Purchased the car from a private owner. He was the original owner. He had all service records. The car had a mileage of 173,000, which I considered high, but he had maintained the vehicle. I purchased the car for $2300. Had no problems until I drove it from Georgia to Ohio. Started having problems. Four months after being in Ohio the fuel pump went out. Replaced it for $400 and had a tune-up for an additional $100. Car was driven back to Georgia and then back to Ohio. It lasted for another year and a half. In November, 2014 car just stopped working. Had it checked out by "ally mechanics" and decided to part it out. Overall the car was no problem, but when it went down, it really went down. Overall, I had the vehicle for almost 2 years. Not too bad for $2300 investment. I figured it cost me $73 per month to drive this car. When I bought it I expected to get a couple of years out of it.

Yeah,my fuel pump failed on a trip about 60 miles from home, on the Interstate. Fortunately, I was pretty sure of what it was and we were able to get a ride home and do a DIY tow the next day to a DIY repair shop at Ft. Myers, VA. Parts cost about $275, so my total bill was about $360 (including the tow vehicle rental). Investment of time was probably about ten hours - about five for the towing and part pickup and about five for the actual replacement. A normal tow and dealer fix would have easily been $900-$1000, so I count myself lucky. Would have really been awful if my diagnosis was wrong though.

I was out and about running errands with my daughters when we were sitting in a parking lot and I noticed that my car shut off. Needless to say it would not start and I had to get it towed. Come to find out it was the fuel pump. It cost well over $500 with towing and all. The part was only like $170. It's ridiculous. If it weren't for these cheap cars, techs wouldn't have a purpose. Come to find out, my sister the year before replaced hers, same car, just 1996 model and the year after, my friend replaced hers but it was a 2004 model. Apparently this is COMMON.

No right to complain felt here. 160,000 miles seems like good service from a fuel pump. Just a pain to deal with. Just wanted to be fair and point out that there are many Cavaliers that have served their owners well -- we have owned three with no major or even minor problems. A certain small percentage of every car make/model will have problems, unfortunately there will be some that get the worst of them. That does not mean the whole line or make is at fault or should be sworn off forever. Cavs have served us very well.

Car began stopping at various times, sometimes it would run then at other times it would not start. I had it to mechanics several times but it would always start at thier location and then not start again later. I have been quoted repair prices from $750.00 to $875.00 but these were on possible repairs as no one actually diagnosed the problem as a bad fuel pump besides for a auto with 28,600 original miles at 7 years who would actually say it was a bad fuel pump. This caused a severe disappointment in a Chevrolet product. This is way past warranty age but my son owned two Caveliers a 1995 and a 2002 (the same as my car) and both of his ran fine to well over 150,000 miles and six years of age. He bought a Mitsubishi Raider truck and is very happy with that purchase and states that he will never by an American made vehicle again.

Love this site. Same problem 2 years ago. Cost me $700 then. I work out of town, car died on the way back from the airport. She was alone with my daughter, stranded on the side of the highway. I was flying back up north for work. thinking everything was ok. Wasn't til the next morning I had heard about the problem. It's hard to feel sorry for the GM company's financial woes when they're making pieces of s**t vehicles. Maybe if they stood behind what they made, and recalled bonafide issues like the fuel pump/system, I'd buy another one. I'm not holding my breath...

It was a -20 degrees Celsius in the middle of a Canadian winter when my fuel pump decided to go; I was able to start the vehicle without any problems. Then the RPM's started fluctuating at an alarming rate and it stalled on me. I tried to get it started, but to no avail. The car would crank which led me to put the car in ignition and try to hear the "whirling" sound of a fuel pump; no luck. Luckily she was still under GM's powertrain warranty (I got lucky... the pump died at 96 000km, powertrain warranty is up to 100 000km) so the repairs cost me nothing and the towe to my local Chevrolet dealer cost me nothing under CAA. The Cavaliers and Sunfires (especially 2002-2003 model years) are notorious for fuel pumps. This was definitely a piss off as waiting 40 minutes for a bus in -20 weather really sucks.