Just Bought Brand New Car!

I got into my wife's Dodge Aries K car today. I couldn't take it anymore. The front brakes are shot. The AC hasn't worked in 3 years. The suspension is weak. It leaks gas when the tank is full. The stereo speakers are ripped. The heater core is starting to leak. It's rusting out inside the wheel wells. Plus it's unsafe for my kids because we can't properly secure the booster seats.
So I drove into the Chevy dealer and grabed the first salesperson I saw and said I wanted to lease a Cavalier with auto and air. An hour later it was all done. I ended up getting a light silver grey Cavalier VL sedan with automatic transmission, air conditioning and a CD player.
I got $200 bucks for the 88 Dodge Aries K. That paid for the CD player option. Everything is done. Even the insurance work is done.
I pick it up on Friday at 10am. I could pick it up earlier but I'm working.


<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

The car will go to a wholesaler who will probably sell it to a young college kid.
In Canada we don't get tax benifits like that.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

If I could buy a car for less than 1000$ CDN, and it was actually in great shape yet, I would quickly work to get one. Alas, most of them are clutchy pieces of metal. My friend's 1500$ Ford Probe had cost him prolly more for repairs than what IT cost! He added then a 300$ (I believe) Pioneer sound system. Loud and powerful as heck, though he claims he wants to step it a notch further!

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So did you buy it or lease it?

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

LOL, your Kingswood has gotta be some real deal I guess!
It's like your wife or something.

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I think GM makes a lot of their money on leases by selling the car after the lease, and accruing extra money through mileage limitations. They usually put a limit of 12,000 miles per year with 10 cents a mile after that. So, if someone leases a vehicle and ends up putting 60,000 miles after a 4 year lease, they owe an extra $1200. I think the main thing that would keep me from leasing a vehicle is the mileage limitations. I've put 51,000 on my truck in a little over 3 years.

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<font color=blue> "Trying is the first step towards failure." </font color=blue>

Here we can get reposessed stuff really cheap.

All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening.

BTW congrats on it.
The new Cavaliers have like, 140hp, and lots of good features for entry-level cars. Much better than before.

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It ain't pink or yellow, so enjoy it you f00l!

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I had a 1985 Cavalier that put out something like 120HP...bought it for $500, drove it for 4 years, the only part that failed was a coil which cost around $15 to replace.

Of course I had a tailpipe rust out, and had to do a couple brake jobs, but those are wear parts anyway and not part of the "reliability" equation. OH, and I put on a set of tires.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

Oh my, there is a long and frustrating history behind the American automobile reputation.

OK, from about the mid 1960's to around 1973, American cars were top notch, for quality, durability, and dependability. Starting in 1971 emissions regulations in California forced several changes, and these changes eventually became "federal" a couple years later. First thing was, leaded fuel had to go. Air pumps, which consumed as much as 15HP, were added to the exhaust to heat it up and make it consume polutants before they left the tailpipe. Old pelet type catalytic converters restricted the exhaust of big engines. And the loss of lead additives in gasoline dropped the octane rating of fuel, so manufacturers had to drop the compression on cars. Over the next few years, cars lost up to 1/2 their horsepower to emissions requirements.

While all that was happening, the fuel shortages hit (two of them). People wanted smaller cars because of high fuel prices, gas rationing, etc. It wasn't uncommon for people to wait 3 hours in line for a $30 tank of fuel, and minimum wage was around $20 a day! And then when you finally got near the pump, the station would be sold out!

Back then Japanese cars were not that good either, but they were smaller and got better fuel economy. Ford's attempt at a fuel efficient car, the Pinto, had problems with tank ruptures in accidents up until 1976 (older cars were recalled for refitments in 1978, but by then nobody wanted a pinto). GM decided to go super light, with the Vega, which had an aluminum engine with NO cast iron cylinder liners. GM engineers found that they could harden the aluminum bores with Silicon...but they didn't test them long enough to find out that these cylinders only lasted 12k miles!

You could still buy a big, well engineered American car, if you could afford it. Then the big recession hit!

Back then the UAW OWNED the automakers. Not literally, but figuratively. It was nearly impossible for American companies to set up incentives to weed out bad line workers and reward good ones. So the quality of cars declined, not because there was anything wrong with the designs (except for the Pinto and Vega), but because the workers were LAZY!

