LVSteve
Member
Fresh from my Christmas trip to the Dallas area, here is a review of the rental car we had, a Chevrolet Sonic Sedan LT. I usually go for hatchbacks in this class, but we were moving presents around to and the Sonic hatchback on the lot was missing the luggage cover.
Specs:
4-door sedan
1.8 litre four cylinder 138 horsepower@6300 and torque 125 lb.-ft@3800.
6-speed torque converter automatic transmission
Weight about 2750 lbs
Performance:
Scoots well when pushed. The engine does get a bit vocal as the revs climb but is generally smooth and quiet in normal driving.
Transmission is very smooth but did find it VERY eager to get into the higher gears, probably to game the EPA mileage. That meant I had to dig into the throttle and have the car shift down two gears when following my girlfriend's son around town.
You can select the gears manually using a funky switch on the side of the gear lever. It's one of the worst MMI interfaces I've ever suffered in a car. It made as much sense as coating the steering wheel with honey then releasing Fire Ants into the cabin. What is wrong with a side gate manual shift pattern like many other car makers use?
Gas mileage was about 28-29mpg, which is fair enough as we were doing a bunch of short runs.
Ride and handling:
The ride was very good for a small car. Even the large divots on the area roads resulted in noise rather than tossing us about. I suspect that the moderate profile tyres helped a lot. Grip was sufficient for the driving I was doing.
Directional stability was not the best when it got windy. This adds weight to previous observations that hatch and wagon versions of small sedans are often more stable in the wind than the vanilla 4-door.
Interior noise was well controlled on the Dallas area roads. However, a real test is to drive it on the ultra noisy stretch of US-95 in NV.
Interior:
Seats were good, although the backrest adjuster is in an odd place. The wheel telescopes and I was able to achieve a good driving position with it all the way out. This is in contrast to the Yaris that we sat in that required my knees to contact the dash so I could reach the wheel. Just no.
The digital speedo won't please everyone and I never found how to get the trip meter to show. Also, the compass display shows in the binnacle, not on the rear view mirror. Took me a couple of days to notice. I REALLY needed it trying to escape DFW at 11pm on our arrival.
Other:
Trunk is huge for a compact car. Headlamps were very good. A/C worked just fine fighting off the Christmas Eve heat and the humidity and rain that followed at the weekend.
Conclusion:
Better than the Corolla and Nissan Versa. I'd only own one as a town car because of the 1.8 naturally aspirated motor. You really need the 1.4 turbo model out here because of the altitude in many parts of the West.
Specs:
4-door sedan
1.8 litre four cylinder 138 horsepower@6300 and torque 125 lb.-ft@3800.
6-speed torque converter automatic transmission
Weight about 2750 lbs
Performance:
Scoots well when pushed. The engine does get a bit vocal as the revs climb but is generally smooth and quiet in normal driving.
Transmission is very smooth but did find it VERY eager to get into the higher gears, probably to game the EPA mileage. That meant I had to dig into the throttle and have the car shift down two gears when following my girlfriend's son around town.
You can select the gears manually using a funky switch on the side of the gear lever. It's one of the worst MMI interfaces I've ever suffered in a car. It made as much sense as coating the steering wheel with honey then releasing Fire Ants into the cabin. What is wrong with a side gate manual shift pattern like many other car makers use?
Gas mileage was about 28-29mpg, which is fair enough as we were doing a bunch of short runs.
Ride and handling:
The ride was very good for a small car. Even the large divots on the area roads resulted in noise rather than tossing us about. I suspect that the moderate profile tyres helped a lot. Grip was sufficient for the driving I was doing.
Directional stability was not the best when it got windy. This adds weight to previous observations that hatch and wagon versions of small sedans are often more stable in the wind than the vanilla 4-door.
Interior noise was well controlled on the Dallas area roads. However, a real test is to drive it on the ultra noisy stretch of US-95 in NV.
Interior:
Seats were good, although the backrest adjuster is in an odd place. The wheel telescopes and I was able to achieve a good driving position with it all the way out. This is in contrast to the Yaris that we sat in that required my knees to contact the dash so I could reach the wheel. Just no.
The digital speedo won't please everyone and I never found how to get the trip meter to show. Also, the compass display shows in the binnacle, not on the rear view mirror. Took me a couple of days to notice. I REALLY needed it trying to escape DFW at 11pm on our arrival.
Other:
Trunk is huge for a compact car. Headlamps were very good. A/C worked just fine fighting off the Christmas Eve heat and the humidity and rain that followed at the weekend.
Conclusion:
Better than the Corolla and Nissan Versa. I'd only own one as a town car because of the 1.8 naturally aspirated motor. You really need the 1.4 turbo model out here because of the altitude in many parts of the West.
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