Hear that tearing sound? It’s Washington Post car critic Warren Brown’s last shred of credibility being ripped to pieces– by his own hand, no less. If there was a single pistonhead laboring under the [false] impression that Brown was anything other than a Detroit apologist, this review of the craptastic Chevy Aveo will tempt that person to cross over to the TTAC (i.e. dark) side. To wit: “Mediocrity done well honors the middle. The front-wheel-drive Aveo is done well.” Only the front cupholder sucks. So, in sum, “It no longer feels like a neglected child. But it doesn’t feel special. It’s okay, adequate. Therein rests the difference between going to market with a car that will enhance profits and one that will erode them. Consumers are willing to pay only so much for “adequate.” If asked to pay more, they’ll balk — or cross the retail industry’s River of Denial to buy something they deem worthy of a higher price.” Huh? What Warren’s trying to say: the Honda Fit murders Chevy’s Korean-built American revolutionary, but the Aveo’s cheaper. “And that, ironically, makes the Aveo a darned good deal. It’s a good car: reliable, serviceable and fuel-efficient. It’s not special. But it’s priced right.” Question: why is Warren comparing the Aveo5 to the Fit? [thanks to inept123 for the heads-up]
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On the photo…would people so lazy they’d drive an Aveo onto the pier really be in that good a shape? Just wondering.
I think the Aveo test drive reviews have now become the litmus test for automotive writers. I’ve been amazed at how many will painfully write around their real impressions not to offend GM on this car.
I’ll stick wit my mother’s review after she had to drive an Aveo “courtesy” car. She said she’d never been so please to get her car back from the shop. ‘Nuff said.
Yes, Warren Brown. What would it be like if he had a life-changing event that led him to take the risk of emulating Dan Neil? Do you think the folks who sign his paychecks would cheer him on? Or is Warren merely a reflection of what newspaper editors want?
I vote the latter. Warren has learned how to play the game. And if it wasn’t him, it would be some equally deep-thinking reporter.
In partial defense of Warren’s Aveo column, he did at least attempt to display some journalistic “balance” by comparing the Aveo with the Fit. The sales figures he cited say a great deal about how the quality of the Fit has trumped that of the Aveo’s. And while Warren was overly kind about the Aveo’s attributes, he did describe the car as mediocre — not a term GM would presumably quote in an ad. Warren is also probably correct that the Aveo will sell primarily on price given Honda dealer mark ups on the Fit.
Isn’t it ironic that the once mighty GM is so outmatched in the subcompact class that the Aveo’s continued viability could depend largely upon the arrogance of Honda and Toyota dealerships?
I do think that it’s fair to write a price-dependent review. In the real world, most people have to pay for what they drive, so the ability to buy an Aveo for a few large less than a Fit could be a real benefit to some.
What’s interesting, though, is that he never mentions the Hyundai Accent, even though it does compete more directly with the Aveo based upon price.
Mr. Brown implies that the Aveo is the only car of this sort in its price range, which is not the case. It’s almost like a classic shell game, using distractions to mislead the unknowing reader from drawing the appropriate comparisons.
Then again, I shouldn’t be so cynical. Perhaps he just limits his comparisons to the Versa and Fit because that’s what Chevy’s promotional website does, and he couldn’t be bothered to see whether those were the best comparisons.
I think Brown, while pussyfooting around, did in fact acknowledge that the Aveo is a far less compelling proposition than the Fit. It is important to note, however, that you can drive away from the Chevy dealership in a brand-new, nicely optioned Aveo for around $13,500 while the base Fit starts at $14,550. With the inevitable dealer markup, you’re looking at, easy, a $3-4,000 premium on getting the Fit vs. the Aveo for similar options packages, which at this low price point represents a 20-30% increase. No small potatoes.
