Buyer’s remorse is setting in for many of this year’s sudden converts to the gospel of fuel efficiency– if Jonathan Welsh of The Wall Street Journal is to be believed. Of course, some of that might have to do with buyers’ choices. “Fran MacDonald got better fuel economy and maneuverability in traffic when she downsized from her Buick sedan to a tiny Chevrolet Aveo. But the small car was noisier and didn’t ride as smoothly. And then there were the hand-crank windows. ‘I was driving with my mother, and she asked me to put the window down,’ Ms. McDonald says. ‘When I told her she’d have to do it herself, she said, ‘Well, I don’t see a button.’” Once again, a craptastic GM vehicle disappoints and discourages. Fran obviously did zero research before making her purchase. Has there been ANY source which doesn’t rate the Aveo the class dunce? Another unhappy camper is ex-Chevy Suburban owner Blake Schomas, who went for a slightly more efficient Chrysler Pacifica– only to discover that their family of four (plus a friend or two) means no room for luggage. Kind of hard to take the gang on a skiing adventure that way. Others like Rebecca Lindland ditched her Chevy Trailblazer for a MINI, only to discover it was way too small for her tastes. Tacking back the other way, she traded the MINI on a BMW X3. Mr. Schomas, on the other hand, is probably stuck with that Pacifica for a long time. The moral of the story? Darwin wasn’t kidding.
91 Comments on “Caveat Emptor: Small-Car Buyers’ Big Regrets...”
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So there’s hope yet for GM’s full size SUVs!
…Or not.
I bought a Fit during the height of the gas spike. Don’t regret it at all. Functional, low cost of ownership, and I’ve yet to have a situation where it didn’t fit my needs.
Now, if I had panicked and bought a Smartcar, I’d probably be kicking myself right now.
Who ditches a trailblazer for a MINI and doesnt go for a test drive to realize its a 4-seater in name only. And a buick sedan into an avero? Of course the ride is different. These complaints obviously show a lack of a proper test drive and due dilligence on the buyers part.
No sympathy from me.
So you downgrade to a pacifica and have no room for luggage the one or two times a year when you have 6 people in it. Um, ever heard of a roof rack? USE IT.
How do people too stupid to research new car purchases and solutions to make a smaller car fit their lifestyle expect us to feel sorry for them?
People can’t have their cake and eat it too? It’s not fair!
Chowderheads.
Geeze, the WSJ must be really hard up for material to write about! Seems old school concepts like common sense are no longer a requirement to be the high powered execs that they write about in the article. But then I guess if I had more money than brains, I would be reading the WSJ for car advice too…
And once again, they perpetrate the myth SUVs are somehow safer in the winter because they feel more “substantial”. I wonder how they explain all the smashed up SUVs that magically appear after every snow storm.
To quote Forest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.
Don’t blame it on small cars. I blame it on the buyers not making rational choices which match their lifestyle and desired features in a vehicle. If your only encounter with small cars is an Aveo, you’ll get a bad taste for them.
My 05 xB is a feature-rich car with loads of interior room, but it still won’t take my family of 7 on vacation. That’s why I also have a minivan.
Maybe these buyers should get a bailout as victims of ‘predatory’ selling of mediocre small cars….
@thickbrick
SWMBO and I have a method when buying a new car, I get into the drivers seat,
adjust it to be comfy, she then gets in behind me. If she fits, we consider it…
SteveL
Well if you buy an Aveo – of course it’s a major downgrade from about any other vehicle (well aside from a Yugo or Metro). The lady did something stupid – sold a cushy geriatric comfort cruiser for a Korean economy car that just had a GM badge on it. No sympathy from me for not doing your homework and test driving the Aveos competition or even seeing if she could move up to a compact 4 cyl car.
Reminds me of a neighbour. Family of four. The mom decided that that necessitated something ‘bigger’. She went out and purchased a, wait for it, Durango. Then she started using it to go shopping and dropping the kids off and, dun, dun, DUN!, discovered the mileage was appalling. Within months she was back at the dealer, giving them hell for the vehicles mileage and trying to wheedle her way out of the lease.
