The Aveo spearheads the General’s attack in its quest to regain world domination. Hot looks, decent go and drool-over price are key weapons in the Aveo arsenal. So will it deliver up Indian bastion to GM on a platter? Sirish Chandran dials in from the trenches. The General is in the dumps, but then you probably knew that. Walking the bankruptcy tightrope, saddled with awfully large pension and healthcare payouts and set, any time now, to lose its number one tag, General Motors could not dig itself into a deeper hole even if it tried. Out could be the only way out and if the light at the end of the tunnel is to be anything other than that of an oncoming Toyota, GM has to (among many, many others) expand its Asian footprint. And the General knows it.
“The most significant thing is the transition from European and American dominance to Asian dominance,” said GM’s 75-year-old Vice Chairman for global product development, Bob Lutz, an out and out car guy in a bean counter riddled organization. And leading that growth is this - the Aveo - a project apparently signed off by the great man himself and destined for 120 markets around the globe, including America. Reiterating GM’s new found Asian focus, the first market to get the Aveo (the booted and face-lifted Daewoo Kalos badged Chevrolet as all ex-Daewoo cars are these days) is China and we’re next in line signaling the onset of a serious push for volumes on the part of the General’s Indian foot soldiers; volumes that will be bolstered by the UV-A (the previous generation hatchback Aveo) to be launched in the next couple of month and the Spark (based on the Daewoo Matiz) next year.
For now though the Aveo will have to lead the General’s charge; let us hope she is up to it. STYLE and BUILD Say what you may of Daewoo, at least they hired the best in the world to design their cars. Italians penned both the Matiz and Optra and now this, the Aveo, benefits from the attentions of Giorgetto Giugiaro himself; designer of every third landmark car there is. Little surprise then that she turns heads wherever she goes and so well executed are her lines and exterior detailing that on the style front no other C-segment car can hold a candle to her. The most striking feature is the beefy nose highlighted by two prominent ridges running from the bonnet and into the bumpers, flanked by the now de rigueur clear lens headlamps. Though the huge chrome grille with an even bigger bow tie slapped into it isn’t terribly subtle, overall she exudes a big car feel that’s missing from cars of this segment.
Strong muscular lines and a hunkered down stance gives the Aveo the look and feel of a scaled down Optra and that’s a good thing viewed any which way. The family resemblance is most prominent in profile, the flared wheel arches and strong and high shoulder line giving it a modern Euro chic look while the alloys on the 1.6 that hark back to the Optra, cement the family heritage. At the rear she gets a tiny boot spoiler and thick slab of chrome running on the bootlid between the tail lamps. A touch too garish if you ask me but I love the triangular tail lamps with twin beams for the brake lights that look like afterburners when lit up. The 1.4 makes do without the chrome strip, a good thing that, but gets awfully plasticky wheel caps garnished with absurdly large wheel nut extensions. A further fly in the style ointment is the under-tyred look that is fast becoming part of the Chevy (nee-Daewoo) styling DNA. Running on 14-inch rims shod with fat 185-section rubber, GM has not skimped on rubber but such is the flare of the wheel arches that she seems to be running toy wheels, spoiling the overall balance. Not that you’ll dwell on it for too long since once inside you’ll fall in love with the beautifully executed cabin.
It is a mighty fine place to spend time in with the beige upholstery imbuing the cabin with a light airy ambience, enhanced by a genuinely spacious cabin that can seat five in comfort. There’s significantly more interior room than the competition despite GM indulging in a spot of packaging creativity in giving the rear seat back additional recline angle to compensate for the tight headroom. The two-tone dashboard with dimpled soft-touch black upper and beige lower is very European and you’ll love the semi-circular dials again whacked from the Optra. Quality of materials is top rate while equipment levels on the top end LT variant include a decent (if slightly tinny sounding) in-dash CD player, leather wrapped steering wheel (equipped with an airbag), wood inserts in the dash and a leather wrapped gear knob. The top-end 1.4 version gets silver garnishing in place of the wood finish (I wouldn’t mind either) and the Optra 1.6’s (non-airbag equipped) steering wheel.