Both cars will return similar fuel economy and good reliability, as almost all cars do in today’s market. The Aveo is definitely a value sale, and Brown goes into the fact that offering the cheapest car possible erodes profits and sends customers elsewhere. I think it is important to at least give GM some credit for producing a car that someone on a modest budget, someone who doesn’t have the extra $3,000 for a Fit and doesn’t care about driving dynamics, can afford. It isn’t the car for me, not by a long shot, but there are lots of people for whom an Aveo is a good buy. Sadly, this bottom-feeding eats away at Chevy’s reputation and there are also many people for whom the Aveo represents a good-bye from the Chevy dealership and into the moneymaking Fit.
Just look at how that Aveo fits on the bridge. With that marketing angle, GM’s going to own the rich, drunk U.S. senator market.
It is important to note, however, that you can drive away from the Chevy dealership in a brand-new, nicely optioned Aveo for around $13,500 while the base Fit starts at $14,550. With the inevitable dealer markup, you’re looking at, easy, a $3-4,000 premium on getting the Fit vs. the Aveo for similar options packages, which at this low price point represents a 20-30% increase. No small potatoes.
But as I noted above, that’s a bogus comparison, because there are other cars such as the Hyundai Accent that do compete with the Aveo on price.
Compared to a Porsche 911, a Mini Cooper S, and an Enzo Ferrari, the Aveo is also price competitive. But since those don’t even come close, the comparisons are obviously irrelevant.
Honda doesn’t need to compete on price because it offers a vastly superior product with a sterling reputation. In this class, it is the gold standard. Don’t compare a sack of lead to that, when there are other bags of cheap metal that offer a more appropriate match up.
I agree with those who use a little common sense to give the Aveo a small break. It’s cheap, it’s practical, it goes from A to B. Sure, I’d take a Fit over it, but I’d be paying more. For those many, many folks who just want a transportation pod the Aveo is just that. Yes, I’ve driven one and had absolutely no reward in doing so. However, it didn’t pain me a great deal either. There’s a market (and perhaps it’s getting larger) for such bottom feeders and despite the fact I know I’m a bit elitist about cars and car choices you’ve gotta see things from all sides. Sure, it would be a lot better if GM engineered a car and a price like this themselves and that the car was of Fit quality. However, it’s ain’t going to happen.
Nope, it’s not remotely comparable to the Fit in any way.
It is a direct competitor to the…
A) Hyundai Accent
B) Kia Rio
C) Toyota Yaris (base and lower end models)
All three are unexciting appliances and the Yaris is easily the best of the lot.
You can also throw in a Versa, Cobalt, and Focus whenever they are sold at a teaser low end price. If we were to enlarge the field that way I would recommend the Versa.
The Fit never needs to take part in the ‘discount’ game. I still think the Corolla and the Civic are pretty much it’s most direct competitors.
Yes, the best comparison is to the Yaris. I did a TrueDelta price comparison between the two cars last year, and lightly-optioned models were within $100 of each other.
If the Yaris holds up as reliably as the ECHO (highly likely), Yaris owners will see well over 200K trouble-free miles and high fuel economy and resale value. The Aveo — not so much. You DO get what you pay for.
I’d buy one if it was cheap enough. Cars like that you don’t want to drive 200,000 miles.
I have a 2000 Corolla I’m driving (wife brought it into the marriage) with 123,000 miles that we can easily afford to replace, but I see no reason to do so. Call it Midwestern values, Yankee frugality, or whatever.
Secretly, I kind of wish the engine would explode and burn the car to the ground, so then I could get a real car.
In the case of a car like this, the price is only half of it. The mpg is the other half. 34 mpg doesn’t even approach great. Where’s the XFE version?
The Cobalt XFE really needs to break 40 mpg for it to show up on more peoples radar.
People remember 50 mpg Geo Metro’s and expect this modern day Metro(Aveo) to get at least that or better. Over ten years later and they can’t match or beat it?
My Dad’s 1998 200,000 mile Diesel VW New Beetle gets 50 mpg. Ten year old vehicle(high miles too).