Some people do virtually no research before purchasing. As in none.
The first and foremost concern for any car purchase should be can you afford it. If you want and or and need a Tahoe, but cannot afford to refuel it if gas prices go higher, better reconsider your wants and needs.
If you couldnt afford to refuel it, you made the right choice dumping it for the smaller car, even if you dont like it.
So they failed to think through what they needed and wanted from their vehicles, and decide which were the priority. Then they rushed into purchasing a vehicle before making sure it met their needs and now they regret it. No sympathy here.
Also the amount of BS in that article is incredible. Small cars only have a few inches of ground clearance and are therefore likely to get stuck in snow? Wrong, sports cars maybe but small cars are probably on par with larger cars for ground clearance.
The lady with the the Aveo seems to only now be grasping that if you buy a cheap small car you get a cheap small car. And apparently her mom is incapable of remembering most of her life when manual-crank windows were the norm. Also “I miss the CD player”? Go to Best Buy, spend about $100 on a CD player and installation and you’re done.
The guy with the Pacifica apparently has kids either too special (or too fat) to allow the kid’s friend to sit in the middle of the back seat, freeing up the cargo area.
On that front the guy with the ‘74 Imperial comments that it probably “wasn’t legal” for six people to ride in a car with front & rear bench seats. What? That car was designed to seat six, in fact until recently most cars had front bench seats for specifically that reason.
I bought an ‘04 xB just before the gas crisis hit. Yes it is smaller than my old Outback, and has less power, and doesn’t have AWD, and doesn’t have heated seats, and doesn’t have a roof rack. But since I researched what I wanted in cars and chose carefully I don’t regret it for a moment. Though if I could fit it with heated seats I would.
I’ve always liked small cars, and therefore I’ve never regretted buying one. Problem solved!
A far better strategy for those who can afford it and handle the logistics is a personal fleet.
Mine for instance is:
econobox (really only used when gas > $2/gal)
4wd truck (winter / hauling)
mid lux sedan (normal driving & trips)
60s classic convertible (fun)
the total value of which is about what you’d pay for one overpriced new ride
But this people are extremes differences. Only small changes can make a big difference.
I traded in my Lincoln Town Car for a Dodge Magnum SXT.
Yes, I did give up seating for six for seating for five. Yes, It doesn’t ride as soft as my Town Car. And yes, I lost the five body trunk…
But, instead of a V8 getting 15 city and 20 highway, I have a nice 3.5L V6 that gets 19+ city and 26 highway. Who needs a thirsty HEMI ?
And it’s still a decent size car and since I travel 80+ miles a day, I can now go almost a 5 days without a fillup. The Lincoln was 3-4 days.
And with a 2 year old, car seats and all of the other stuff, it works great.
and can’t we all agree that stupid people like these examples DESERVE to be taken advantage of by car salesmen. After all, we have to make up for all the giveaway deals we hand out to the Best and Brightest!
Thes best part is you know they got gouged on the trade, talked into a full sticker deal, and now they are flipped in the little shitbox they bought and will do anything to get out, guaranteeing they get fleeced again! Brilliant!
Well, it’s blatantly obvious that a majority of auto buyers do not research their 2nd largest life-purchase. LOL!
Sadly, the MINI ‘Bimmer costs more to maintain than the Blazer too!
this story is a clear illustration of kneejerk reactions and not thinking through purchasing decisions.
I feasted on that stuff at Nissan.
“Jeez we were just looking at car ads this morning in the paper wondering if it was time for a new car and bam. we have a new one by noon”
ya, well thought out, $790 commission to me.
My God, we’ve become a nation of whiners.
Pixel:
The guy with the Pacifica apparently has kids either too special (or too fat) to allow the kid’s friend to sit in the middle of the back seat, freeing up the cargo area.
