Automotive diamonds in the rough.. cars which proved themselves to be far better than anyone expects

[RoverFolkUs]

I'm going to start this with the Chevrolet Cruze. I suppose any car counts, shite or modern, but try to decipher whether it's actually better than anyone could ever imagine or if you've just left your rose tinted specs on 😉

I know they seem modern, but they're getting to "AN CAR" territory, cheap and disposable, and they're getting on for 10-15 years old now. There aren't many cars as new as this where I've thought "this is actually a half decent bit of kit"

There's one that I have the pleasure* of looking after for a customer quite regularly, my first impression of it was that it was just going to be yet another crappy GM/Daewoo product, like the Aveo, Kalos, etc.

But no, it's far closer to the Vauxhall corner of GM. And no, not the AVAS corner, they're actually really underrated from what I have observed. 

It's a 1.6 petrol automatic. Ordinarily you'd think it's just a paltry petrol engine mated to a slush box for ultimate misery, but it's not. The gearbox is really smooth in operation for a torque converter auto, and the 1.6 petrol engine puts out 122bhp which is a bit more than the equivalent engine found in an Astra, so I guess they tuned them up a little bit. 

It drives really well, it's smooth, it's nice over bumps and not crashy at all thanks to the 60 profile tyres on 16" rims, which are only budgets I must add so that's what surprised me in terms of there being such little road noise, and the engine hums away quietly, so they definitely invested in plenty of sound deadening when they made them

Reliability has been relatively ok, it's had a few problems but nothing out of the ordinary or anything particularly expensive to fix. 

If anyone is ever looking at buying one but feel deterred by the badge, it's far nicer in many more ways than you'd think so I'd say it would definitely worth considering. 

Here are some examples, there are plenty that seem to hold their money around the £4-5k mark which seems nuts to me, but these ones seem like a lot of car for less than £2k to me... 

I'd be interested to see what a diesel one is like. It'll be cheap to run but I wonder if the refinement level will be anywhere near what I described

[rainagain]

I’d like to nominate the Fiat Stilo. 

I didn’t know these existed until I bought one with HGF, which turned out to be the water pump after I’d change the gasket. I didn’t look at the water pump initially as the previous owner told me it had already been changed. 
 

Fiat built them to rival the Golf so the interior was nicely put together and it was nice and quiet on the road. We had the 1.2 petrol with the six speed gearbox, this felt a lot faster than it had any right to be and the sixth gear gave great mpg on the motorway. It had soft long travel suspension that wouldn’t set any lap records and the reviewers complained about body roll but in the real world it was lovely and comfy. 
 

I later bought a Punto and I remember being disappointed by the NVH and the feel of the cabin compared to the Stilo. 

[grogee]

8 hours ago, RoverFolkUs said:

I'm going to start this with the Chevrolet Cruze. I suppose any car counts, shite or modern, but try to decipher whether it's actually better than anyone could ever imagine or if you've just left your rose tinted specs on 😉

I know they seem modern, but they're getting to "AN CAR" territory, cheap and disposable, and they're getting on for 10-15 years old now. There aren't many cars as new as this where I've thought "this is actually a half decent bit of kit"

There's one that I have the pleasure* of looking after for a customer quite regularly, my first impression of it was that it was just going to be yet another crappy GM/Daewoo product, like the Aveo, Kalos, etc.

But no, it's far closer to the Vauxhall corner of GM. And no, not the AVAS corner, they're actually really underrated from what I have observed. 

It's a 1.6 petrol automatic. Ordinarily you'd think it's just a paltry petrol engine mated to a slush box for ultimate misery, but it's not. The gearbox is really smooth in operation for a torque converter auto, and the 1.6 petrol engine puts out 122bhp which is a bit more than the equivalent engine found in an Astra, so I guess they tuned them up a little bit. 

It drives really well, it's smooth, it's nice over bumps and not crashy at all thanks to the 60 profile tyres on 16" rims, which are only budgets I must add so that's what surprised me in terms of there being such little road noise, and the engine hums away quietly, so they definitely invested in plenty of sound deadening when they made them

Reliability has been relatively ok, it's had a few problems but nothing out of the ordinary or anything particularly expensive to fix. 

If anyone is ever looking at buying one but feel deterred by the badge, it's far nicer in many more ways than you'd think so I'd say it would definitely worth considering. 

Here are some examples, there are plenty that seem to hold their money around the £4-5k mark which seems nuts to me, but these ones seem like a lot of car for less than £2k to me... 

I'd be interested to see what a diesel one is like. It'll be cheap to run but I wonder if the refinement level will be anywhere near what I described

 

+1 on the Cruze. We hired one in Australia, I think it was an auto. A pleasurable driving experience, as long as you're not after POWER. Actually they are quite hot on speeding down under so slower = better sometimes. We had shit loads of stuff to carry as Master Grogee was 0.5 years old and the Cruze just gobbled it up, saloon version. 

What are they like for rust @RoverFolkUs? 

