t purchase all of them ourselves. We started in with an '84 Prelude (used). That went to 150k without a problem, but the body was rusting off. That was sold an a used Civic Coupe replaced it (forgot the year). Next started the new purchases. In '96 when I sold my latest Corvette I happily purchased a '96 Civic. We then purchased two '99 CRV’s, 2 more in '02, 2 more in '05. In '06 we purchased the hybrid and in '08 a new CRV. The other Honda sales were due to our constant happiness with the Honda products and encouraging others to buy. My sister-in-law purchased a new '05 Civic Coupe and in-laws all the rest. My in-laws go back and forth between leasing and purchasing or purchasing after lease. In all those cars, none have had any serious problems.
I gotta say - given that history, you aren’t even remotely testing the reliability of ANY vehicle… Even a Chrysler Sebring will likely be spotlessly reliable for an ownership period that short.
@jtsanders
My neighbors drive an Aveo. Where we live, we can get quite a lot of snow & this car didn’t do well during the winter months when we had a lot of snow. My neighbor told me they put sand bags in the back to help w/traction. Also, from what I’ve read, the gas mileage for this tiny little car is not very good. You could get a bit larger car (Fiesta, Focus, Cruze & even the Sonic) with a lot better gas mileage than the Aveo apparently is getting. To be that small in size, you should see closer to 38 mpg. hwy. I have seen several Aveo’s driving around in town, but it just has that sort of “cheap” look to it. I don’t get that feeling with the Cruze, Focus, & some of the other newer car designs. Just my 2 cents.
@Mitsy12 - your neighbors might want to try a set of winter tires, that might help. Putting sand bags in the back of a front-wheel-drive car like the Aveo won’t help, though. It might also be a ground clearance problem, most smaller cars would have the same issue.
putting sad bangs in the trunk of an Aveo. Kinda reminds me of that video of the woman driving a BMW that got stuck in the snow. She gets out and tries clearing snow from the front wheels. Only problem is, it’s RWD
Well, the Aveo is actually a Daewoo product, so it is a Korean car in the genes. It is of the lower tier Korean company. It just helped GM expand in the smaller car category but nobody was expecting much from it.
So does GM actually own Daewoo? That’s new info for me if that’s true.
Yup…General Motors owns Daewoo.
GM also owns controlling interest in Isuzu.
"Even worse for enthusiasts is that CR’s testing shows that driving excitement (as nebulous as that term may be…) has diminished."
That ship, well, never even existed. I found driving a Honda to be about as exciting as a wet noodle. Perhaps something like the S2000 was better. That said, yes, from what I have read Honda has compromised suspension layout, among other things, primarily to avoid the inevitable price increases that would have occured otherwise (i.e. they had to make the car cheaper just to keep prices relatively steady) and perhaps to lighten them for MPG.
Times are changing. Toyota reliability is down too (I don't know about 2012, but 2011 it wasn't so much that Toyotas became less reliable as that almost everyone else became more reliable, so Toyota was roughly average.) Most people have no idea of this though, they assume Toyota is #1 for reliability because they were years ago. I really can't say if Honda will bring back the handling or not, but I expect they will be able to coast for years too whether they do or not.
@Mitsy12, the Aveo has a cheap look because it's cheap. The base 2012 Accent is over $13,000 while the base Aveo is under $12,000.Kinda makes you wonder what it cost to build the Aveo, since you know there’s some profit built into the price. Then imagine if they didn’t have to pay union workers to build it(if it’s built in the US anyways)
Last month’s C&D compared the new Focus to the Civic. They said the Civic seemed to have inherited Lincoln genes - floaty big car feeling. Just the opposite of what Civics used to be all about. Sad.
Bscar, I know that an Aveo or similar cars in the middle east are assembled and sold at $5-6K with profit.
“putting sad bangs in the trunk of an Aveo. Kinda reminds me of that video of the woman driving a BMW that got stuck in the snow. She gets out and tries clearing snow from the front wheels. Only problem is, it’s RWD.”
A similar, but different story from my earlier days.
I was walking down the street, following a very heavy snow storm, circa 1968.
I came upon a woman who was throwing sand under the rear wheels of her brand new Olds Toronado. In an attempt to be helpful, I told her that the sand should be placed under and around the front wheels of her car.
The woman, who was probably as frustrated as she was unknowledgeable, replied, “The front wheels are spinning just fine, sonny. It’s the rear wheels that won’t move”.
But, to return to the Aveo, while GM did tweak and improve that outdated Daewoo design, it would be almost impossible to make a good car out of that bad design–hence the unique combination of mediocre gas mileage and poor acceleration in such a small car. Daewoo essentially created “the disposable car”, and GM has perpetuated it.
And, as was mentioned previously, placing extra weight in the rear of a FWD car will not help the front wheels to gain traction, and–in fact–might actually result in less traction, given the change in weight distribution that results from placing those sand bags in the rear. Only a set of 4 winter tires is likely to help with winter traction, but even with those tires, it will still be an Aveo–and that ain’t good!
I’m lovin’ these stories. Honestly, I’ve always been interested in cars but DID NOT know that GM owned Daewoo (or Daewood as I always thought it should be pronounced). So those of you who know about the Aveo’s, do you think the Sonic will be a lot better car for GM? I’ve seen the photos that are now online at the Chevrolet site. I actually think the mileage is going to be better, but that is in comparison to an Aveo which I STILL can’t get over the following this little car seems to have. I’m more likely to buy a smaller car for the gas mileage alone and this same neighbor who put sand bags in the back of their Aveo was telling me how he’d recommend this car to someone because it drove so smoothly & was such a nice car. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that car would likely be one of the last on my list if I wanted to get really good gas mileage. In other words, I’d have to get that car for a steal in order to even consider it and it would absolutely NOT be my car for winter driving.
Mitsy
While the new Sonic is definitely an unknown at this point, it would have to be better than an Aveo, and is likely to be much better. No matter what criticism someone might level at GM–either old or new incarnations–their design expertise is light-years beyond those of the late Daewoo company.
Because of increased interest in great gas mileage, you can be sure that this was a key target for GM’s engineers. While I am basing this projection only on likelihood and competition, rather than on firm information, I would venture to say that the new Sonic will probably be in the 38-40 mpg range. And, because it is designed for Americans, rather than Koreans, it will surely be roomier and more powerful than the Aveo.
One caveat, however. No matter how carefully a new design has been tested prior to introduction, there will be inevitable problems that only seem to crop up once the cars are in the hands of consumers. A good example would be the rough shifting of the automated manual transmission on Ford’s new Fiesta (or is it the new Focus?).
I always counsel that, with a brand-new, clean-sheet design, it is a good idea to wait at least a few months, and perhaps a full model year, before buying one. I violated my own principle with the Chevy Citation (one of the notorious X-cars), and lived to regret it. If I had waited at least one model year, I likely would have bought something else, after the negative reports from owners of these cars started seeping out. By the end of its production run, it was a fairly decent car, but that certainly could not have been said about the first-year models.
GM has had almost 10 years to integrate GM-Korea into the corporation. They have a design center as well as automotive production facilities. IIRC, GM-Korea provided a lot fo the design work for the Sonic. The Sonic is built in Michigan; just north of Detroit.