![]() As soon as the highway leveled off, I put the car in neutral to give the engine a brake until we reached the next gas station, but as soon as it hit neutral the car shut off and was coasting. The engine temp was reading hot though, but no lights were on, suddenly we were going up a slight incline but the car would not go faster, in-fact it was actually slowing down and it would no longer switch to a higher gear. Just a couple minutes later it did it spit and/or sputtered 2 more times, still no light indicators had come on and I looked down at the gauges I had 6/8ths tank of gas, almost full. I thought maybe I had gotten some bad gas because it only did it about 3 times and it was ok, there were no lights on indicating anything was wrong. Not even 10 min later, back on the highway, the car sort of spit and/or sputtered. I stopped at mcdonald s to feed the 3 kids, I was there for 35 min with the car off. I’ll leave it to you all which one is the better choice.I was driving on the highway on my way home from 3 hours away, and I was about an hour and 30 min from home. There isn’t a whole lot to recommend either of these beyond having manual gearboxes, but if you don’t want a Corolla that has been to the moon, or a Civic that has been attacked by a Pep Boys accessories aisle, something basic and Korean might just do the trick. The aftermarket alloy wheels are a nice touch. It does have a lot of miles, but I have heard that these follow the grand GM tradition of running like crap forever. A few dings and scrapes tell a tale of parking lots past, but the paint looks decent. ![]() This Aveo looks all right, but there are some disturbing-looking stains on the door panels. But the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. On paper, and in photos, it looks like it should have the right stuff: it’s tiny, has a twin-cam engine and a five-speed stick, and it doesn’t look half bad. I’ve never owned one, but I have test-driven a couple of them, and honestly barely remember a thing about them. It’s not a bad little car, exactly it’s just not good. Back in 2006, when General Motors was launching the Opel/Vauxhall Corsa D in Europe and the UK – a delightful little car I drove one from London to Edinburgh and back in 2012 – they saw fit to instead saddle the American market with a study in mediocrity called the Aveo. We rarely get the good stuff, and when we do, it doesn’t stick around long witness Ford’s withdrawal of both the Fiesta and the Focus from the US market. The failure of small hatchbacks in America seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. This car probably wasn’t worth ten or eleven grand when it was new, to be honest. And as always, less stuff is less stuff to go wrong. One can’t help but wonder how much sweat is soaked into that cheap upholstery.īut it looks like it has been well cared-for, and the seller says it runs and drives well, and the registration is current, which is always a good sign. To drive a black car without air conditioning in Modesto for 150,000 miles just to save a few bucks speaks of an automotive asceticism bordering on self-loathing. ![]() Even in 2008, this would have been the plainest of plain-Jane cars, appealing only to the the most frugal of car shoppers. This second-generation Rio is a true “poverty spec” machine: no air conditioning, no power features, nothing but an engine, some seats, and an aftermarket radio. The brand already sold the Sephia (that’s the Spectra in the U.S.), a small cheap car, and then decided to import the Rio, an even smaller, cheaper car. The existence of the Kia Rio in the U.S market always puzzled me. 2008 Kia Rio – $2,200Įngine/drivetrain: 1.6 liter inline 4, 5 speed manual, FWD So let’s see if we can take some of the penalty out of the boxes by adding some proper transmissions to the mix. I own three cars, and they’re all manuals, but I can’t guarantee the next one won’t be an automatic.īut then, it won’t be an economy car either, probably. But while David is still young enough to crawl around under cars in junkyards and then hop in a manual truck and drive home without feeling like he’s been worked over by a Vegas bouncer, I’m old enough to be his… um… cool uncle, and I have the arthritis and stiff knees to prove it. Small cars especially should have manual transmissions. Now first, let me say that I am in absolute agreement with David (and half the commenters). And an R and an N and a D and so on, which I guess was the problem. Looks like the Plymouth Neon is the winner. But first let’s see which slushbox you hated less: Okay, okay! Since David raised such a stink about both of yesterday’s cars being automatics, today we’re looking at a pair of cars from the same basic class, only with three pedals each.
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