gitsum

I took the whole thing apart. The boot for both the shifter and hand brake pop out at the bottom. One screw under the rear cup holder and two screws on the front sides allow you to pull up the whole console from between the seats.
There is a cotter pin that slides out on the driver side shift rod. There is a fastener on the passengers side that secures an assembly that holds a metal pin on the left side and a nylon bushing that holds the "ball" that pivots on the shaft of the shifter itself. I didn't remove the flat fastener on the passengers side because doing so will deform or damage it, and I didn't have another one. The shifter knob appears to be glued on. If one were to remove the gear shift itself, you could heat the knob with a hair dryer and remove it by using a 2 x 4 and a hammer.
But none of that is necessary. Just use a hack saw to cut the shaft below the knob at the desired height. Find a universal knob that attaches by set screws and is adjustable for shafts from 8mm to 15mm. Use a hardened drill bit to make shallow dents for the screw sets to get a good grip on. Autozone had a dozen or so different screw set shifter knobs from $12 to $35.

As my son pointed out, I've had several coolant overflow bottle issues. The point of failure has been the return coolant hose nipple. It's plastic with a metal inner sheave. It failed on the original bottle around 45k miles. I bought a new one for $25 and it arrived with the nipple already cracked!
Reduced the nipple on the original bottle to about 50% length and repaired with JB Weld brand plastic epoxy. It was a temporary fix, it works but still weeps a small amount of coolant. Bought a second overflow bottle and it arrived intact. Cut off about 2" of the return coolant hose to remove the elbow and rerouted the hose just underneath the intake manifold. It's more of a straight shot and does not have tension from the weight of the hose pulling on the nipple at 90 degrees like the stock hose routing that runs back down along the firewall.
It's held up for about 30k miles so far, maybe with a little luck the overstressed and cracked return coolant hose nipple issue is fixed by rerouting the hose.
I keep the original bottle as a back up, and after multiple replacement/removal it takes me about 5 minutes to swap it out.
Other than some extreme aggravation and a little coolant and water, the issue never caused any significant down time for driving the car.
Getting close to 75k miles and other than the overflow bottle the car has been absolutely bulletproof. The car has never seen the dealer and hopefully won't have to. Took care of the recalls myself. My air conditioning has always worked fine, I replaced the PCV valve also cleaning the throttle body and checking/cleaning/regapping the spark plugs. Keep a light coating of marine grease on the hood latch assembly.
I feel confident the Daewoo built car will remain problem free (knock on wood) until it's paid for, which should be around 130-140k miles. Averaging around 42 mpg and paying $59 a month for full coverage insurance, the car will pretty much pay for itself with extremely low operating costs.

72,000 miles and running perfect on my 2013 5-speed LS.
SuperTech 5w30 every 5000 miles, Valvoline Synchromesh at 50k.
185/60r14 tires, averaging 42 mpg.
Airbox mod, throttle body half shaft mod, removed rear muffler, shortened gearshift.

As my son pointed out, I've had several coolant overflow bottle issues. The point of failure has been the return coolant hose nipple. It's plastic with a metal inner sheave. It failed on the original bottle around 45k miles. I bought a new one for $25 and it arrived with the nipple already cracked!
Reduced the nipple on the original bottle to about 50% length and repaired with JB Weld brand plastic epoxy. It was a temporary fix, it works but still weeps a small amount of coolant. Bought a second overflow bottle and it arrived intact. Cut off about 2" of the return coolant hose to remove the elbow and rerouted the hose just underneath the intake manifold. It's more of a straight shot and does not have tension from the weight of the hose pulling on the nipple at 90 degrees like the stock hose routing that runs back down along the firewall.
It's held up for about 30k miles so far, maybe with a little luck the overstressed and cracked return coolant hose nipple issue is fixed by rerouting the hose.
I keep the original bottle as a back up, and after multiple replacement/removal it takes me about 5 minutes to swap it out.
Other than some extreme aggravation and a little coolant and water, the issue never caused any significant down time for driving the car.
Getting close to 75k miles and other than the overflow bottle the car has been absolutely bulletproof. The car has never seen the dealer and hopefully won't have to. Took care of the recalls myself. My air conditioning has always worked fine, I replaced the PCV valve also cleaning the throttle body and checking/cleaning/regapping the spark plugs. Keep a light coating of marine grease on the hood latch assembly.
I feel confident the Daewoo built car will remain problem free (knock on wood) until it's paid for, which should be around 130-140k miles. Averaging around 42 mpg and paying $59 a month for full coverage insurance, the car will pretty much pay for itself with extremely low operating costs.