Both versions also get height adjustable seats and tilt-adjustable steering column but hard as I tried I couldn’t settle into a comfortable driving position. Either my arms were too stretched out or my knees banged against the dashboard. Shorter drivers will find the gear lever set too far back and adding to everybodys misery is the horn which, on the 1.6, can only be operated by two thumb pads at the extremities of the (very large dia) steering wheel. Going by the top-notch interior fit and finish, I would love to report excellent build quality, and on the whole, the 1.6 deserves top marks.
However on the 1.4 the driver’s side door alignment was already going south, the power windows conked it on the second week of the test and then the whole car shut down after the ECU fuse blew thanks to the GM technicians hot wiring the power window fuse. Let us hope this is a one-off problem and we would only be too glad to induct an Aveo into our long-term test fleet to see if build quality is up to the mark expected these days. One area of concern is the safety rating, the Aveo getting two stars and a strikeout in Euro NCAP crash worthiness ratings, and that is the airbag-equipped variant. Which essentially means you really do not want to be involved in a prang in the Aveo, most definitely not a big one. STYLE: 4.5/5 BUILD: 3/5
Engine and Transmission
It is a familiar story here, the 1.6-litre unit being the same as found under the hood of the Optra 1.6, except here it has forfeited 2 horses and 1Nm of torque. Apparently, this ECU has been completely mapped by engineers in India and the losses are probably to compensate for better drivability, efficiency, and emission compliance. The 1598cc ex-Daewoo twin-cam engine makes 102PS of power and 147Nm of torque, breathes through 16 valves, and is governed by a 32-bit ECU. On the 1.4 variant engine capacity is down to 1399cc resulting in 94PS of power and 127Nm of torque.
Both engines get VGIS (variable geometry intake system) that alters the length of the inlet tract (529mm at low revs reducing to 300mm above 4400rpm) for better low down torque without the associated drawbacks at higher revs. As seen in the Optra it also improves the all important fuel efficiency. Being of the same family it’s little surprise to learn that both engines are mated to the same gearbox from the Optra 1.6 which in turn employs the taller gear ratios from the 1.8-litre Optra; all in the interests of better efficiency. And aid fuel efficiency the gearbox does what with the recalcitrant shift and long imprecise throws putting you off gear shifting altogether, ensuring you keep her in one gear (preferably one of the higher ones) for as long as feasible.
Though the 1.6 engine is a familiar unit it feels a little rougher than in the Optra, maybe because there’s a little less NVH damping. There’s also a noticeable flywheel effect, revs lingering for too long when the clutch’s depressed. Not that it’s a problem, mind you, especially when pottering around in the city where the torque (we’re talking 1.6 here) allows you to keep her in higher gears. But stretch her to the extremities of the rev range and she is not terribly pleased, taking on a harsh and gruff note and then banging against the rev limiter with all the intensity of a Muhammad Ali upper cut.
Engine: 3/5 Transmission: 2.5/5 Chassis and Suspension Not only can the Aveo’s family tree be traced back through her styling and power train but her on-road manners are so much like the Optra’s, it’s uncanny. Storm down on the highway and she is rock steady, exhibiting the same planted and sure-footed manners that have earned the Optra high praise. And thanks to the long travel suspension, her ride quality, especially at speed, is pretty darn good.
At low speeds tough, she exhibits a bit of a jiggle, characteristic of torsion beam rear suspension set-ups that are employed in packaging and cost interests. Sharp bumps do cause the rear to jack up but over typically broken roads, she rides well than any other car in this segment flattening rough patches with the panache of a much larger car. Build speed and damping improves dramatically, a full complement of five (that sees the rear squat like Dhoni behind the wicket) not hampering ride quality one bit. Hard as we tried, she rarely bottomed out at the rear making her an ideal car to throw a chauffeur in. All the more since your chauffeur isn’t going to throw any hills at the Aveo. And that’s just as well.