[RoverFolkUs]

3 hours ago, grogee said:

+1 on the Cruze. We hired one in Australia, I think it was an auto. A pleasurable driving experience, as long as you're not after POWER. Actually they are quite hot on speeding down under so slower = better sometimes. We had shit loads of stuff to carry as Master Grogee was 0.5 years old and the Cruze just gobbled it up, saloon version. 

What are they like for rust @RoverFolkUs? 

Remarkably good for rust if this one is anything to go by. I frequently see it locally parked on long grass and it hasn't hurt it so far. 

Much like modern Vauxhalls I guess which don't really go rusty but they can go in random, isolated areas. Zafira Bs for example can survive everywhere else but the front subframe to body mounting points can just randomly rot away out of the blue. 

On the Chevy, everything looked ok for a 12 year old car, the subframes were nothing out of the ordinary and the sills looked perfectly fine

[ProgRocker]

The 1994 Ford Escort 1.8 L diesel saloon I ran for 6 months in 2010. Fantastic car for £250. I devoted a thread to it on this forum.

Re: Chevrolet - I understand that the Spark is meant to an excellent city car underneath the stodgy styling. I never realised that there was an estate version of the Cruze. I liked the saloon models.

[DavieW]

5 hours ago, rainagain said:

I’d like to nominate the Fiat Stilo. 

I didn’t know these existed until I bought one with HGF, which turned out to be the water pump after I’d change the gasket. I didn’t look at the water pump initially as the previous owner told me it had already been changed. 
 

Fiat built them to rival the Golf so the interior was nicely put together and it was nice and quiet on the road. We had the 1.2 petrol with the six speed gearbox, this felt a lot faster than it had any right to be and the sixth gear gave great mpg on the motorway. It had soft long travel suspension that wouldn’t set any lap records and the reviewers complained about body roll but in the real world it was lovely and comfy. 
 

I later bought a Punto and I remember being disappointed by the NVH and the feel of the cabin compared to the Stilo. 

I went to the local dealer to look at one when I had to choose a new company car. The demonstrator was in the workshop with the head off. Never looked at one again. 

[MrGTI6]

Alfa Romeo Giulietta. 

Until recently I've never really paid much attention to them, but I bought a top-of-the-range diesel one last year and was seriously impressed. At 137k it drove spot on. The interior was lovely and everything worked. The best bit was it did a genuine 70mpg!

Found myself in need of a car last week and ended up buying a lower-spec petrol one to tide me over for a few weeks. At 101k it feels tight as a drum and everything seems to work. Not as frugal as the diesel but still good for 50mpg.

The Giulietta seems to be surprisingly well put-together with no real horror stories. For a bread-and-butter family hatchback they're actually really decent, and probably a much safer bet than a Focus Ecoboost or Golf TSI of the same age. And much cheaper like-for-like!

[chaseracer]

9 minutes ago, MrGTI6 said:

Alfa Romeo Giulietta. 

Until recently I've never really paid much attention to them, but I bought a top-of-the-range diesel one last year and was seriously impressed. At 137k it drove spot on. The interior was lovely and everything worked. The best bit was it did a genuine 70mpg!

Found myself in need of a car last week and ended up buying a lower-spec petrol one to tide me over for a few weeks. At 101k it feels tight as a drum and everything seems to work. Not as frugal as the diesel but still good for 50mpg.

The Giulietta seems to be surprisingly well put-together with no real horror stories. For a bread-and-butter family hatchback they're actually really decent, and probably a much safer bet than a Focus Ecoboost or Golf TSI of the same age. But much cheaper like-for-like!

Neighbour has one on an 11-plate.  George normally cycles through cars at a fair old rate, but the Julie's been around for nearly two years.

[leakingstrut]

Ford Fusion. Loads of space, good handling, decent off road for a FWD granny car. We had one at work, and it survived over 180k of utter abuse with minimal issues.  It was dog slow with the 1.4 TDCI but would sit at 90 all day and sipped fuel. We also had a fiesta van of the same age and engine but I would take the fusion every time.

Chevrolet Lacetti Estate. Another work hack. Raggedy 1.6 pez went well, handled well even with the +10 profile M+S tyres we fitted - which also helped it be half decent off road. It rotted, had wet footwells and the ABS would randomly kick in a low speeds, but it never had FTP.

Our lashitty was better than the 2l derv MK2 Megane estate it replaced in every aspect aside from power and heated seats.

[Sigmund Fraud]

+1 regarding GMDAT products, they are great for no-frills motoring and I would much rather have a Chevywoo than a Vauxhall of the same era.

[Stinkwheel]

On 06/01/2024 at 12:58, DavieW said:

I went to the local dealer to look at one when I had to choose a new company car. The demonstrator was in the workshop with the head off. Never looked at one again. 

Is this a good indicator though?

Having been around garages and cars and bikes for a good few years now, I've seen the supposedly most reliable things in bits in workshops with unexpected failures. In fact, the things people seem to regard as quality can often be the worst for it.