Greetings from Scotalnd

[reid-redhill]

Mostly for us a car is a car we have no particular allegiance to any make or model. However we needed a car for one of our children to get to work and bought an Aveo from someone; we know. It was a good little car at a decent price, with low insurance, good fuel economy and running costs (or so we though). When we got it there was a little wheel bearing noise, but it still ran true and the wheel wasn't wobbling when jacked up. There was also a quirky thing with the wiper blades; on starting the car they come on every automatically and you have to flip the stalk to stop it in the correct place. Sort of annoying but you soon get used to it. The bearing wheel bearing noise got worse so we replaced it and all was well for a while. Then at the MOT we found we had a very small oil leak from the sump which would be a fail. That's when we discovered that Chevrolet had withdrawn from the UK and Europe and that parts were difficult to obtain. Eventually we replaced the sump with one from a Vauxhall Corsa; same engine. Since then we have replaced brake pads, another wheel bearing, a brake disc, engine/gearbox mount (actually also from a Corsa and modified) and are currently wrestling with an ABS issue.
We also own a Captiva which we are happy with. As it is basically an Antara we are more hopeful of being able to maintain it into the future.
However it is shameful how owners in Europe and the UK have been abandoned with respect to obtaining parts and access to fault diagnosis services. We are not users of dealer servicing but those who relied on such are also badly affected. Chevrolet committed to providing parts and servicing for 10 years post withdrawal but haven't. We are in the frustrating position of having to scrap cars over the lack of availability of small cheap parts and lack of information/advice being readily available.

Apologies for the rant.