So, the wife and I just picked up a 2005 Aveo from a local dealer with about 126k (KM) on the clock. The next day my wife was driving it around and it overheated a bit (went to the redline for maybe 30s before she shut it down). We discovered that there was little or no coolant in the system (red flag #1). We replaced the coolant and all was well.
Again, the wife was driving and the passenger side control arm sheared one of its bolts off, and she almost crashed (this car passed an Ontario safety inspection by the way...). This was red flag #2. The car was just barely driveable so we took it back to the dealer and they "fixed" it and all was well.
On THE WAY BACK from the dealer, we got the dreaded CEL, and then later on caught a flat tire (totally unrelated freak accident, ran over a screw). We also noticed that it was knocking and clanking a lot from the front end, but on the driver's side this time (red flag #3).
So we took it to a shop we've used before and it was throwing P0300 (misfire) and P0128 (coolant) (red flags #4 and #5) and the control arm has a lot of give in it, which explains the knocking and clanking while turning corners and braking etc. (red flag #6) Also once it was hoisted up, we noticed that there were a few drips of coolant on the shop floor that came from the car. (red flag #7)
So we got into it with the dealer a bit and they've agreed to fix the control arm, and do a test on the coolant lines.
I really hope it's not a head gasket...if it is, has anyone else from Ontario had the head gasket done on their Aveo? Can you give me an idea of cost? We're at our wit's end and since the car was sold "as is" we can't get our money back or anything. Did we just make a very costly mistake?
So many red flags...
Thanks all