Merry Chevrolet and a Happy New Aveo
On Saturday we braved the horrific crowds of people (of which about 78% were complete and total morons) and got all of our Christmas shopping done in a single day. We hadn’t really done any shopping except for the online bit and wanted to take one trip to do it all. It worked out well — we were both braced for the grueling task that it was and we got it all finished except one person, which considering how many freaking gifts we have to buy for all our families and celebrations, that’s a feat.
Of course, we couldn’t simply buy $OMG in Christmas gifts, we had to buy a new car as well. This was actually somewhat planned — well, the car at least, the new part just happened to fit with the needs. My new job at Cambrex is a 40-mile drive each way. Because of this, I’m burning a fair whack of gas. At 24mpg on the Galant, and running only premium and higher, it was costing me about $50 every 4 days to drive to work. So, I wanted something that got great gas mileage and wouldn’t cost me too much in monthly payments.
I did some pre-research so I’d at least have an idea of the scope of the arena — Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Chevrolet Malibu, and the Chevrolet Aveo were at the top of the list of gas-sippin’ vehicles. We stopped first at our favorite car dealership in Waterloo, Rydell Chevrolet, and never really got any further. They had sold me my 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS back in Sept of ‘03 and they managed to sell me a 2008 Chevrolet Aveo LS.
It’s actually a Daewoo Kalos that’s been re-branded by Chevrolet to sell in the United States and other locations. Manufactured in South Korea, it is designed to be comfy yet efficient, a typical sentiment of most other countries that aren’t the United States. It sports a 1.6L inline 4-cylinder engine pumping out all of 103 horsies. The engine is so CUTE! You open up the hood and can’t help but go, “Aw…look at that!” Remember, folks, 1.6L is less than a 2L of soda — it’s got itty-bitty cylinders and eensy-weensy pistons in it, but still manages to hump out some decent power.
The big seller? It is 26 city, 34 highway for gas mileage, and the salesman says typical people get 35+, which will save me a TON of money in gas. (and it runs on 87 octane!) In addition, it has a 3 year/36,000 bumper-to-bumper and a 5 year/100,000 mile drivetrain warranty so it’s almost guaranteed to be reliable for a long time, and if it isn’t, I can get it fixed easily. I did order add-on cruise control, which gets installed on Wednesday (with the commute, it made sense to get) and the undercoat/rustproofing since it’s a thin chassis and I live in Iowa where they’re using some incredible chemicals to clear roads. I really hadn’t planned on buying a new car, but it worked out to be the same price as a used vehicle with the same efficiency, so it was a no-brainer.
It’s not zippy or very fun, but it runs and isn’t awful, so it’s perfect for a commute.
Enjoy, if you will, some pictures:
 Front View: How about that color!? |
 Rear View |
 Engine Compartment: A 1.6L I4 DOHC E-TEC II making 103 hp. Isn’t it CUTE? |
 Engine Side View: Mmm…throttle body. |
 Front of the Engine, Looking Down: Check out all the space available! I could fit another engine in there! |
 The Front Seats: Cloth covered, manual adjust. Not too shabby for comfort. |
 Rear Seats: Able to cart around 5 people if you don’t mind a little knee-squishing action. |
 Driver’s Side View: Clean, simple. |
 Instrument Panel: Tach, Speedometer, Temp, and Gas. The radio is AM/FM only, no CD, but it has an AUX jack for iPods and so forth, and I just bought a 2GB MP3 player, so I’ll be using that for tunes. |
 Trunk: Incredibly roomy considering the size of the car. I was shocked. |
 The 60/40 Split Rear Seat Folds Down: Both sides fold down to pass things through, which is a great thing. |
 View through Trunk with Rear Seats Folded: Ready for plywood, baby! |
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