Yes, you were correct. But you didn't test it yourself, you took GM's word for it. Yes, GM's description was correct. But that doesn't mean one should take every manufacturer's claim as 100% truth.
If we could blindly believe all, the Volkswagen diesel wouldn't run dirty and Hyundai's would get better gas mileage than they claimed. Just to mention a few recent manufacturer's false claims among many...

Retired old Gearhead that is an excellent response. Your answer is based on facts and actual experience.
You have definitely convinced me the oil life monitor does work on parameters that give it proven functionality.
Since it doesn't actually analyze the chemical properties of the oil, I will continue to err on the safe side and change the oil every 5000 miles. I drive the Spark mostly short trips with a lot of stop and go, surely falling into the severe use category. The oil life monitor always says that I am changing the oil earlier then necessary. But there is no doubt that one can hear and feel the difference fresh oil makes in an engine compared to oil that is "only" 5000 miles old.
As far as the pressure loaded baffle in the primary muffler, I never noticed any difference in performance at any speed. I got just what I was looking for, losing some dead weight and raising the exhaust volume a little bit. The exhaust was so quiet in stock form, there was a few times in traffic under light throttle where I stayed in a lower gear to until the revs where 5000+. Now there is a pleasant low level growl at higher engine speeds to give one a better feel without checking the tachometer.
With a multiple catalyst/resonator design the muffler is an overkill for the Spark's 1249cc engine. I guess it's comes down to personal preference, but the car still falls in the "quiet" category even with the muffler removed. It has a little "personality" now. There are several other modern car models that don't run a "primary" muffler in stock form.

72,000 miles and running perfect on my 2013 5-speed LS.
SuperTech 5w30 every 5000 miles, Valvoline Synchromesh at 50k.
185/60r14 tires, averaging 42 mpg.
Airbox mod, throttle body half shaft mod, removed rear muffler, shortened gearshift.

It's a machine gun port for the James Bond edition.

If you make the extra effort to go under the fender guard to remove the resonator box, the tube can be left in place to draw cooler air from underneath by the wheel well. Same effect as a cold air intake.
Been driving it this way for 30,000 miles, the car runs perfect with no issues. The engine really loosened up around 15k and I average 42-44 mpg in the city, no hypermiling.

If you make the extra effort to go under the fender guard to remove the resonator box, the tube can be left in place to draw cooler air from underneath by the wheel well. Same effect as a cold air intake.
Been driving it this way for 30,000 miles, the car runs perfect with no issues. The engine really loosened up around 15k and I average 42-44 mpg in the city, no hypermiling.

It's a machine gun port for the James Bond edition.

When I cut down my gear shift lever and installed a new knob, I was able to see the shift linkage. It looked like a rod set up to me, at least the part I could see it underneath the console and shifter boot. I didn't see a cable anywhere

I took the whole thing apart. The boot for both the shifter and hand brake pop out at the bottom. One screw under the rear cup holder and two screws on the front sides allow you to pull up the whole console from between the seats.
There is a cotter pin that slides out on the driver side shift rod. There is a fastener on the passengers side that secures an assembly that holds a metal pin on the left side and a nylon bushing that holds the "ball" that pivots on the shaft of the shifter itself. I didn't remove the flat fastener on the passengers side because doing so will deform or damage it, and I didn't have another one. The shifter knob appears to be glued on. If one were to remove the gear shift itself, you could heat the knob with a hair dryer and remove it by using a 2 x 4 and a hammer.
But none of that is necessary. Just use a hack saw to cut the shaft below the knob at the desired height. Find a universal knob that attaches by set screws and is adjustable for shafts from 8mm to 15mm. Use a hardened drill bit to make shallow dents for the screw sets to get a good grip on. Autozone had a dozen or so different screw set shifter knobs from $12 to $35.

