Intro of JDM_GUY and 05 Aveo

[JDM_GUY]

What's good fellow Chevy Aveo owners,

I am Dru a.k.a. JDM_GUY from NorCal Bay Area of San Francisco. I recently bought a 2005 HB Chevy Aveo in July of 2014 for having a modern commuter car to get around doing errands and for a purpose of a daily driver. I have a complete basic and simple Aveo model with all manual, from window type crank to a 5 speed manual/stick shift transmission, no AC, no cruise control, and no kind of luxurious package besides factory tinted windows. When I first got her, I knew she would be the one to have because she fits all my criteria of being a daily driver. She originally had 107,700 miles when I first saw her with lots of needing maintenance to be done, like the tires were bald and she had CEL. With her having a CEL, I was gambling if she's a easy fix or a lemon.... But by the looks of the previous owner before me, it looks like it's because of negligence of a good tender loving care of maintenance. Her interior is clean with cloth interior, rating like a 9/10. Her exterior is 7.5/10 due to minor dings and paint fades on the door handles, plus she was really dirty from having no car wash for a long time as it seemed like. Her price tags was originally $3200, but I got her down to $2700 at my first negotiation, $2300 was my final price of getting her due to the things I mentioned that needing done for her to be road worthy.


I drive about 100 miles commute each day and I am hoping that my chevy aveo would be my savior to help me save some money from commute expense because I need a practical car to save money for my ultimate goal. I plan on keeping my aveo for a long time until however long she can be with me.

My previous commuter was a 1996 Audi A4 2.8L 5 speed, with all the luxury package. EPA was 16/19/28 (city/combined/hwy) which was hurting my pocket pretty bad. I had sold my Audi because it wasn't practical for my needs. She went to a close family member so I would still get to see and hopefully drive her. This car is completely opposite of my chevy aveo but I think it's worth the kind of move I made, I'm still sad though.




The reason why I am called JDM_GUY is because of my main project car, a 1975 Toyota Celica GTV model from japan. Half way done of being fully built as a resto mod, building a old school EFI single turbo 2TG twin cam 2.0L. Naomi is a well known car in the old school Toyota world, especially in the Celica world.

[thehunterooo]

Welcome to the forum!

That is a nice aveo and at a good price; one thing I would look into is doing timing belt service just to be safe, it seems like you can handle that yourself easily though so that should not be much of a problem . That is a beautiful Celica as well!

[Pooh Man]

save the big $ to keep the toy project going...very nice. I grew up with a group of guys n everyone had 1.8s, starlet drag cars and gts's......once again ....nice

[JDM_GUY]

Thanks thehunterooo, I think its a hell of a deal for a 2005 aveo for 2300. I plan on changing the timing belt along with whatever needs to be done like gaskets, water pump, idler, and other miscellaneous that is near the timing belt.

pooh man, yep that celica is my main project that I've been handling for a decade now. I like the kp61 Starlets and AE86 Corollas as well, i just dont like the california smog compliance rules so I never had one, but I like em too.

Thanks for the welcome and complements guys ^_^

[JDM_GUY]

Since I've owned my chevy aveo for 2 months now, I figure I would just update here with all the things I've done, noticed, and, post up my thoughts, plannings, and so forth.


For the first 2 weeks I've had my aveo, I was testing her what she's about. I drove her with bald tires and CEL, I wasn't pretty impressed with the MPG I was getting with her. People had claimed that these 1st gen aveo would still deliver 30mpg with limp mode CEL on the internet. they would only deliver 30mpg on the freeway, and terrible on the city type of driving. I can't recall what Chevy Aveo forum had said this but I was completely disappointed with the low numbers of mpg with CEL on.


2 years ago, my 1994 Toyota Tercel with 3FE 1.5L 4 speed manual even delivered better MPG with CEL on, high 20's on the city and low 30's on freeways. That Toyota engine performed way a lot better and ran her 1.5L engine till she blew. Then I swapped a 5EFE twin cam engine, I personally think my tercel would've out ran my Aveo if I still had the tercel.









So on the second week, the first thing I did was replaced the old and bald worn out tires she originally came with when I bought her. I thought she needed wheel bearings at first because of wheel noise imitating an aircraft sound on the freeway. The tires that I had put on her are Doral SDL 60A 185/60r14's, made by Sumitomo, it's an all season tires. I could've went of buying tires with rims package but I wanted to just make sure the suspension on her is all squared away first from worn and tear, that if I find something wrong when I she gets an alignment done.






After the tire change, her ride went smooth from a little earth quake shaker on the freeway. But I did notice that when I travel 70mph on the dash, everyone on the freeway was probably doing the same speed as I am and it's impossible that everyone was doing 70mph. I pulled out my iPhone and opened my speedometer app to confirm my speed, the car is going slower than the actual speed on the gauge by 5mph. Is everyone else on a first gen aveo having this speed discrepancy? I am tempted to go 65 series in height tires instead of 60 to fix the problem.

[06T200]

Welcome Dru! Nice Aveo, it looks very clean!

[camopaint0707]

let's keep this just to aveos

[thankful_ragamuffin]

let's keep this just to aveos

He's introducing himself - the cars he's had before are of interest. Nobody slammed you for telling us all about your G8.

[camopaint0707]

It was a joke.......

[JDM_GUY]

06T200,
Thx, it's a stocker for now type clean lol


Camopaint0707,
Yes sir, Its all about chevy aveo here...


Thankful_ragamuffin,
Thx bro, I'm gonna stay on track aveo .