******DISCLAIMER*********
Although I did not drive the car, my boyfriend, who drove it the entire 1300 miles that we put on the car in one week, sat with me while I wrote the review and told me what to write about how it drives and gave his opinion on the rest of the experience in the car. He was going to write a review, too, but that would have been redundant as it would have been exactly the same as this one. The information about how the car drives is exactly what he would have written because he dictated it to me.
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Like slarter, we also rented the Chevrolet Aveo from Enterprise for $140/week (are you sure that insurance was MANDATORY?? We didn't have to pay it.). The picture up there is not exactly the car we drove. Ours was not a hatchback and had a regular trunk. We drove the car from southern to northern California and in and around our departure and arrival cities. My first impression of this car before I actually saw it was when my boyfriend called from the Enterprise office and said, "well, we're renting a very interesting looking car". And, well, yes, it's very interesting looking. At first I wouldn't use the word "cute" to describe it as slarter's wife did, but I found myself saying that by the week's end. In other words, this funny little car grew on me. (Still not enough to give it an excellent rating)

DRIVEABILITY: Since I didn't drive it, I can't give it a first hand opinion on how it drives, but I can tell you what my boyfriend had to say about it. (see above disclaimer)
**He said that while it handles well, there is a lot of body roll when you go into corners. We think this is because the car is so tall and the wheels seem so close together. I actually felt like we were going to tip over a couple of times.
**He said the pickup on the freeway is just okay. It will shift down to third pretty early and he felt that at some points it would go down to second just to get going enough. On flat surfaces, though, the pickup was fine and it was surprisingly easy to pass the big trucks.
**As for road noise, it was surprisingly quiet for such a small car. Although, it did seam like the door seams were not completely sealed, as we could always hear a whistling sound near the doors at high speeds.
**The braking was good and he felt safe knowing he'd be able to stop short if he needed to.
**The car doesn't have the greatest shocks. The ride was a little bumpier then we would have liked, but for such a cheap, small car, I guess they were sufficient.
**A good feature of this car is the hold button. Located on the gear display thingy, this button allows you to keep the car in lower gears to increase the engine power and road traction. This could be used on slippery roads.
**The headlights were nice and bright!

RIDABILITY: This car is not good for passengers. I normally don't get carsick in the front seat, but I did very early on during our rides in this car. I think that may be due to the high amount of movement that the car experiences when turning. Even when changing lanes on the highway, I felt sick to my stomach. Our passengers in the back seat got sick almost immediately and they recommended that anyone who buys this car should not be someone who would frequently have passengers.
**The car is quite spacious inside. There is not enough legroom in the back for the passengers, but the headroom is excellent. As a front seat passenger, I felt safe because I was so far away from the windshield because of it's slope. The dashboard was also quite far away, even when I slid the seat forward to accommodate the legs our our rear seat passenger.
**The extreme new car smell didn't help with our sick feeling, I'm sure. Our car only had 58 miles on it when we rented it, so this smell would probably go away, but it was pretty sickeningly stinky. We would actually get out of the car and smell like it for a while afterwards!
**The seats are moderately comfortable for a long ride. Like most cheap cars, they desperately need more lumbar support. Our butts and lower backs were aching after a couple hours on the road. One great thing about the rear seats is that they, too, have real headrests that are adjustable.
**There is no armrest between the two seats, which is pretty uncomfortable. I kept going to rest my elbow on empty space, which felt very awkward. I think they could have easily fit on there, even though it would have been small.

INTERIOR GADGETS AND GIZMOS:

What we liked: The controls are laid out well and are easy to use, even while driving. The car comes equipped with neat gizmos, such as a slot on the driver's side to hold parking permits, a couple bucks for the toll or anything else that's small. I also like how there is a sunglasses holder where the "oh shoot" handle normally is on the driver's side.
**The antenna, while it whistles noisily on the freeway, gets excellent reception, and we listened to our favorite station well beyond our normal range of reception. I was very impressed.

What we didn't like: The tachometer and speedometer are recessed really far back in these tunnel like things, which was distracting to the driver at first. He got used to it, but didn't really understand why they needed to be back so far.
**Much of the interior items are not very intuitively designed. The door handles, besides being very ugly, are weird to use and I kept going to use my left hand to open it. If you are going to use your right hand to open it (as the passenger) you have to twist your hand so that your thumb is down and it just feels very awkward. I'm not sure why they designed them this way as the look does nothing for the car and they are hard to use.
**Also, the sun visors drove me nuts. They are also hard to use. They are difficult to get down and there is no cover on the mirror so if you have to block the sun, you end up always seeing the reflection of something above you. At some angles, I saw the reflection of the road passing, which did not help my carsickness!
**There is no dome light, only a map light under the rear view mirror. This was extremely distracting to the driver when we had to check the map in the dark. The light is also way too bright for a map light, although they probably made it bright to make up for the lack of a dome light. I think this is a safety concern and the car would be much better with only a dome light.

OTHER STUFF: The doors are pretty flimsy and don't have a satisfying clunk when you shut them. In fact, if you don't slam them, they will not close all the way. We repeatedly had to reopen the door and slam it to get it to close. This is not a pleasant experience to one who is not normally a door slammer. A big drawback to this need to slam the doors is that if you have the door locked and don't slam it hard enough, it will partially close so you can't reopen it, but it's not closed enough to shut off the interior light. To remedy this, I attempted to push my hip into the car door, as one normally does to complete the door closing process, but I just felt like I was going to crush the side of the door, and I'm a small person! The doors need to be easier to close and a little sturdier. The trunk is also difficult to close and you have to slam it down. If you don't slam it hard enough, it will pop right back up.
**The rear seats fold down to expand the already spacious trunks space. I love when cars have this option.
**Gas tank door is on the passenger side.....why??????

GAS MILEAGE: 34 highway, 27 city
Amount Paid (US$): 140/wk