I purchased my 1990 Chevy Cavalier in the fall of 1997 and it has caused me nothing but grief ever since! This was my third vehicle at the time and it runs worse than the other two vehicles I previously owned (a Mercury Cougar and a Dodge Ram).
When I first purchased the car it ran great and it had a sporty exterior (Moonroof, spoiler, etc.) however, all of that soon changed a short month later. It was an embarassing moment on my part but I must confess that I accidentally backed into another car. Upon impact the entire passenger door wrinkled and creased into three different sections and that was only doing a mere five miles an hour! At this point I can only imagine how the car would hold up if I were in a real accident with it!
From that point on, the car and I were in a constant battle. Normal things needed to be changed in the car (battery, windshield wipers, etc.) and then all of a sudden it kept shutting off when I was driving! This completely flabbergasted me so I took the car to the local Chevy dealership so they could put the car into their "machine" and figure out what was causing this oddity. After three trips back and two brand new alternators they still could not figure out what was wrong. Apparently, the cause of this oddity was due to my dome light! There is an electrical shortage in my car that would keep running power to the dome light regardless of it was on or not!
After that mishap, things just kept going downhill. To date I have been shopping around for a new car because I have heard nothing but criticism in regards to these cars. I just hope that if you own one you have better luck than the majority of Cavalier owners in the world.