The bureaucratic gearbox, unenthusiastic engine, and awkward dash that your knees keep banging into are joined, in the hills, by body roll and an express ticket to under steer central. All of which gets aggravated in the 1.4 that, on tight hairpins, keeps falling out of the power band necessitating constant shifting and leaving you exhausted at the end of the day. The steering too, decently weighted albeit a touch too heavy for city parking, is vague and imprecise and the large diameter steering wheel does not encourage enthusiastic sawing.
It takes big commitment to hold her at the limit in the hills, the rear getting unsettled while braking in anything other than a straight line. But I am being a bit too harsh here. Cars such as these are not used for hill climbing and out on the highway she comes into her own with no other mid-size car capable of fast and comfortable expressway mile munching as the Aveo. Neither does many D-segment cars, either, the Aveo chewing fast open corners with competence and at the same time comfortably clearing towering speed-breakers that our municipal corporations seem to take a perverse pleasure in erecting everywhere.
Body Styles, Trim Levels and Options
The Chevrolet Aveo comes in four-door sedan and five-door hatchback configurations, and both are available in one of three trim levels — Special Value, LS and LT. Special Value models come in at around $10,000 and offer basics like power steering, an AM/FM stereo, tilt steering wheel, split-folding rear seat, 14-inch steel wheels, tinted glass, body-color mirrors and door handles and, on hatchbacks, a rear wiper. LS models add air conditioning and carpeted floor mats, as well as the availability of major options such as ABS, CD/MP3 player, alloy wheels, and an automatic transmission. The LT adds power windows and locks, a CD/MP3 player, remote keyless entry, cruise control, 15-inch alloy wheels, and upgraded seat fabric.
Power trains and Performance
The Chevy Aveo has a double-overhead cam, 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine that delivers 103 hp and 107 lb-ft of torque. A five-speed manual transmission is standard, and there is also, an optional four-speed automatic with an electronic “hold” feature for second-gear starts when driving on slippery surfaces. Fuel mileage estimates are 27 mpg in the city and 35 on the highway with the manual gearbox and 26/34 with the automatic — comparable to the Hyundai Accent but less efficient than the Toyota Echo and Scion xA.
Safety
The Chevrolet Aveo comes with three-point seatbelts for all five passengers with pre-tensioners in the front. ABS is optional on LS and LT models, and it includes Electronic Brake force Distribution for shorter stopping distances. Side airbags are standard across the board for 2006. In NHTSA crash tests, the Aveo earned a five-star rating (the best possible) for its protection of front occupants in frontal impacts.
Interior Design and Special Features
However, bare bones in appearance and feel, the interior have a user-friendly control layout and a few thoughtful features for a car in this price range. The back of each front headrest has a hook for holding a shopping bag, and the five-door hatch has a flip-forward rear seat that allows for a maximum cargo capacity of 42 cubic feet. Even the sedan comes with a 60/40-split-folding rear seat and offers a decent 11.7-cubic-foot trunk capacity.
Driving Impressions
Subcompact cars have a well-deserved reputation for poor handling and wobbly rides. While the Chevrolet Aveo is certainly no thrill ride, it provides better overall vehicle dynamics than most of its competitors. The steering is direct, the suspension well tuned and the standard engine — while loud and buzzy — is adequate for day-to-day commuting. We normally recommend that buyers in this class opt for a manual transmission, but in the Aveo’s case, the automatic is the better bet: The manual tranny’s gear ratios are too wide, leaving the car underpowered on highway grades and ultimately compromising fuel economy.
