the Aveo’s manual gearbox isn’t very good, as road test author Dan Kahn wrote, “GM/Daewoo engineers apparently decided to use very wide ratios in the transmission in an effort to cut shifting to a minimum around town. While this would have worked in an application with a little more horsepower, the Aveo was severely underpowered going up most hills and inclines, causing us to run in third gear on the freeway on more than a few occasions. Therefore, the fuel mileage suffered greatly and we only managed to achieve an average of 23 mpg.”
However, the four-speed automatic in my rental Aveo worked just fine for a car in this price range. It downshifted when I needed it to, and compared to the manual, the gears are much better spaced to take advantage of what power the engine does have. And it has a decent amount for a car in this class, even though its 103-horsepower rating is on the low side. I was passing cars at 80 mph with no problem, although Illinois is very flat, so it probably wouldn’t have been so easy on the mountain passes near my home in Southern California. The engine was smooth and quiet when crusing at 80 . I did a little better on fuel economy, 26 mpg, but still not great for a car this small. – Edmunds blogs
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Chevrolet, errata, technical.