Car Review - 2005 Chevrolet Optra 1.8 Lt Features & Specifications

2005 Chevrolet Optra 1.8 Lt - Enter a showroom, whatever sort of showroom, together with you’ll right away instruct whiffs of lies together with deceit. And it’s non the plastered smiles on the receptionists or fifty-fifty the sales personnel. It goes much deeper than that. I’m talking most the sales pitch—the sort of verbalise that promises you lot a whole novel experience. Cars tin hope you lot functioning numbers that challenger Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari or deodorants that brand girls operate ga-ga over you. But, create they always happen? Did the terminal juicer you lot purchased give you lot houses of pulping fun? Did the terminal 15-peso burger repast actually human face similar a pound large similar it did on the store poster? I didn’t squall upwardly so. This is the sort of harsh reality that faces consumers everyday, together with the sort that ultimately leads to a dismayed buying public.

Luckily though, there’s a low-cal at the goal of the tunnel. In this marketplace of unsatisfied customers stand upwardly a breed of products that cater to a greater extent than to sensibilities rather than the senses. There are no pretenses here, merely patently expert old-fashioned values. For instance, a Swiss sentinel may give you lot time, but therefore does a reliable Casio watch. It may non live equally flashy, but it’s built similar a tank together with volition in all likelihood terminal longer than you. And then, there’s the illustration of the Chevrolet Optra—a machine that’s non just a standout inwards terms of styling or performance, but a enterprise long-term investment nonetheless. It’s a machine that’s affordable to run together with maintain, well-built, nicely equipped, impeccably finished—in short, everything a machine needs to be.

If marketplace part were the sole indicator, together with therefore the Optra is on the upwardly together with up. It’s a consistent seller, threatening the likes of Honda together with Toyota, though for sure non on the areas of sweat prepare together with looks—the principal forte of the Japanese. Instead, Chevrolet has given the Optra alongside something to a greater extent than than meets the eye: value. Its interesting formula of low-price addition high-kit is for sure a large constituent for the Filipino consumer. Imagine this: for 800,000 pesos, the range-topping 1.8 LT is 15,000 pesos cheaper than the mid-range Honda Civic VTi-S together with a whopping 100,000 pesos due south of a similarly-engined Corolla Altis 1.8G or Nissan Sentra 180GT. And yet, it gets everything on the other’s wishing listing equally standard: leather seats, a Blaupunkt radio alongside 5-disc in-dash CD changer, steering bicycle good controls, silvery materials on the musical instrument cluster, simulated timber, split-fold seats together with keyless entry alongside remote torso opening. In short, it’s a mid-range luxury machine for all but inwards size together with price.

The Optra’s mightiness to render fantabulous value extends much farther from merely the 1.8 LT’s beige-tan interior. Skinning Chevrolet’s world-car (so-called since it’s sold alongside the same configuration worldwide) is renowned blueprint family Pininfarina. Unlike the hitting lines of Ferraris together with Maseratis though, the Italians opted to give the Optra some tasteful restraint. It was equally if Pininfarina’s stylists understood the Optra’s blueprint brief together with gave it all the necessary ingredients for practicality (high roofline, broad body, etc.) together with street credibility (bolstered fender flares, curt overhangs, etc.) Yet, for all it’s worth, it’s bordering on the elegant, if a chip bland. There’s zip truly incorrect alongside it heed you, it’s merely slowly to lose inwards a shopping mall machine common fifty-fifty if you lot opt for the wilder selection of colors (denim blueish anyone?)

Chevrolet’s inoffensive ready on on the senses continues inwards the realm of the Optra’s performance, which lies somewhere inwards the middle, neither flamboyant nor awful. It’s the picayune machine that could, merely don’t await besides much. It has 121 horses nether the hood that goes together with runs. Despite the sporty intake note, it rarely excites fifty-fifty if 100 km/h comes upwardly faster compared to the 1.6-liter variant. The 4-speed automatic responds well, together with is smoother, far smoother than some other so-called “new” Japanese models. Of course, the extra displacement meant some Greenpeace penalties for the Optra 1.8 LT: 7.51 km/L versus our 8.29 km/L figure for the 1.6 LS. It’s past times no agency a sports car, but at to the lowest degree it’s non pretending to live i either.

While the Ecotec engine doesn’t excite, it’s on the twisty materials where the Optra actually shines. Employing independent struts fore together with aft, a rarity inwards its aeroplane nowadays, the Optra absorbs together with cushions the occupants against bumps together with route joints. Although it doesn’t communicate infinitesimal route weather equally some novel compacts do, it humbles fifty-fifty the biggest Manila pothole alongside expert interruption locomote together with soft springs. The body construction is surprisingly enterprise together with stable. There’s considerable amount of understeer cheers to a larger steering ratio, but it’s never annoying fifty-fifty when doing emergency lane alter maneuvers. And speaking of emergency maneuvers, the 1.8 LT provides surefooted stopping mightiness alongside disc brakes all unopen to alongside measure ABS together with EBD. With a gyro meter at hand, the Optra quantitatively stops ameliorate than fifty-fifty the ‘sporty’ Mazda iii 2.0 R!

And at the goal of the day, that’s where the Optra actually becomes a winner: the value. Like its surprisingly expert braking performance, the Optra can’t live judged on looks alone. It’s a fact: the Optra isn’t hip or cool. It’s non the best machine to serenade a engagement inwards on a Fri night. Then again, cars aren’t supposed to live fashion items; mobile phones, clothes, bags together with shoes be for a reason. Cars are long-term investments, together with alongside this, the Optra 1.8 LT is a enterprise one. With a depression entrance fee, you lot instruct everything equally measure including a comprehensive warranty bundle that includes gratuitous maintenance (parts, project together with consumables) for the kickoff ii years. You may non live jolted past times the Optra’s looks correct now, but estimate it correct together with you’ll create got plenty coin inwards the banking company for some other Chevrolet: the lusty Corvette.