I am on a fairly tight budget but proud enough to want a car that looks fairly good and doesn't have too much sigma attached. So here it is: The Daewoo Nubira. However, I've always been a strong believer in the adage 'you get what you pay for' and it's certainly true in this case.
Yes, the buying price is negligible and the running costs are insignificant but is that really an excuse for producing a badly built car, Daewoo? True, it looks okay from the outside, but inside the Nubira I really feel like I've made a bad, bad choice of car. The dash looks like something assembled from out of a Kinder Surprise and it rattles along like it's falling apart.
It really is worth spending a bit more money and getting something better. To be honest I'm surprised that the Nubira doesn't contradict some sort of EU regulatory standard. Daewoo have actually made some pretty good cars, too. But steer clear of this one. Shocking.
I reckon on balance I'd prefer a dull reliable car to a sexy one that's too flaky. Well the Nubira is certainly in the first of those two, it's coming up for 8 years old now, done about 60k miles, and I haven't had a single major problem with it. My Daewoo Nubira CDX has had little things replaced during the service, and tyres at MOT time. Apart from that it's just been plain sailing. It's quite good with fuel as well, I'd say I get mid 30s MPG in day to day driving (school run, cross town commute) which is good for a car this age, although it doesn't compare so well to newer cars. That might force my hand at some point but I'm reluctant to part with a reliable car.
The Nubira's a clever car too, quite a few clever things inside, which is another reason it's surprising it's had so little trouble, surely there's much more to go wrong. Things like the windscreen wipers that can tell when it's raining, that's very smart. We had the optional sensors fitted to ours as well, that help you with parking. They just beep faster and faster as you get closer to the other car. That's really handy. Also the glovebox is a fridge! Keeps drinks and things cool, although obviously only when the car is actually on, although it does stay cool for quite a long time once it's off.
We got the Daewoo Nubira just as our eldest was turning 15 and getting frighteningly tall, because our Micra was just too small for his enormous legs in the back there. The Nubira has plenty of space in the back for him, and we can also get the two girls next to him. The boot is lovely and big too, and easy to access with its big boot door.
My other half sometimes says it's a bit sort of lazy especially for a 1.8 litre car, not really got much fire in its belly he says! It's fine really though, overtakes ok and feels smooth enough on the motorway. The only thing I'd say is that it gets ever so slightly loud on the motorway, nothing major though.
There's lots of things that you go 'oo nice' about in the Nubira. I might be a bit of a pleb and this stuff might be pretty common in fancier cars, but I thought it was dead smart to have a chilled glovebox for drinks and things, just a clever touch sort of thing. There's lots and lots of regular holding spaces too and drinks holders and all that. You can change the height of the steering wheel too, that's really good for me and the wife as we have quite different positions. The display for the air conditioning is separate from the stereo display, that looks good, and it saves you having to switch between them like we did on our old car. The boot has always been easy big enough for our needs, but when our little one was littler we had a bit of a job getting the pram in and out, partly on account of the bottom edge of the boot being a big high up, and partly because of the size inside. Easy enough when you get used to it. Mind you other kiddy features sort of make up for it, like the child seat fittings, they make like a lot easier (although that's probably pretty standard these days). Saying about the height of the boot, that height is good for kerbs, I've never scuffed the underside at the back on a kerb - scraped it a few times on the front though. Parking is fairly easy. Our one has parking sensors which are handy. The dealer made a big noise about those because they were an extra that the previous owner had fitted, anyway they've been pretty handy for us. The wipers have also got a good trick up their sleeve, they know when it's raining and turn themselves on.
Some things let the Nubira down. We got ours second hand at two years old (I think it was first reg'd in 2004) and it didn't have a CD player. That seemed pretty shabby for a car of that age. I think the wood effect on the dash and the doors looks pretty classy, but some friends think it looks a bit naff. Also the dash itself can be a bit annoying as it's quite shallow and it slopes down at quite an angle towards you, so it's pretty much useless as a place to put things.
I haven't been all that impressed by how much petrol it gets through, especially as it really isn't that fast or snappy. It is ok, I suppose we get about 40 mpg on the motorways, but I hear friends more and more telling me how they get easily 10 more than that. Still it's an extremely easy car to drive, not complicated at all, and I am definitely impressed that it's been reliable so far, no big repairs really, just the back box of the exhaust last year and a couple of tyres here and there, and tracking and balancing once - mind you we only got that done cos the local garage was chucking it in with the service as a special offer.