Road Test
As lineage goes, the Chevrolet Aveo’s might have a slight pedigree advantage over that of Anna Nicole Smith’s son.This inexpensive car from Chevy is the latest in a particularly motley branch of the automotive family tree-an American-branded car made in Korea. Think Ford’s Kia-built Aspire and Festiva. Think Pontiac’s desecration of that once-revered name, the LeMans, built by Daewoo. These are not cars in the Gear head Hall o’ Fame. I once lived in a flat beneath an erotic dancer who drove a Festiva with a bumper sticker that read, “You’ve been a bad boy, go to my room!” Other than that, the Festiva was not, you know, a stimulating car.
Ah, but we were talking about the new Aveo-which you may pronounce ah-vay-oh or av-ee-oh, your pick. You could also call it a Kalos, since that is the name of the Daewoo model on which it is based. Well, actually more than just “based”-more like “basically identical to”. This refugee Chevy, which is nonetheless featured in the division’s much-ballyhooed “American Revolution” advertising campaign, is built in Bupyong, South Korea, which is not in Wisconsin but is fun to say aloud. Over the last year, GM has also quietly introduced three other Daewoo’s under the Suzuki badge. The General has a controlling interest in both companies.
Forgive us, then, if we were planning to take this car lightly. When it was dropped off in our parking lot, we . . . well, we did not really notice. Chevrolet says the Aveo was styled at Italdesign-Giugiaro in Moncalieri, Italy. And we have no reason to believe the company is lying. Chevy describes the five-door Aveo as having a “particularly striking design”. This is what is known as overstatement. Truth is, the Aveo comes from the same postmodern-dork design school as the Toyota Echo and Suzuki Aerio-both competitors of the Aveo. Tall, upright, and narrow, all these cars violate a certain innate human sense of proportion. Also, the tall, bluff sides of the Aveo make the respectably sized wheels (14-inchers) look like casters under a toolbox. Nothing screams “econobox” quite like really small tires. At 58.9 inches high, the Aveo five-door pokes between two and three inches higher into the atmosphere than a Dodge Neon, Ford Focus, or Honda Civic, but it rides on a wheelbase between 5.4 and 7.4 inches shorter and is an inch or two narrower than those sedans.
There is, nonetheless, beauty inside the Aveo. Pop open one of its flyweight doors and you will find 50 cubic feet of interior space in front and 41 in the rear, despite its modest exterior dimensions. That is about the same amount of interior room as in most of its competitors. Be aware, however, that some of that generous number of cubes is high up around the driver’s head because of the tall roof. But the Aveo, at least the five-door we tested, is a well-packaged device. The rear bench seat sits far rearward in the car-placing rear-seat passenger heads near the backlight. This arrangement sacrifices cargo room-there is a puny seven cubic feet of storage behind the rear seats. But unless you need to take five people and their baggage, the Aveo will do just fine. In the current vogue, the seats are all mounted high in the body. You feel more like you are sitting on a kitchen chair than in a bucket seat. Also, it makes the driver look and feel like a geek.
Being that most practical of small vehicles, a hatchback, you can also convert that rear-seat space into cargo room. Fold the 60/40-split seatbacks, pivot the bench forward, and secure it with tethers to the front headrests, and you get a more-than-credible 42 cubic feet of cargo room. The whole tether thing is a bit cheesy-looking, but it works.
The interior gave us the first inkling this might not be as bad a car as we’d expected. Our test car, a well-optioned LS, costs only $14,160, but the interior is finished in decent-looking, low-sheen plastics. The Aveo doesn’t look any cheaper inside than do several more-expensive, U.S.-built GM models. Daewoo even tried-somewhat half-heartedly-to add a bit of funkiness to the interior design. Strips of dimpled black plastic border the center stack. Kia likely would have just used one big swath of hard black plastic instead. The two center vents are shaped like tubes that protrude from the face of the dash instead of just simple grate-covered holes.
