How much do you like your Cavalier/Sunfire?

[J-Ri]

I'm just wondering about how much y'all like them, there was a thread a couple days ago in which a few members said how terrible they are. So how good has yours been? Please notice there are two sections of the poll!

EDIT: Things like belts, hoses, batteries, brakes (except calipers/wheel cylinders), struts/shocks, wiper blades, fuel filters, spark plugs, etc are considered wear items and need to be changed and do not count as mechanical failures. Additionally, if you don't change your coolant every two years, P/S fluid every 30k, and your auto trans fluid every 30k, it probably isn't fair to count problems in those systems because they've been neglected.

Second edit: Forgot to add my problems: The LF wheel bearing started getting noisy, and there's something wrong with the 3/4 shifting. Sounds like probably the plastic on the end of the shift fork is falling off? Kindda a big one, but I think the previous owner was hard on it. Not that that's an excuse, 85k on it. I thought Italy was known for great sports cars, what are they using plastic in there for!?

[JStumpalump150]

i like my cavalier because i have put a lot of time into it making it nice but would love something else so im not in love with it, lol, and have only had a problem due to the previous owner, i had to replace the rear struts due to improper lowering and also my windows are kinda slow going up and down but they still work, thats about it. so i put less than one because the struts dont count due to an idiot previous owner and the windows still work, they are just slow so its only half of a problem, lol.

[J-Ri]

Originally Posted by JStumpalump150

im not in love with it, lol

I didn't give "I'm in love with it!" as an option
But maybe I should have...


I don't think there is one car I would prefer to have more than mine (but I would like to have a T-10 Blazer for winter, an LT1 Caprice for summer and a naturally aspirated Cavalier for the daily driver). The power of the S/C and the fuel economy of a 4 cyl... it's hard to beat that in a single car. One of these days I'll not go nearly full throttle for a tank and see what I'm actually getting. 28 MPG is still pretty good, especially considering most of my acceleration is 60-80% and I've started passing an average of about 10 cars on my morning commute

[JStumpalump150]

yeah, there are several cars i would like to have if i had the money like, a scion tC, '08 Tiberon se, '06+ civic si, '08+ cobalt SS(turbo)/pontiac G5 gt, dodge caliber srt4 just to name a few, lol. but for being $4000 i like my cavalier, but once i get out of college i will definatly be getting something alone these lines. but if my cavalier was boosted i would probly love it too.

[J-Ri]

Yeah, boost makes all the difference! Nothing like bolting on nearly 100 extra HP I will have a total of about $9k in it by the time I get it to 250 HP, and I'd much rather have it than anything I could get for $9k

[ricebike]

2.4L > than the 2.2L

why did they omit the trans dipstick on the 2.2L model, i have no clue! oh wait, it says not to change out the trans fluid until 100,000 miles; maybe that's why...

water pump died out on her ~30k miles... never been the same since it's free replacement

easy to work on brakes. still has rear drum brakes on the 97 model; what a pain to work on

timing chain: good news for that it doesn't need an interval to change out like timing belts do...

cheap plastic interior; but what GM product doesn't have that?

i hate that the cooling system cap/overflow resevoir cap is all-in-one

didn't like the placement of the filter below the intake manifold and towards the firewall... i haveta remove the pass side tire and stick my arm between the steering rack just to get to it on the driveway

just another dumbestic model to work on for me... so i voted don't care for it either way

sis likes it since it's her only ride at the moment...

alternator/ battery failure was the last problem; i expected the battery, but not the alternator

[Classicrocjunkie]

I'm sorry for the person who said they love their...

Lets see...

1999 Sedan 2.2 OHV 56K miles swapped to ecotec and ran to 59k in her whole life

8-struts mounts
wheel bearings all around
1-Valve cover gasket
1-thermostat
2-coil pacs
4-rotors
2-drums and shoes
Hole in the HVAC vac line for the vent selector (random)
Intermediate Steering shaft (recall)
Ignition Switch (recall)
A/c Compressor
Fuel pump and sending unit
Gauge cluster
Brake and fuel lines rusted from inside out
2- CV shafts

2004 Sunfire 5 speed ecotec currently at 56K miles... I bought it at 46 3/08'

strut mounts and struts all around
door jam switches on both doors
Driver side wheel bearing gone at 55K, passenger is on its way out.
driver side door popper doesn't have enough Umph to unlock when below 50* (have to figure that out)
Issue with rear defrost I haven't figured out yet
Car doesn't like to shift after its been in 5th for a while till tranny temps cool down ( thinking it needs a fluid change)
Shifter assembly side-to-side pivot pin was snapped.
Often car doesn't want to go into first. Has to be put in second that right back into first. (Common problem with all Getrag f23's)

...Cheap pieces of junk.

[mexiNAMEDsqueak]

I have an 03 cavalier with 95,000 and the only problems I've had with it is the speedometer sometimes fucks up and the starter doesn't turn it over sometimes (rare) but I really like it, it's cheap, good daily driver and it has some balls to begin with and would be pretty cheap to make it go faster.

The only tiff I have with it is the handling, other than that I really like it

[jakegday]

i liked my 98 RS, i bought it with 79000 miles and owned it until 145000 miles. besides normal stuff like battery and brakes, the only things i replaced on it were the water pump, alternator, a/c compressor and shift cables. i also replaced the power steering pump which was complete waste of time since it was perfectly fine and didnt fix the problem i was trying to diagnose. very reliable and incredible gas mileage.

[JStumpalump150]

although i like my cavy, i think im done with it. it still runs well but it has 120,000 miles on it and want to get out before stuff starts going really wrong all at once. i might be getting an 05 mitsubishi evo VIII and i could not be happier about it, i will have to race you cody in your new impreza, AWD Turbo ftw! lol

[MattyWiggles]

I have a 1998 Cavalier LS with a 2.4L @ 113,000 miles. I'm pretty indifferent with it. My dome light never works, been like that since i bought it. Haven't figured out why it won't come on. I also had to replace a water pump and all that jazz with in 3 months of owning the car. I also ruined the valve cover seals(I think those were it, could be something else) from accelerating to hard one night. Isn't to bad, but now I have to replace the spark plugs more often as they get oil in them.

The 2.4L though has plenty of power and I find when I need the power it does fine. The ride is average and the steering is average. I do find it a bit sloppy though. I feel the Civics have a much better steer. I really can't complain to much though. The Cavalier isn't a half bad first car and as long as you take care of it, it will be fine. To me though a car is a car. I just want get from A to B and have some nice tunes.

[J-Ri]

Sloppy steering is probably the alignment. I aligned mine to the specs, and it was still not very good. I then adjusted the camber to -1.5* and the toe to .4*(?), night and day difference, and the tires wear completely normal. Caster was whatever it was at before (around 4?), it doesn't affect handling so I didn't waste time adjusting it. I would actually say the handling is "good" with those numbers, I would give the factory alignment "below average". It handles better than most cars now.

[mexiNAMEDsqueak]

So if I adjust it to that will I get better handling?

[J-Ri]

Mine did. The negative camber reduced understeer a lot, the tops of the front tires are tilted inward slightly ( /-----\ ), which reduces the sidewall's tendency to roll over on high speed cornering. The helpfulness of this is most likely reduced the larger the wheels are (smaller aspect ratio tires have less sidewall to roll over), mine are 16".

[mexiNAMEDsqueak]

I've always heard that term but I've never properly understood it. Do you think you can explain understeer and oversteer? I got the general concept of the car not hugging the corner like it should.