USED Chevrolet Kalos Hatchback (05 - 08)

My car

I bought this car new in 2005 after receiving a massive £2000 off list price, meaning I paid just £5,500 for a brand new car!!!

My car was the 3 door 1.2 edition and as a first car was amazing.

The steering was light making parking very easy, the gear change was positive making it easy to select the correct gear, the clutch was also very light. The car is very economical to run, I used to do average miles of 12,000 a year on £20 of fuel per week. The CD player was excellent quality and the controls within the car were easy to use.

With the car I got 3 years warranty, 3 years free servicing and 3 years free breakdown cover.

The only downsides to the car were a lack of acceleration going up steep hills and the interior quality of the car is not the best, however, for the price you are paying you would expect nothing less.

I owned this car for 2 years, however, my mother loved it so much that she bought it from me and is still driving it today. We have never had a problem with it and it has never been in the garage for anything more than a service.

I loved this car and would recommend it to someone looking for a cheap to buy and economical small car, perfect for new drivers!!

My car

purchased at 6 month old at good price from chevrolet main dealer to replace 11 year old mazda 323 f 1.5 good spec air con full electrics plenty of room in cabin, decent boot. for a 1.4 the power is lousy you have to thrash it in 2nd 3rd gear to get any decent acceleration. engine is very noisy and the revs stay high when changing gear my kalos has had new brake discs and the valves replaced on 15000 miles not to mention constant problems with the air bag warning lights the main problem however is the very poor mpg 30 if you are lucky and believe me not much better on the motorway pathetic for this class of car poor co2 means £150 car tax conclusion; going in part ex shortly for c1 107 or aygo please dont buy one trust me you WILL regret it

My car

The first time a rental firm gave me a Kalos it was truely awful. So much so that I thought that I must have got a car that had been thrashed within an inch of its life by the renters before me.

However, this last weekend I was given a different Kalos and suddenly realised that it wasn't the people before me - it was the car ! In this day and age it takes a lot to produce a truely duff car - but Chevrolet/Daewoo has succeeded admirably with this little stinker.

The handling is terrible - there is virtually no feel to it on the open road and it rolls round corners in a way that would make old Leyland engineers proud.

There is no acceleration. Nothing. Not a sausage. It is amazing that they can get so little power out of a 1.4 engine. The only thing impressive about the engine is its ability to drown out the stereo at anything above 50mph.

And the only thing worse than the engine is the gearbox. It's so loose it's almost impossible to know where the gears are, let alone be able to stick it into one.

A final insult to be foisted upon me was the car's lack petrol consumption. I at least thought that something that small and lacking in power car would at least be economical. How wrong I was there - the little sod drank £50 going from London to Norfolk and back.

My advice - do whatever you need to do to avoid this car. Change job, sell your children into slavery, move continent - whatever it takes. You will thank me.

My car

A good car but not brilliant.

Good pionts: It handels well and is very comfy to ride in. It is very cheap to run.

Bad points: it dosent have a big boot and is very cramped with 5 people in. The beeping sound to show your seatbelts off is annoying