So the American market got flooded with foreign cars. In 1982 GM got electronic fuel injection back in full swing with the Corvette (they had experimented with it in 1976 on the Cadilac Eldorado). Brick type catalytic converters opened up the exhaust. Manufacuring plants in Mexico and Canada put pressure on the UAW to tighten up the workforce. By the mid 1980's, American cars were nearly as good as anything else. By the late 1980's, many american cars were superior to many foreign cars. The most reliable car on the road was the Buick LeSabre, a full sized car that got over 30MPG on the highway and made around 200HP from a 3.8L V6.

But by that time many people were on their 2nd or 3rd foreign car, and couldn't be convinced to change.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

First Crapalier I bought brand new (1999) the electrics gave out 2 days after I bought it.

Towed it back and traded up to a more pricey model (more extras).

Since then:

-onboard computer gave out
-rear strut mounts have been replaced 3 times and are currently broken again
-Front strut mounts have been replaced twice
-ignition coil failed
-fuel sensor failed
-radio failed
-speakers failed
-rear defroster burnt out
-Interstitial(sp) rod snapped, affecting steering
-Bearings seized in the front passenger side wheel.
-Some more stuff I'm forgetting.

And this is a well maintained car. Current milage is 100,000 KM.

Oh, and the first time you get an oil change you'll learn about crappy designing. The oil filter is right above the exhaust manifold, making it damn near impossible to change the oil yourself, they really made it inaccessable. When the filter is replaced oil drips onto the exhaust manifold. Then when you drive the car the oil burns and gets drawn into the cabin through the vents in your consol. Your car will smell like burning oil for a month afterwards, especially when you use the vents or heater.

I make my last payment in August, after that I'm trading in this lemon for a nice Civic or Corolla.

GM makes less than 1% profit on every Crapalier they sell. They don't put alot of money into it cause they know that they won't get alot out of it.

But as bad as it is I heard that it's sister model, the Pontiac Sunfire, is even worse.

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Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend.

Like I said, we had a Sunfire 2000 (got it in 1999) for 3 years, no probs whatsoever.

As with any manufacturing product, a black sheep will always be there. You just might've been unlucky.

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GST (Goods and Services Tax) is 7%.
PST (Provincial Sales Tax) is 8% in Ontario.
Then each car has a Fuel Tax. Minimum is $75 for 4 cylinder engine.
I think there is still an Air Conditioning tax which is $100.
Licence and Registration transfer fee is $20.

They still make a Z24 but the only difference is a sport tuned suspension with 15 or optional 16" wheels and a rear spoiler and an upgraded exterior trim package.
The engine is the same in all models.
The manual or automatic transmission have all the same gear ratio's and final drive ratio for all models.
Note that if you get the optional 15" or 16" wheels the tires installed on them have a lower diameter profile. So it doesn't matter if you have the base level 14" wheel or the optional 15" or 16" wheel the overall diameter of the wheel including tire is the same size on all models.

I don't want a Z24 because it would have a higher insurance rate and the performance improvement is negligable. And besides the car is for my wife to drive around with the kids.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

The 2003 model looks pretty good.
My wife is already complaining that it is too difficult to get the kids in and out of their booster seats.

I still can't get past thinking the Sunfire replaced the Sunbird as an economy sports car version of the original Firebird.
IIRC the Sunfire was originally a Saturn model.

<font color=red><i>Doctor Hooter</i></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.page3.com/" target="_new"><b>(·Y·)</b></A>

Damn, the passenger side front strut mount just gave out over the weekend. Why do I continue to replace them with authorized GM parts when I know that GM parts are defective?

Good luck with your new Cavilier! (You'll need it)

PS: The Sunfires use the same engine and the same chassis as the Cavilier, I just heard that they're noisier and don't handle as well.

Also I used to drive the new cars off the boat when they arrived in Newfoundland (an island) and over to the autocarriers. Pontiacs were the only brand new cars that ever gave us trouble. I don't know why since under the hood they should be nearly identical to GM's, but it was so. Even when brand new their engines would knock, the idle would race, etc. Not so the GM's.

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Knowan likes you. Knowan is your friend.