Sigh,
I had the privilege of inheriting a 1996 Cavalier (that's right, it was given to me for free - and believe me, you get what you pay for). The article refers to brake and electrical problems - and I have felt that pain. The ABS brakes on the Cav were horrible and eventually stopped working (it defaulted to regular brakes). Electrical problems were rampant, despite the fact that I babied the car incessantly - turn signals stopped working, headlights stopped working (or worked intermittently), and eventually the PCM got fried. I had to re-aim my bright lights down just to have working headlights.
Bringing in the car for recall repairs was pointless - fixing it took days, and invariably some other electrical system was affected that fell outside the recall notice. I ended up taking it to a local mechanic who said it needed a complete re-wiring. Given the cost of the repairs and the cost of the car, I declined, and ran it until the electrical components fried. I crunched the numbers and found out that it was costing me more per month to maintain that it would cost to finance a new Civic!
Oh, did I mention that, despite changing a noisy timing chain, the new chain broke after only 25,000km and took the engine with it? I eventually nick-named the thing the "Money Pit". ("Honey, I'm taking the Money Pit out to the grocery - stay by the phone in case I need a lift!) I had to drop in a new engine - so when I shoved it off to car-Hades, it was on its second engine!
Sorry, it still angers me. But on the good side, the tranny was good (but nosiy in shifting), and the body had very little rust on it (even though I had given up on the regular washes - who washes garbage?).
Must purge bad memories....