Daewoo might be reaching for a sort-of Beetle/Mini style, but the splashes of style are subtle and inconsistent enough to make them look like little more than afterthoughts applied to an otherwise conventional interior. There are touches of true cheapness inside, too. When you push the right stalk up to turn on the windshield wipers, you might think you’ve broken something. It resists moving, and when it does, it emits a cracking sound, as if you’d snapped a piece of plastic in two. The tiny sun visors, which are too small to block many solar rays, return to their recesses in the headliner with a hollow thwack! These are easily forgiven faults, though, since the car costs only about half the price of the average new car sold in America.
All Aveo has come standard with a tachometer, a tilting steering wheel, adjustable seatbelt anchors, floor mats, and two power outlets up front. These are items one cannot necessarily take for granted in this lowliest ring of the automotive food chain. The slightly cheaper Kia Rio, for example, offers none of these standard. Our LS model added A/C, power windows, power door locks with remote keyless entry, and a CD player with MP3 playback capability.
But availability of amenities does not a good car make. Even the sweetest-singing stereo sounds like the intercom system at Kroger if a buzzing engine, humming tires, and howling winds, drowns it out. Although this particular stereo is not exactly sweet, you can at least hear it clearly, because the Aveo runs in relative quiet. At full throttle, the Aveo makes 76 decibels of racket. Not exactly Lexus territory, but it is quieter than the Kia Rio and virtually all cars one rung higher on the price ladder (Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, et al.). And the Aveo matches those sedans for quiet at a 70-mph cruise.
That said, the noises you do hear are not especially pleasant ones. The DOHC 103-hp, 1.6-liter iron-block four-cylinder is on the buzzy side at high revs. And despite a dual-path intake intended to fatten a skimpy torque curve, you will need to rev this little motor to move out with anything resembling haste. At 10.2 seconds to 60 mph, our Aveo, equipped with a five-speed manual, is about as sprightly as the 96-hp Kia Rio, and nips the Scion xB by a few 10ths of a second. It trails the Civic/Corolla/Focus camp by an average of about a second.
Because of the paucity of torque (107 pound-feet at 3600 rpm), you’ll be working the tall shifter constantly to stay up with the traffic flow-and you’ll be happy you chose not to pay $850 for the optional four-speed automatic. By enthusiast standards, the Aveo’s shifter has perhaps the worst feel of any on the market. The throws are long-an impression exacerbated by the lengthy stalk. The action is limp. Even while in gear, the shifter flops around as if it were connected to nothing at all. This is not satisfying motoring. Yet we never missed a shift. And judging by our continued forward progress, we concluded that the shifter must indeed be connected to something.
As the shift quality suggests, this is not a vehicle made for the pleasure of operation. It is, instead, a well-realized transportation module-certainly considering the weight and cost constraints in this class. Its strut-front, twist-beam-rear suspension is tuned for a soft ride, in the manner of most Korean cars. Tar strips and gritty pavement are less noticeable in the Aveo than in most Japanese or American small cars. Only large potholes and frost heaves reveal the low-budget mechanicals with a mighty thwack.
In daily traffic machinations, the Aveo feels nimble enough, even with its feel-free steering. It does not feel tippy in the way that tall, cheap cars often do on a curving off-ramp. Its narrow Hankook tires return enough grips (0.74 g) to avoid embarrassing early-onset squealing. And its disc and drum brakes are trusty, returning 199-foot stops from 70 mph with a reasonably firm and linear pedal. That is better breaking performance than that of most other small cars on the market. ABS is a $400 option that our car did not have.
There is a Special Value edition of the Aveo that starts at $9995. But that is an automotive hair shirt, and one suspects it exists only so Chevy can advertise a starting price under $10,000. The LS model, which will be more popular, starts at a still rock bottom $12,585. None of the options on our test car (which raised the price by $1575) improves the driving experience.
