CHEVROLET AVEO 1.2 S 3dr (2008)

Cheap, cheerful, mostly trouble free, undersung from the looks of it

I admit this is my first car so I don't really have a decent frame of reference for comparison, but I reckon the Chevrolet Aveo will take some beating. I've had it 3 years now from new, and in that time it hasn't had a single fault apart from tyres (I should say though, the tyres they fitted originally seemed a bit flaky).

I've been told by another Chevrolet Aveo owner that something to do with the engine design means that if the timing belt goes then it does all kinds of grim damage. The way to avoid that is to stay up to speed with the maintenance and servicing etc., which I plan to do.

Inside the car it's got a fair few bells and whistles for a budget car. I had looked at a few second hand cars before getting the Chevrolet Aveo, but this one had some things like MP3 on the stereo, and steering wheel stereo adjustment.

There's a cute little plane style tray thing at the back of the front seats. My sister is a trolley dolly and that freaks her out! Another thing I liked is that all three back seats have got proper head rests and proper seat belts, which I couldn't find on any second hand cars. That's important as I've often got five people in the car.

One little nagging annoyance is that the cup holder is right in the way of third gear, bit of a pain sometimes, but you can always put your drink somewhere else. That is about the only annoying thing though. I mean really there just isn't that much to go wrong, it's just a nice simple cheap little car. And cheap means over 50 miles a gallon, and as I said no big repairs to speak of so far, so I hope it'll be good value motoring from here on.