Only the base model Pacifica had a (three-person) bench seat in the second row, and that model lacked a third row completely. The higher trim levels had two bucket seats divided by a console in the second row, with a split-folding, two-person bench in the third row.
This just in: you can’t fit more than 2 people in an S2000.
The guy with the Pacifica apparently has kids either too special (or too fat) to allow the kid’s friend to sit in the middle of the back seat, freeing up the cargo area.
Now, to be fair, modern child-seat regulations make this very, very hard:
* No car seats in the front-passenger area.
* Your children must be in some kind of seat until 80-100lbs.
* Booster seats are acceptable after 40lbs, but boosters, by and large, suck and kids can get out of them or misalign them. Getting a seat that can accommodate an 80lb kid with a five-point harness is tricky.
* Children must rear-face until they can walk and are over one year old.
* Rear-facing seats must allow the child to recline a certain degree, and thus project way past the seat cushion.
* Infant “bucket” seats are only suitable up to 15lbs or so. After that, you’re into a rear-facing normal (ie, huge) seat.
* A rear-facnig child seat must have about an inch and a half gap between it and the front seatback (ie, the infant seat must not contact the driver or front-passenger’s seat). A lot of people don’t realize this, and jam the front seats right into the infant seat. This is bad as the seat is supposed to be a little loose so that it takes some of the forces in a collision.
* There is no way in hell you can safely fit three modern childseats abreast in any car, let alone sit an adult in the middle seat between them.
Now, I’m 6′9″, but this applies to anyone over 6′3-4″ with a child in a rear-facing seat. There are very, very few cars I can sit in the front seat of that will accomodate a rear-facing child seat. Thusfar, excluding minivans, I’ve found three: the Mazda5 (too small up front), Honda Element and Ford Taurus, and I’ve scratched a lot of very big cars (and every crossover) off the list: we’re talking the Camry, Accord, Azera, Impala, Matrix, CR-V, RAV/4–I’ve tried them all! I tried a Lincoln Town Car and found that I couldn’t effectively fit in the front without a seat in the back.
Smaller cars are out of the question.
I used to be able to sit in the back seat and let my wife drive, which worked, but we’ve got a second child on the way. There is, I repeat, no way to do this with most cars. I could rent a van, but we do travel as a family every weekend, and that would add up.
The irony? As my kids grow up, I might be able to downsize.
Let me get this straight: The lady sells her Buick, and buys an Aveo, never realize that the car has manual cranks, nor asked for the option for that matter, and it’s GM to blame?
Gimme a fucking break. No, better yet, let me LMAO, because this is just plain CRAZY.
What kind of stupid buys a so expensive (so to say, because it is a “capital good”) product without even checking if it works for its necessities?
And then, why they traded their cars? Real need? Fashion?
Oh, by the way, I don’t like the Aveo, but down here we can get one with both front or all 4 power windows.
Also, alloy wheels, fog lamps, etc…
Factory or dealer installed.
After reading some other comments… ROFL at the PWNED lady. Eso le pasa por PENDEJA.
I drove Aveo on biz trip in CA to impress client with being frugal and adhering to their financial concerns (they payed for the trip).
Yes in rental level Aveo for $20/day you crank your windows by hand. The mother of dopey lady should remember times when majority of cars had crank windows (was not that long ago: 20-30 years).
The joke is on owners of Aveo: during mostly highway driving in Orange county and short run for lunch at the marina in Newport Beach car returned 20 mpg. Yes, your eyed don’t deceive you 20 mpg. Enterprise kid confirmed my surprise: they are less efficient then one can expect.
Thank you GM and Daewoo.
For the guy with 4 kids, 2 friends, who want to go on a ski trip with luggage. Rent a van from Enterprise (or the likes) for the trip. You can even get your 2 friends to kick in for the expense.
Problem solved.
200 mpg in an Aveo?
You have a hole in the fuel line or something? That’s incredibly bad.
