Hmmm…I guess that I would define, “briskly”, as…more than moderate acceleration, and less than full acceleration.
I too have had underpowered economy cars in the past, but the only one that had no perceptible change (other than a louder noise) when I accelerated was a 1960 Falcon. Talk about gutless!
As far as break-in is concerned, I wouldn’t worry about it. If you insist on worrying about it, I just wouldn’t use the cruise control in the first 1,000 miles.
What you notice about the true economy car is; when you step hard on the accelerator of one with an auto, enough to down shift, it first, slows down ! I can imagine a Falcon with a three speed auto that when down shift, would go to an rpm, well beyound the power band of it’s motor…gutless in spades ! My Desoto with a two speed would fall into that Catagory too, but certainly not because it was an econo car. It was just poor.
Ah, the old days. It’s ironic to me that the Falcon the platform for the original Mustang.
" I can imagine a Falcon with a three speed auto that when down shift, would go to an rpm, well beyound the power band of it’s motor.". @dagosa–It was even worse than that. The original 1960 Ford Falcon had a 2 speed automatic transmission with a 144 cubic inch 6 cylinder engine that produced about 80 horsepower. You mentioned the DeSoto–the DeSoto with the tiptoe shift had two speeds in the normal driving range. You accelerated to 15 or 20 mph, released the accelerated, listened for a clunk that indicated the transmission was in top gear and then depressed the accelerator. You could force a downshift below 45 mph, but that usually slowed the car down.
I bought a 2006 Aveo used with 34K miles.
Maybe got it cheap due to oil leak, but it was only a poorly seated valve cover gasket
which was actually fixed by the dealer under warranty.
Now at 66K and only problem was replacing a front wheel bearing assembly around 42K.
I wasn’t happy about that, but since that was only big maintenance expense I still like the car.
Being a heavy guy with short legs and long torso, many cars are hard to fit.
Lot’s of head, knee, and hip room in the Aveo (front).
Sounds like you may be rough, pushing the limits; you probably should stay away from the cheap end of the dealer selections.
My favorite suggestion was the one to drive it in the river and walk away. The only downside is the large fine from the EPA. But, that would feel great!
Before we had Home Security, blowing the thing up would be a pleasant trick.
And, at one time, people would take old cars like that to a public place and let people swing a sledge hammer at it for a dollar a whack.
But. yes, he got 90,000 miles. It could have been much worse.
I bought an 2009 Aveo 2 1/2 yrs ago, with 28,000 miles on it. It now has 54,000 on it an the only major thing that has happened to it is the ignition coil went out out last year. Other than regular maintenance (oil changes, tires, brakes, etc.) I have had no issues with it. It is a perfect height for mom and her getting in and out of it from her wheelchair. It is actually quite comfortable IMHO.
@cherylsteele, just to let you know how cheaply built this car is, they use plastic pulleys on the tensioner and idle bearings of the timing belt of an interference fit engine. I worked on one that had the idler pulley grenade, kicking off the belt at highway speed. We found enough of the pulley pieces under the timing cover to rebuild it with many layers of duct tape in order to reset the belt and check compression. Zero compression on all four cylinders. The car went to the junk yard.
You folks understand that you’re posting to a discussion that died last Feb?
A failed ignition coil on a car with only 54,000 miles is something that shouldn’t happen on a modern car. @cherylsteele, you’ve owned this car for roughly 26,000 miles, and you’ve experienced a part failure that shouldn’t happen before at least 80,000 or 100,000 miles. Modern cars should make it to the 200,000 mile mark before anything major breaks. Imagine what else is going to fail if you keep this car for another 146,000 miles.