THOUGH I have reservations about Daewoos of the past, the decision you make should hinge on your car's reliability record. You seem to have looked after it and had it regularly serviced, which is the key to keeping cars going well, so I would be inclined to keep it.

THE whistling that goes away when you depress the clutch may be from the clutch throw-out bearing. The engine warning light is much more difficult to diagnose. Daewoos were prone to a range of electrical problems that could account for the odd behaviour of the warning light, but it's best to take the car to a dealer and have it checked.

That's quite a run of misfortune and your message is fair. As I wrote in my review of the Daewoo 1.5i, buying an early Daewoo, whether new or secondhand, is a gamble. They were poorly built and the ancillaries were unreliable and of poor quality. But the Holden-built four-cylinder engine was generally reliable, despite your bad experience. Remember, you get what you pay for. The cheap and cheerful Daewoo was designed to be thrown away relatively quickly.