So forget the $225 rear spoiler, the $725 sunroof, and the rest, and you will still have a well-equipped small car for less than $13,000. That is substantially cheaper than a Scion (xA or xB) or even an Echo with a similar level of equipment. It is about the same as a Hyundai Accent and slightly more than a Kia Rio. If, however, you buy one of those Korean-brand Korean cars, you get the mondo five-year/60,000-mile basic warranty (with a 10-year/ 100,000-mile power train warranty). But the American-brand Korean car, the Aveo, is offered with a less-generous three-year/36,000-mile warranty. Unlike its predecessors, there is no shame in driving an Aveo. But neither is there pleasure. That counts as a success in this class of transportation.
Technical Specification
| Engine |
| 1.3L SOHC | ||
| Displacement | 1299 cc | |
| Max. power | 70 PS@5500 rpm | |
| Max. torque | 105 Nm@2500 rpm | |
| Cylinders | 4 in-line | |
| Fuel injection | SEFI | |
| Compression ratio | 10.2 : 1 | |
| Emission level | Stage III | |
| Transmissions |
| Ford B5 manual five-speed transmission | ||
| Gear ratios: | ||
| 1st | 3.58 | |
| 2nd | 1.93 | |
| 3rd | 1.28 | |
| 4th | 0.95 | |
| 5th | 0.76 | |
| Reverse | 3.62 | |
| Final drive ratios: | ||
| 1.3 SOHC M5 | 4.06 | |
| Suspension |
| Front | Independent MacPherson struts with offset coil spring/damper units and lower L-arms in optimised vertical bushes mounted on separate sub-frame. | |
| Rear | Semi-independent twist-beam with strut-type coil spring/damper units. Dual-path body mounts. | |
| Steering |
| Type | Fixed ratio rack and pinion with power assistance (PAS) | |
| Turning diameter (kerb-to-kerb) | 9.9 m | |
| Brakes |
| Type | Dual circuit, diagonally split, hydraulically-operated disc front and drum rear. Vacuum servo assistance. Rear brake pressure control valve. | |
| Front | 240 mm dia. x 20 mm wide ventilated discs | |
| Rear | 180 mm dia. drums with 30 mm wide shoes | |
| Exterior Dimensions |
| Overall length | 4140 mm | |
| Overall width | 1634 mm | |
| Wheelbase | 2486 mm | |
| Interior Dimensions |
| Head room - Front | 982 mm | |
| Head room - Rear | 968 mm | |
| Leg room | 1036 mm | |
| Shoulder room | 1325 mm | |
| Fuel |
| 1.3L SOHC | ||
| Fuel type | Unleaded petrol | |
| Fuel tank capacity (Litres) | 45 | |
| Safety | 1.3 Flair |
| S - Standard. O -Optional. na - Not Available. |
| Laminated windscreen | S |
| Child-proof rear locks | S |
| Front and rear side impact door beams | S |
| Front and rear seat belts | S |
| Headlamps-on warning buzzer | na |
| Centre high mount stop lamp | S |
| Sporty fog lamps | S |
| Ford Dynamic Safety Engineering (DSE) | S |
| Central locking and electric fuel cap release | S |
| Sparkling clear headlamps | S |
| Comfort and Convenience | 1.3 Flair |
| S - Standard. O - Optional. na - Not Available. |
| 400 litre luggage compartment capacity | S |
| Interior theme - truffle | S |
| Instrumentation-black dials | S |
| Smaller sporty steering wheel | na |
| CFC-free air-conditioning | S |
| Tachometer | S |
| Power windows | na |
| Two 45 watt speakers | S |
| Boot light | S |
| Power and Performance | 1.3 Flair |
| S - Standard. O - Optional. na - Not Available. |
| Euro III compliant | S |
| 5 speed manual transmission | S |
| Handling | 1.3 Flair |
| S - Standard. O - Optional. na - Not Available. |
| Power steering | S |
| 4.9 metre turning circle radius | S |
| Front suspension - McPherson strut mounted on separate sub frame | S |
| Rear suspension - Heavy duty twist beam with strut-type coil spring/damper unity | S |
| Brakes: front disc/rear drum | S |
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