I took the whole thing apart. The boot for both the shifter and hand brake pop out at the bottom. One screw under the rear cup holder and two screws on the front sides allow you to pull up the whole console from between the seats.
There is a cotter pin that slides out on the driver side shift rod. There is a fastener on the passengers side that secures an assembly that holds a metal pin on the left side and a nylon bushing that holds the "ball" that pivots on the shaft of the shifter itself. I didn't remove the flat fastener on the passengers side because doing so will deform or damage it, and I didn't have another one. The shifter knob appears to be glued on. If one were to remove the gear shift itself, you could heat the knob with a hair dryer and remove it by using a 2 x 4 and a hammer.
But none of that is necessary. Just use a hack saw to cut the shaft below the knob at the desired height. Find a universal knob that attaches by set screws and is adjustable for shafts from 8mm to 15mm. Use a hardened drill bit to make shallow dents for the screw sets to get a good grip on. Autozone had a dozen or so different screw set shifter knobs from $12 to $35.

The second tube that comes out of the bottom of the airbox on the drivers side is just a resonator box of some sorts, not sure what it is really for. But I took it off and used the existing down tube to draw air into the airbox from just above the fender well in a place that is well protected from water. This doubled the amount of air drawn through in conjunction with the stock snorkel.
Wow! I didn't think it would make much difference in performance, but it does. The sound level hasn't changed, maybe the frequency of the induction noise is slighter higher, but hardly any difference at all.
As soon as I revved the engine in neutral I could feel the engine spin up a little faster. Before the mod, I noticed with the air conditioner on there was a slight bog in first gear until the engine spooled up a bit. Short shifting and not revving the engine enough always produced a flat spot with lackluster acceleration until the rpm's got a little higher. Nothing that couldn't be managed by utilizing the slick shifting gearbox to keep the engine spinning a bit faster.
But not now! The engine revs faster and no more bogging with the air conditioner on or a flat spot at lower rpm's.
The power increase feels kind of like the boost you get when turning off the air conditioner. Not a huge difference, but a nice little bit of extra oomph. I've only driven it a third of a tank, but it looks like I'm getting about 2 more mpg's out of it, and I am accelerating a little more than usual.
It takes about 20 minutes to do, pretty straight forward. Turn the front wheels all the way to the left for access to the fender well. Remove two black hex/phillips screws on the bottom of the fender well right on the front wheel air dam (underneath the car), not the two silver ones. Starting at the front bottom inside of the fender well and working up, you want to remove the bottom two outboard grommets and a bottom inboard one. Use a flat bladed screw driver to pull the center cap out and unlock the grommets, they will slip out and be reusable.
You can now drop the fender well down far enough to reveal three 10mm bolts that secure the resonator. You will be able to pull the entire resonator off and there will be a small black pipe attached that came out of the airbox. Separate the tube from the resonator and trim the paper ring from the airbox end. Remove the lid from the airbox and pull the air filter, you will see the opening for the resonator tube. Firmly push the tube back in, making sure the resonator end points down towards the fender well. It fits pretty snugly, but I drilled a small pilot hole in the airbox collar and used a small sheet metal screw to make sure it didn't move.
Here's a pic of the removed resonator:

First time at 500 miles. Dino oil every 3000 miles or synthetic every 5000. Don't listen to all that 10,000 mile hype. It won't "break" your engine, but it will increase the wear and shorten the life.
Synthetic oil is better at retaining it's viscosity and lubrication properties. But a standard 40 micron or larger automotive filter does not remove by products from blow by, moisture or other small contaminants/particulates. Just change your conventional or synthetic oil as I suggested and you will immediately feel/hear the engine running smoother and quieter. You will see a slight increase in fuel efficiency.
I don't care what the manufacturer suggests or what engine oil breakdown tests report. Just the way an engine purrs along on fresher oil tells me everything I need to know...