This review is based on my two-year experience with a 1999 Cavalier Z24 5-speed.

My wife and I purchased the Z24 Cavalier 5-speed as a second, more practical car, to accompany my 1996 Mazda Miata. We benefitted by a GM employee discount (from a family member) that brought the final price to around $13500 (compared to over $15000 MSRP).

Overall, we like the car, even after 2-years and nearly 30000 miles. The engine performance is excellent for a 4-cylinder with the 5-speed. If the car weighed a little less, it would be even better. The car accelerates effortlessly to 80 MPH on the highway without complaining. In addition it gets nearly 30 MPG at that speed requiring only standard 87 octane unleaded.

Suspension performance leaves a little to be desired. Admitted, I'm biased by the wonderful handling of my Miata and a 1995 Neon I owned previously. The suspension is firm on the highway, but seems to really lose it's composure when pushed through corners. Body roll is very apparent during hard cornering. The Z24 has a different suspension setup than all other Cavaliers. I can say that the standard Cavalier suspension is much worse than the Z24 version. For regular, everyday driving, the Z24 is fine. For those looking for something more spirited, the suspension will disappoint.

The interior and exterior appointments are decent. Nothing looks overly cheap or out of the place. You won't mistake the interior for a BMW or Mercedes, but the quality of the materials seems on par with the competition.

The resale value on these cars is lousy. After two years of ownership, we are barely even on a 60-month financing contract and this is only due to the below invoice price we got when purchasing the car. Otherwise, we would be 1-2K upside down on the contract now.

And now the problems. First let me say that my wife and I meticulously maintain our vehicles. The car is still under warranty, so none of the problems below have cost us any money, but they go a long way to show Chevrolet build practices:

1) From day one, the power windows would occasionally stop working. The motors and switch gear were three times before the problem was fixed.

2) The cruise control has started to act strangly. During a few recent highway trips, the cruise control would fail to engage. After turning the cruise off for a while and trying again, it would be ok. The dealership can't find anything wrong, so it looks like it will be an ongoing annoyance.

3) The brake rotors became badly warped before 20000 miles. Note to ANYONE buying a GM vehicle: GMs brake rotors are terrible and known to warp prematurely on all their vehicles. Look on this site and others (Edmunds.com) for scores of people complaining about this problem. The replacement brakes we have seem fine so far.

4) A leak from a seal on the manual transmission was noticed recently. Fixed under warranty.

5) One of the transmission gears was chipped after the above transmission repair. Dealership implied, in a nice way, that it was the driver's fault (i.e. I don't know how to drive a manual transmission). Fixed under warranty.

6) Numerous squeaks and rattles from the front dash.

After only 2 years of ownership, these problems seem excessive, especially for a car that has been produced in it's current form for 5 years. My wife and I have already decided to trade the car in and move to imports. Honda, Toyota, etc. seem to understand all the aspects of quality in their cars.


Amount Paid (US$): 13500
Condition: New
Model Year: 1999
Model and Options: Z-24 5-speed