$12,000 for a 34 mpg Aveo? More then just Cocaine going around in the GM building.
Richard Pryor on cocaine could do just as good a job working at GM and getting paid millions for being there:
GM and its weird product choices. They already have a car that indeed can compete with a Fit (or Jazz as it is called here in Europe). That would be the Opel/Vauxhall/Holden/Chevrolet Corsa car and the Meriva minivan. Why they took the Aveo (a product for emerging markets like Russia) for the US is something to marvel about.
What makes this choice really dubious is that the Corsa is already sold global … well … except in the USA.
Production facilities in South America and Mexico are already installed as Wikipedia tells me. Now GM are you fearing a sales success or what is preventing you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Corsa
If the Corsa is being produced in Mexico, then it is already NAFTA’d. Either it doesn’t meet US specs or it is more expensive to produce than the South Korean Daewoo Kalos, aka Aveo.
I think only the old Corsa is produced in Mexico. Sold as the Chevy C2. The new Corsa would have the same issues as the Astra. Nice car, no profits.
The review was fair, I just think people can’t believe that the Aveo is OK. The 2009 is improved also. Different engine makes for better fuel economy and the interior is nicely finished.
The Accent isn’t quite competition because there is no 5 door.
The Kia Rio is a 5 door but there isn’t much of a difference between it and the Aveo.
The Chevy dealer is easier to get to.
The Aveo is nicer inside than the Yaris but the Yaris has a better rep for “reliability”
I thought the Aveo5 was the hatch that resembles the Fit. The picture is of an Aveo sedan.
As to the comparison aspect, the people who buy bottom-feeder cars like the Aveo, Cobalt, Focus, Caliber, Accent, and Rio (as opposed to the class leaders from Toyota, Honda, and Mazda) all fall into the category of, “Yeah, I know it sucks, but it’s what I could afford, it gets good gas mileage, and the dealer had them on the lot”.
Warren’s article makes the point that the Aveo (which I have driven and agree totally with his remarks – it’s medicore) is a good “value” because it is much less expensive than the Fit.
He might have used “Affordability” rather than “value”, since that seems to be what he was really talking about.
Ah, Warren Brown. The guy who slammed the first-gen DOHC Neon as underpowered when passing on the highway. This, at a time when nothing else in the market segment had more power.
Wrote to him, turns out he was using 4th as a passing gear instead of 3rd even though 3rd was perfectly positioned for such actions (rev-limiter around 72-75 mph or so). He insisted that nobody would ever use 3rd in a 5-speed car for passing.
The mind boggles.
Oh, as for the Fit vs Aveo comparison, every penny of the money saved up-front will be lost on resale.
taxman100 :
Secretly, I kind of wish the engine would explode and burn the car to the ground, so then I could get a real car.
I don’t think Toyotas have that option, but I heard some Fords have that as standard equipment.
rudiger :
As to the comparison aspect, the people who buy bottom-feeder cars like the Aveo, Cobalt, Focus, Caliber, Accent, and Rio (as opposed to the class leaders from Toyota, Honda, and Mazda) all fall into the category of, “Yeah, I know it sucks, but it’s what I could afford, it gets good gas mileage, and the dealer had them on the lot”.
I know a gal who purchased a new Cavalier a few years ago and told me the same thing vis-a-vis the Civic.
Bottom feeders white trash, uhmmm one has to marvel at the English language’s ability to afford in a few so short key strokes so damning words. Sorry, that’s what struck me from your comments. I bet though, that the car, in and of itself, aquits itself with some grace as the transport of not so financially privigeid company.
Anyhow…
Can’ t comment on the journalist, but me does think car is receiving some undo heavy bs.
Picture amended. Text amended to highlight invidious (i.e straw dog) comparison.
