I've been steadily improving my maintenance habits, in an attempt to start reducing the overall long term cost of driving. I have to say that the Aveo has never let me down so far.

So I am curious, because I know the manual will tell you certain things to check and change at certain mileage intervals, but what have you found based on your real world experience?

For example when I bought mine, I did a small tune up including brake pads, spark plugs, air filter and oil. It was much needed, so said the bad mileage.

Since that time I have put almost 40,000km on the car and I have changed bearings, bought new winter and new summer tires but that's about it other than regular oil changes.

I am wondering, other than the timing belt I'm about to replace -> what other things should I be thinking about? Should I be changing the spark plugs again?

It generally runs perfectly fine all the time, but once in a while when I start the engine instead of the RPMs flaring up then falling to idle like normal , it will kinda struggle, almost like a sputter, below the typical idle range and then go to normal idle. does this sound familiar to you?

I'm curious to hear other people's maintenance track record over a significant time period with this car.