7th Mar 2011, 14:13

We were originally talking about the Chevrolet Aveo, otherwise known as the Daewoo Kalos. It has worse resale value than any Hyundai. You have to practically give these things away after you buy them, despite the Chevrolet badge.

GM's small cars have a history of poor resale value. The crude Cavalier/Sunfire shared the the same platform for 25 years. They also shared the same poor resale value problem. They held no better or worse equity than any Hyundai. Owners had to almost give them away, because people knew they were crude, outdated, and unpleasant, just like Consumer Reports said.

7th Mar 2011, 17:32

Lifted from Wikipedia:

"Kia's bankruptcy in 1997, part of the Asian financial crisis, resulted in 51% of the company being acquired in 1998 by South Korean rival Hyundai Motor Company"

Kia are pretty good at going bankrupt, or so it would seem..

You need to have a rethink of your history.. Daewoo didn't go bankrupt; they were bought out by GM in 2002, and GM didn't go bankrupt; they were supported by the US government... if either company went bankrupt, why are they still building cars?!

Like I said, as BMW driver, I'd go for a GM car every time over a Hyundai or Kia (And I expect most other BMW drivers would think along the same lines..)

But good luck with your Toyota and that future Hyundai or Kia you aspire to own??!!

7th Mar 2011, 22:31

I don't think Hyundai is trying to kid anybody. They're just trying to make more money. They recently replaced Nissan as the world's fifth largest automaker. People can dump on them, but many car manufacturers consider them real competition. Also, I don't know if Kia is raising their prices. Hyundai owns Kia, but Kia operates separately.

8th Mar 2011, 10:32

To those who call the Sunfire/Cavalier, crude, outdated and unpleasant. You must be making millions and drive a different car every day of the week: BMW, Ferrari, Lexus, etc, etc. Must be nice, since 70% of the world is poor and can't afford your high on the hog lifestyle. I have ridden in Cavaliers and Sunfire's a fair amount in my life, and found them to be fairly reliable and fun to drive, considering they are an econobox entry level car for the average American/Canadian out there... I own a Cobalt, which these Car Editors bad mouth as well (they can shove those opinions where the sun don't shine). It's an awesome car for the money, plan to keep it a long time...

8th Mar 2011, 10:52

The good news is that GM was smart enough to finally get rid of the Aveo. I drove one of these last year as a rental on a trip, and honestly it had to be without a doubt the poorest excuse for a car I've ever driven. Underpowered, anemic acceleration, a crummy interior, and just an overall cheapness. That's fine I suppose given the fact that it's a super low entry level car. The new Cruze GM put out is about 200 times better than the Aveo. For once, they finally are offering a pretty nice compact car.

8th Mar 2011, 12:12

"GM didn't go bankrupt; they were supported by the US government..."

Are you really going with that as to defend GM as not going bankrupt? Actually they did go through the bankruptcy process. They would be non-existent if the government hadn't bailed them out. Technically they went bankrupt, as you can't really count a government bailout as a true form of staying in the black. They are not able to stand on their own as a viable, profitable company. That much is fact. The government still owns a third of them, so they still are not standing on their own.

And as far as the sales outpacing the imports.... well I have been shopping a lot for cars lately, and every Chevy dealer I have gone to is empty with no one around. Typically I won't buy a GM product, but my cousin wanted to check out the Camaro, so we looked around for them. The salesman wanted us to go out for a ride just so he had something to do. His words, not mine.

I went to a Toyota dealer and a Honda dealer, and you hardly could even get a salesman to help you out, because there were so many customers there. In my area, I just don't see domestics outselling imports. I drive around, and the ratio is at least 3 to 1 in favor of imports on the roads here. This is the NYC tri-state area, so millions of people involved.

As far as building a good product? Well, not too much has changed in the past decade for GM, other than an overpriced hybrid and a couple of other small fuel efficient cars that are no different or better than the stuff Toyota and Honda have been building for decades. GM still focuses on large, truck based SUV's as their bread winners. We have another high gas priced summer coming, only this one will be worse than the 2008 spike. It will be a really good test to see just how much they have changed. They simply will not survive another crisis of people turning their backs on large vehicles if they have nothing to fall back on. Personally I don't think they have enough product to support this, but we'll see. I guess the government will just kick in some more bail out cash if they need it though, so what do they have to worry about? People seem to revel in rewarding failure in our country. GM would not exist if this weren't so.

8th Mar 2011, 17:24

They have plenty to fall back on. GM builds more 30mpg+ cars than Toyota or Honda. For the past three months, GM has outsold Toyota in the U.S. by almost 2 to 1. They are also making billions in profits. Read a newspaper instead of a Toyota brochure.

8th Mar 2011, 18:22

My history is VERY accurate. It's you that has to do some rethinking. I live in North America, Canada to be exact. Daewoo was in North America for a while. They had a dealer network, and were trying to establish themselves here. They failed and went bankrupt in North America. They left. It's history. I don't know what goes on overseas, but here Daewoo went bankrupt and failed. GM bought their operating facilities in South Korea and rebadged their cars with their Chevy bowtie.

Someone else already said this, but GM WENT BANKRUPT. They went through it, and filed for bankruptcy. Saturday night live even did a parody of their fatcat CEOs, who made billions, begging the U.S. to save their failed company. The government agreed because their complete shutdown would have hurt the already ailing U.S. economy. That's HISTORY! It was all over the news. Deny it if you want, but GM went bankrupt, and so did Daewoo in North America.

Also, it is Consumer Reports who used the crude, outdated, and unpleasant words, not me. I just repeated them, and happen to agree with them, because GM used the SAME platform for 25 years with the Sunfire/Cavalier. Consumer Reports was comparing the compact Cavalier against the Honda Civic, Corolla, and other compacts. I don't believe all people who choose, or chose a Civic, or Corolla over a Sunfire are rich bigwigs, who live high off the hog. The Corolla and Civic are considered economy cars along with the Cavalier/Sunfire. As for me, I drive a used Toyota Echo, and there is nothing fancy or hugely expensive about it. It is actually a subcompact, which is supposed to be underneath a compact like the Cobalt.