The Aveo, along with the Rio etc., fall under the basic transportation category. My mother had a Chevette in the late 70s, and after my brother totaled that, a 1979 Ford Fiesta. Why? Because we were POOR, that’s why. She worked at a textile factory, you know, when there were some in the US before they all went to Mexico/Asia.
We would like to have afforded a nicer car, but on her salary, we couldn’t. We needed something to get us to school and work cheaply and reliably. The monthly payment had to be as little as possible as we lived on the edge, due to the fact that my father chose to drink rather than work and help support us. This is what the Aveo and comparable models do. BTW I have a coworker with a long commute that can afford a nicer car but chose an Aveo and seems to like it.
I have never driven an Aveo as I have a Civic, but I think the “basic transportation” label might apply here.
As someone mentioned earlier, I’m baffled by the low EPA rating on the Aveo. How can a ~2500 lb car with a 1.6L have mileage ratings of 23/32 and 24/34 (auto and 5 speed, respectively)? My wife drives a Versa hatch, and it’s rated at 27/33 with the CVT. It’s also about 200 lbs heavier and over 1 second quicker to 60 mph than the Aveo.
I know the EPA rating is somewhat of a conservative estimate, as I’ve been able to exceed the rating of every car I’ve owned, but 23-24 (city) seems lousy for an ‘economy car’. Given the goodies available on competing models that you can’t have with the Aveo, its ‘penaly box’ drive quality, terrible resale, and greater fuel economy with more refined engines on said competition, the ‘savings’ don’t seem worth it at all.
For anyone wanting an economical car on the cheap, I’d recommend a used Civic or Corolla over this thing. You could get one cheaper and get better gas mileage. It might last longer, too.
The used civic/corolla doesn’t appeal to average buyers. They feel it’s a better deal to buy themselves a brand new car (complete with smell), then get some used vehicle. Depending on how shady you local used car lot is you can get all sorts of fun things from them, which they feel a new car should avoid.
Warren quotes EPA gas mileage of 27 mpg city and 34 mpg highway which is below that of many larger compact cars which offer more powerful engines and better performance, as well as better gas mileage. Actual road tests of the Chevrolet Aveo usually report gas mileage in the are of 23 mpg.
Warren Warren Brown writes: “It is not at the top of the subcompact class. Nor is it at the bottom.”
Warren is WRONG.
The Chevrolet Aveo is at the bottom of the subcompact class.
No less than the final arbitor of all things automotive, “Consumer Reports” ranks the car at the very bottom of its rankings. Below the Hyundai Accent, Kia Rio and Toyota Yaris. Below the Suzuki Forenza, Dodge Caliber and Chevrolet Cobalt. And quite a bit below the Honda Fit and the Nissan.
The only vehicles that CR rates worse are a handful of SUVs which can at least boast that they offer excellent off-road ability to compensate for their poor on-road performance.
Among new cars currently available for sale in the U.S. the Chevrolet Aveo is the very bottom of the automotive barrel.
Diewaldo :
GM and its weird product choices. They already have a car that indeed can compete with a Fit (or Jazz as it is called here in Europe). That would be the Opel/Vauxhall/Holden/Chevrolet Corsa car and the Meriva minivan. Why they took the Aveo (a product for emerging markets like Russia) for the US is something to marvel about.
What makes this choice really dubious is that the Corsa is already sold global … well … except in the USA.
Production facilities in South America and Mexico are already installed as Wikipedia tells me. Now GM are you fearing a sales success or what is preventing you?
Well that’s actually not accurate.
The Aveo is sold everywhere in the world. Australia got it in replacement of the 3rd gen (I guess) Corsa.
And many countries that had the Corsa… lost it for the Aveo.
Most latin america has it. Exceptions Brazil and Argentina, that still get the previous gen (not the current european one) Corsa. Brazil used the 2nd gen platform to make the Celta/Suzuki Fun.
That platform was quite succesful. Why GM didn’t continue to sell the Corsa everywhere blows my mind. However, since they bought Daewoo, and the model was kinda “there”, it made sense to sell it everywhere and recover the investment.