@BlueBrat,
Mini/Bimmer cost nothing to maintain. They come maintenance free for the first 3 years. Oil, wiper blades everything.
I am not pushing Mini, but a colleague of mine burned clutch at 60K miles and it was replaced at no cost to him.
My wife and I have five kids and, ergo, the ultimate vehicle for utility, a chevy minivan. It’s paid for, keeps running, gets 20-25 mpg, and is a simple, functional vehicle. You know, transportation?
We rented an Expedition once on a family vacation and couldn’t get all the kids and the luggage into it. Lesson learned: bigger sport utes have less usable space. There’s no sport, there’s little utility, but they are vehicles.
Our other car is an old Audi A8. Again, paid for, 20mpg and 26mpg taking it down the highway to the airport. Romping 300hp v8 and quattro when I feel like having fun. Beats the crap out of most cars today for comfort, style, features (bun warmers in the back seats for the kids!) and driving fun, will last forever even as I abuse it. And if it has a ridiculous repair bill, toss it and get another.
Cash is king!
There is no cost justification for taking your existing, paid for car and buying a smaller, more fuel effiecient vehicle, there’s only rationalization of wanting a new car. And that is something I can live without, no matter how shiny the new ones are.
How about rightsizing? No aveo, no Suburban, just a Malibu, Camry or V70?
psarhjinian speaks truth. I’m only 6′3, but I’m also overweight which makes finding cars difficult when you need to seat the twin infants in the rear behind you.
To your list, I add the Dodge Magnum, Charger and Chrysler 300C.
How I wanted the Magnum, but the wife insisted on the 5. We already had the Element from the first attempt at a non-minivan family friendly hauler. Its no Magnum.
The lady who bought the Aveo — against medical advice, no doubt — has no one to blame. Heck a Civic gets better mileage and its superior resale makes it cheaper to own.
The guy who bought the Pacfica is in even worse shape. He could have bought a T&C van from the same dealer, and would have a vehicle that has the same interior space as the Suburban. Only folks who tow large boats or horse trailers need a truck.
Life is tough, and its tougher if you are stupid.
Voice of Sweden: My sentiments exactly!
That’s why I have 2 Camrys (long story) and a Nissan Frontier regular cab pickup. My wife and I are empty nesters.
On that front the guy with the ‘74 Imperial comments that it probably “wasn’t legal” for six people to ride in a car with front & rear bench seats. What? That car was designed to seat six, in fact until recently most cars had front bench seats for specifically that reason.
He may have said that if the middle seating positions still didn’t have seatbelts in ‘74. My 1966 Chryslers don’t have middle seatbelts. The law recently changed where I live to restrict vehicles to only carry as many passengers as there are belts. There is an exemption for old cars though. I carry a printed copy in the glovebox in case I have extra passengers and I get stopped by a cop, since they probably won’t be aware of the exemption.
Fran and Blake should get a bailout. They are no less deserving than GM or Cerberus.
It’s only fair.
@Voice of Sweden
If we talk about rightsizing, for the price of one Volvo you can get Camry and Malibu in US.
John, this is a funny yet sad story. This is what we’ve come to: People who are functionally dysfunctional making .. er, dysfunctional decisions. How did we get here?
Oh, and I’m not usually a human spell-checker, but I noticed something in your article:
“Has their been ANY source which doesn’t rate…”
The sentence feels awkward, but if all else is left the same, then shouldn’t that be spelled “Has there been”.
Sorry. But I know we’re pursuing excellence here, crank windows and lack of storage space notwithstanding.
psarhjinian: you’re in luck. Most cars have a middle seat in the rear. Our 2 year old rides daily in my 2 door BMW – rear facing was fine (albeit awkward!) when she was younger, and she happily climbs into her front facing car seat now.
