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I've bought several vehicles out of rental fleets. They've all been gems. The reason Cavaliers (and a lot of other rental and fleet GM, Chrysler, and Ford vehicles) didn't last in fleets and sold cheap was because they were junk to begin with. The fleet vehicles that I bought were ones where the make and model had a good repair ratings from Consumer Reports, J. D. Powers, etc. They served me very well. One particular vehicle that I bought out of a corporate lease fleet had 85K miles on it--and was in almost-new condition. It's at way over 100K miles now with no issues.
People looking at buying a used vehicle usually look at the decision bass-ackwards. They look at how many miles the vehicle has been driven instead of focusing on its remaining service life. I would consider the Cavalier as a 100K mile car, tops. So, one with 70K miles on it has only 30% of its service life left. A reliable vehicle like many of the Toyota models, for example, I consider to be a 200K mile car, at least. So, a Toyota Camry, for example, with 70K miles still has 65% of its service life remaining. At twice the price of the Cavalier, it would still be a better bargain.
I can accept most of this. But to say a car's life span is 100,000 miles, or 200,000 miles is flawed. Any car can be reliable for a very very long time, and any car can be a total piece of crap. The owner of the car/past maintenance is the missing factor.
I'm not per say defending cavaliers, I am not a fan honestly..But for a car you can get cheap, with low miles, that gets good mpg, and will be reliable as long as you take care of it, I still argue that they are a good option.
Just for reference, I bought our 04 with 65k miles on it, and sold it with over 150k on it, and it was still running/driving great. Only issue really was the drivers seat side bolster was worn out.
Take care of your car, and it will take care of you..Goes for just about any vehicles out there.
I have a 05 cavilier. I personally loved that car. I sold it to my son this past summer. I have had nothing major go wrong with it. I have had to do some maintence on it. The power window motors went out one by one. My husband replaced them as needed the motors were about $50. a piece. The spark plugs quit working right at 100,000 miles, the passenger side windshield wiper motor quit working. I have no idea what that cost to fix as my son has not done that yet. The o2 sensors need replaced the cost of the sensors was $200 for the part. The only other thing that needed fixed was the fuel pump went out. Again my husband fixed it so it wasn't a huge hit for us. Now all that being said. The car has 200,000 miles.
I actually miss that car. You will always have people trying to bash you for wanting or needing a cheap car. Pick what you want and try to keep an objective head when asking people on the internet. For some reason many people think we all have a ton of money to spend on a car.
I have a 05 cavilier. I personally loved that car. I sold it to my son this past summer. I have had nothing major go wrong with it. I have had to do some maintence on it. The power window motors went out one by one. My husband replaced them as needed the motors were about $50. a piece. The spark plugs quit working right at 100,000 miles, the passenger side windshield wiper motor quit working. I have no idea what that cost to fix as my son has not done that yet. The o2 sensors need replaced the cost of the sensors was $200 for the part. The only other thing that needed fixed was the fuel pump went out. Again my husband fixed it so it wasn't a huge hit for us. Now all that being said. The car has 200,000 miles.
I actually miss that car. You will always have people trying to bash you for wanting or needing a cheap car. Pick what you want and try to keep an objective head when asking people on the internet. For some reason many people think we all have a ton of money to spend on a car.
Quite honestly you had way more go wrong than the majority of Cavalier owners do at that mileage. The '84 I mentioned had power windows that worked until the day the car finally died.
Hard to compare an 84 to an 05. 90s/Early 2000s GM window motors are notoriously garbage. Spark plugs are routine. 02 sensors are routine after certain mileage. 90s/Early 2000s GM fuel pumps also seem to be a weak link. I've owned a ton of GM vehicles, and always fill up when I get down to a 1/4 tank to prevent the fuel pumps from burning up. Although the burning up fuel pumps seemed to be more an issue in the hot desert, than it does in up in the NW. I haven't had any fuel pump issues that I can think of up here in the NW. (Knocks on wood)
I owned six of the last generation of Cavaliers, back when I was driving 40k miles per year on business. (Also wanted to manufacture used cares for my kids as they came of age.) I bought them all new, we ran them and ran them: 150,000 to 200,000 miles. (One got totaled at six weeks by my 16 year old, he and a friend walked away from a rollover crash.) Never spent a nickel outside of regular maintenance on them, no major breakdowns.
They were snow bunnies, antilock breaks and ABS standard, many other cars in their class lacked those things. My 30 year old son is still driving his Cavalier that I gave him 12 years ago, 140k and counting, no rust showing. My wife was driving one that we traded in on a bigger car in 2006, the lady that bought it from the dealer is still driving it and loving it.
Maybe the Cav is a POS car, but we got great value from them. I don't put those kind of miles on anymore, so we're driving nicer stuff--the Cavs really fit the bill for us for a long time.
Not a safe car in IIHS crash test ratings. If you care about good/great safety ratings run far way.
To be fair......I have had dozens of cars, wrecked a few and never had one "totaled" yet! Crash test ratings are great if you wreck the car but if you are lucky you never get to test those ratings!
Anything built today is safer than cars of years past so keep things in perspective:
I knew someone who had a 1991 4 door cavalier. This car is ugly and very uncomfotable but is pretty solid. The engine is a 2.2 with a 5 spd manual. Push Rod 4 cyl that sounds like a tractor but it has over 250,000 miles on the clock and still gets him from point A-B. Nothing inside electrical works now, but the car starts and runs and doesn't leave him stranded.
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