And the car is not THAT crappy. You write about it like it’s the end of the world.
Want to see something real shitty, get the Geely Aveo knockoff.
One last thing: Why we “emerging markets” (which is a bullshit PC term to name the third world) deserve crappy cars and you first world the nice ones?
That platform was quite succesful. Why GM didn’t continue to sell the Corsa everywhere blows my mind
Because the Kalos is cheaper to make. GM is letting its North American view of cars infect it’s other markets, and this is bad, because while it’s partially true that small cars in North America are hairshirts, it’s less so in the rest of the world.
GM sees the market in two segments, the very well-off, and the penny-pinching. From their perspective, there’s no middle ground. This will pose a real problem for them, when buyers who actually want a nice car but can’t afford a Cadillac (or Opel, the way GM is trying to push them) outright reject the second-rate cars GM is cranking out of GMDAT.
Even now, with their product-planning myopia killing them and their mistakes laid bare, they still hate building decent, low-margin cars.
psarhjinian: “GM sees the market in two segments, the very well-off, and the penny-pinching. From their perspective, there’s no middle ground.”This explains succinctly why the Aveo5 is at the very bottom rung of the automotive ladder and is such an unmitigated POS. GM designs their ‘penny-pinchers’ to appeal to those who must have the absolutely lowest-price vehicle possible, regardless of how poor the vehicle or how bad the purchase might really be in the long run financially.
Ironically, all of the Aveo5’s sins could be forgiven if GM (or Daewoo, however you want to look at it) would just engineer in the one feature of the Fit that catapults it to the top of the order – the ‘magic’ disappearing rear seat. Although it would be difficult since it requires relocating the gas tank underneath the driver’s seat, if GM would just copy the design feature of the Fit onto the Aveo5 which allows the rear seat to fold completely flat and give what seems like an unbelievable amount of cargo space for such a small vehicle, the Aveo5 would be worth every penny GM asks for it.
Likewise, this is the one unforgiveable aspect of the Nissan Versa. Although the rear seatbacks fold forward, unlike even the cheap-ass Aveo5, the Versa’s seats do not flip, making for a two-tiered storage area. The Versa might makes up for this gross failing somewhat in other areas, but for my money, the Versa is damn near as bad as the Aveo5 because of this one point, alone.
To some, the way the rear seat folds might not seem like that big of an issue. But to me, for this market-segment, a poorly designed folding rear seat is a deal-killer.
Thanks to the beauty sleep that “refreshed” the Aveo, it now looks like a dog wearing a muzzle from the front.
This Aveo is a different car than the one tested by Consumer Reports. It’s been improved.
psarjhinian- your comment is completely incorrect. If what you say is true than explain all of the GM midsizes and mid level cars that have existed in history. The Aveo is actually a rare foray into the low end by GM. Maybe only the Chevette and Sprint/Metro were the others.
psarjhinian- your comment is completely incorrect. If what you say is true than explain all of the GM midsizes and mid level cars that have existed in history.
Red herring.
Since about 1975 and excepting the current Malibu, nothing GM has made that’s less expensive than the CTS has been class-competitive. And prior to 1975, what constituted a “midsize car” really wasn’t one, it was huge even by modern standards.
Name one, just one, GM entry-level car that was decent. If we go as far back as the first compacts, Ford (the Falcon) and Chrysler (the Valiant) were better cars in a holistic sense, largely because GM had no interest in solid, mundane transportation. Either they had to sex it up with unproven technology (the Corvair and Vega) and/or they just wouldn’t even bother to try (Citation, Cavalier) because no one at GM HQ was interested. It’s been said, repeatedly, by GM insiders that trying to push a good small car was career suicide.
