I've owned this car for 5 years. Bought it with 134,000kms and now have 228,000kms. It has needed minor repairs, but overall this has certainly been the best car I could have imagined buying. None of the repairs have been major, and for a car that was 10 years old when I bought it (now it's 15 years old) minor repairs are expected. The motor runs just like it did the day I bought it. It's never left me stranded. It's driven nearly every single day in the city, and for two years now, once a month or so, I make the trip from Sarnia to Oshawa and back again the next day, a 700km round trip. Excellent highway mileage, between 6L and 6.5L/100kms. Performance is fine. Remember, this is an economy car, so understanding that, I have no complaints about the performance at all. Perfect automobile for students (like myself.) Not too difficult to work on, I've done almost everything myself so far.

I would recommend the 5 speed standard, as it improves performance and makes this car much more fun and actually quite enjoyable to drive still. Also recommend snow tires. The first winter I had this car, it wasn't good in the snow. Ofcourse snow tires are much better no matter what you drive, but without them, I found this car had a harder time with the snow compared to my first car. Now I own snow tires, so it rocks in the snow now!