Faults:
ABS problem at 10k miles which was a dodgy sensor. They fixed that under warranty but they did have a couple of goes at it. It's fine now.
A drive shaft snapped at 25k miles leaving me stranded on the motorway at 3am on January 1st 2000. You can imagine my attempts at getting the AA out. I was not a happy bunny. Again, fixed under the warranty and seems fine now.
I've had to replace the front wheels due to vibration though I suspect that says more about the state of London's road than about the car.
The last 35K miles have been fine (I do approx 35k miles/year). I'm basically going to wear it to death.
General Comments:
Comfy.
Is happy at 90 on the motorway, accelerates acceptably, absolute top speed is 115mph so it's not a high performance car - doesn't pretend to be though.
It starts getting thirsty at about 80 but is fine below that. I average 33mpg but you can get more out of it if you're more careful.
The suspension is a bit soft and it rolls a bit round corners compared to most European setups. The air conditioning is a boon here in summer. The boot is fantastic, you could get a couple of bodies in there.
The engine does get a little warm in traffic but it doesn't seem to affect it much.
27th May 2003, 06:42
Hello I'm Robert from The Netherlands.
I bought a 1996 Espero 2.0 CD early this year Jan 2003.
Since then I to have ABS problems.
After breaking three times, or going faster then 20mph the ABS lights comes on.
The Daewoo garage said first there was one left front ABS sensor failure.
They replaced that item, so I drove of... and again the ABS light comes on.
So back again and now they replaced the right front sensor.
And I'm of again... and back because the ABS light comes on again.
Know they said there is a "missing link" so it must be a electrical cable failure somewhere.
They also made a remark that they had another Espero in the garage were the engine had failed. So if I wanted and it would be better they said... I could put my engine from my Espero in that car and I wouldn't have a ABS problem no more because the other Engine defective Espero had no ABS option.
That remark took the last... good reservations I had about this Deawoo Garage away. I phoned around with Daewoo Dealers and Explained everything. I know are getting a second opinion at a other Daewoo affiliated garage.
So I hope they can fixed it quickly.. because I was 4 months busy with my other garage who seem not to be able to repair this problem.
For the rest the car drives good, has lots of room for 4/5 passengers, has lots of trunk space (don't buy a tv set it wouldn't fit because it ain't a hatchback!) and the car hasn't given any other problems then the ABS problem.
It ain't a fast car, but then again I didn't buy it for that purpose. It has a large engine 2.0 liters so if you keep the RPM needle at 3000 rpms, by using all the gears 1 to 5 then it gets reasonable mileage.