The Aveo, and the Daewooification of GM’s small- and medium-car operations worldwide is evidence that they still think this way. I’m expecting that their moves in Europe (porting Cadillac, dragging Opel upmarket, bringing in Chevy as a bottom-feeder) will kill GM-E by 2015.
psarhjinian: “Name one, just one, GM entry-level car that was decent.”Shoebox (1955-1957) Chevrolet 150 Utility Sedans were probably as good as (if not better than) the equivalent models from Ford or Chrysler at the time. Those old 150s were some real strippos with no standard ‘luxuries’ like a rear seat and roll-down rear quarter windows (2-door only), rear view mirrors, ashtray, cigarette lighter, heater, defroster, back-up lights, or even a passenger-side visor. Now that’s a basic car.
But it was probably the last halfway decent entry level vehicle from GM.
For many years it made sense that GM produced mediocre small economy cars. GM not only was by far the biggest producer in the US, but it generally had a lock on all of the higher-profit market segments.
The Cadillac vastly outsold Lincoln and Imperial; Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile utterly demolished Ford and Chrysler’s repeated attempts to make inroads in the premium-priced market. For years the Impala/Caprice steadily outsold Ford’s big cars, and once the mid-sized field took off in the mid-60s GM swamped the competition with its more varied offerings.
As a result, Ford and Chrysler depended much more heavily upon economy car sales. Not surprisingly, they got good at creating class-competitive products that made a small but reliable profit.
Not sure I entirely agree with psarhjinian’s claim that GM hasn’t produced much of anything class competitive since about 1975; my sense is that the decline was gradual and varied by market class. But it is clear that GM now needs a fundamentally different game plan. With the collapse in truck/SUV sales and the import takeover of higher-profit passenger car segments, GM desperately needs to learn how to compete in the low end of the market. Not sure you can teach on old dog new tricks.
What grinds my gears is that Warren Brown executes a classic “bait-and-switch” in discussing Aveo5 pricing. Using TrueDelta’s pricing information, I see that the base price (excluding a destination charge of $660) of the Aveo5 LS 4-door hatch with 5-speed manual transmission (all following prices and comparisons are for vehicles with manual trannys) is indeed under $12,000 ($11,460). I hope the buyer considers air conditioning to be useless frippery….
Meanwhile, the vehicle Mr. Brown reviewed is the Aveo5 2LT. Looking at TrueDelta’s pricing (which takes into account the “Employee Pricing for Everyone” promo), we see that the 2LT package is an add-on to the Aveo5 LT model. It turns out that the Aveo5 LT’s base price is $13,595 before destination charge, and the 2LT Equipment Group adds another $1,265 to the bill. This brings us to a grand total of $14,860 (again, plus that $660 destination charge). The $15,000 price point provides us quite a few vehicles from which to choose (including the 2009 Suzuki SX4 hatchback Crossover with navigation system and AWD, at a base price of no more than $15,829).
Re entry level Chebbies. wabboutthe ChevyII, AKA Nova?
Being in the UK, I didn’t realise that the US Aveo is the same as the UK Kalos. My gf had the misfortune to drive the Chevy Kalos as a rental for a day. I went in it as a passenger, and it was perhaps the most sh!t itchingly horrible 5 minute journey of my life. What a penurious little plasticfantastic POS. The gf, not a car person per se, didn’t recognise the Chevrolet name at all, nevermind the “Kalos” badge.
what rtz said sums it up for me… The Geo always sucked for quality, but at 50 mpg no one really cared–and now Geos are demanding a premium on the used car market (I’d LOVE one personally.)
Goes to show how far we haven’t come… Cars have gotten heavier and heavier yet the engine technology hasn’t caught up well enough to give us that kind of economy. In fact I think that’d be the main reason for ANY of the new economy cars not selling as well as they could–why bother spend $15k on a new car that gets 34 mpg highway when you can buy a 15 year old economy car for $3000 that gets 45-50 mpg?
Mk2 Jetta, Mk2 Diesel Golf, or Geo Metro, here I come!