I do agree that 3 abreast would be difficult, or a rear facing on either side, so this could get a little difficult with a second child. We’re expecting our second this spring and currently only have the BMW and a Mini (having sold our SUV recently), and will need to buy a new (to us) vehicle. Luckily SUV sales have tanked, so hopefully it’ll be a cheaper transition…
@psarhjinian
If you have two kids in rear-facing seats you’re screwed. One rear-facing and one booster is doable if the rear-facing seat is placed in the middle of a second row bench seat. What we’ve done is put the rear-facing seat behind the front passenger and the booster behind the driver. It compromises the comfort of the passenger, but the driver can adjust to wherever the seat needs to be.
I’d like to have a van so I’m not lifting the carrier across the rear seat when the car is in the garage, but by the time we can trade up the baby will be in a forward facing seat.
So Ms McDonald traded a mediocre GM medium size car for an truly aweful GM small car. Maybe if she had traded it for a good small car she would be happier with it?
toxicroach-sadly (for owners, renters and salespersonel..not the rest of us) 20mpg in an Aveo is very likely.
Most road tests get 23-25 all-around. Go heavy on city driving and I think the upper teens is “achievable”.
The hole in the gasline is standard, it empties into what is possibly the least efficient drivetrain on the market.
The guy with the Pacifica shoulda’ gone to an Odyssey. Nearly the interior volume of the ‘Burb (probably better seating) and might just beat the Pac on mpg (a guess). Minivanphobia claims another (willfully?) ignorant victim.
Thoughts.
Bunter
Hmmm, A Buick to an Aveo and not happy. Who’d have thunk it? Most of what can be said has been said. However, the problem has to do with something that is pervasive in our culture…excess. The emphasis has simply shifted from excessively large to excessively small. Now, can you blame companies for catering to excess? I don’t know. This applies to your 5 gallon tub of mayo as much as it does a Suburban or an Aveo. Had these people learned moderation in the first place, they would have been fine. A lack of moderation in one direction hurt them financially and now a lack of moderation in the other hurts their comfort. Had this woman bought an Astra, she might have been happier all around.
gfen-
I own a Magnum R/T AWD.
Allow me to say-
it’s AWESOME!!!
Sorry to pile on.
This is the USA.
If you make a financial mistake, the government is supposed to bail you out. Just look at housing, banking, and the manufacturing decisions of the big 3!
Are you telling me that if I pick the wrong car someone else won’t pay for it?
(please note: this post is intended to be sarcastic!)
As others have said, the entire blame for this lays with the buyer. They chose to make knee-jerk decisions to purchase small cars irrespective of their actual needs. The big 3 are not at fault here and I can’t even really blame a hungry salesman if people choose not to research their purchases.
… in conclusion we all smarter next morning.
3 months ago, before recession, when gas skyrocketed to over $4/gallon, Aveo looked damn smart choice. How many people jumped on this wagon? I was pretty sure that prices would reach $6/gallon on $225/barrel oil price. I admit to be temporarily wrong until recession (or depression) goes away.
25 years ago bright guy Iaccoca introduced minivan: it was doing 20-25 mpg, seating 7 and some of their stuff (we had less stuff them didn’t we?) and this brilliant idea was “rightsized” to a point that minivan of Chrysler today larger then any of their “working” vans of 25 years ago. Do we ever learn?
You can’t blame the salesman for the Aveo… any salesmen worth his salt would have picked out a top trim Aveo to sell her. She probably intentionally went for the lowest trim she could because she was feeling frugal.
Stingray is the one who understands correctly.
The Aveo is available with power windows, power locks, sunroof, CD/MP3/XM with steering wheel controls, OnStar, and fake leather seats.
Love my Aveo, as I’ve said before. Had it 3.5 yrs . I get 30+ overall, driving frugally. I don’t put my right foot through the floor when driving. For money spent/mpg, it works for me. Sure, they’re not for everyone, they’re BASIC TRANSPORTATION. If that’s what you desire, you will like it. If not, you will NOT. Your choice.
P.S.- Mine has MP3 CD player/ AT/ AC, and manual windows. Just what I specified when I was looking online. No salesman talked me into/out of anything I wanted.