WilliamT1974
New member
Hello everyone,
My car is a 2015 Sonic LS hatch with a 1.8l engine and 5spd manual transmission. I bought it brand new back in early September 2015. A few days ago, it rolled up 70k miles on the odometer.
With that mileage, I knew some maintenance items would soon be coming due. I was looking at the list in the owner's manual, and verified that the timing belt interval is at 97k miles. I thought to myself that changing it at 90k would probably be a good idea and it would maybe go another two years before I got to that point.
Well, I just happened to notice that there's a footnote in the manual stating that the TB interval is 3 year or 97k miles, whichever comes first. Three years is quite a ways back in the rearview, which makes this sound scary.
Am I currently driving on borrowed time? Based on that footnote, I should have changed the belt and its associated parts twice by now. On top of that, this is starting to look like a hidden maintenance cost. If that job costs at least $1000 each time, it's going to exceed the car's value at some point.
The car has been pretty good to me so far. Thermostat housing cracked and was replaced under warranty. Purge valve failed and was not under warranty. Radio works and the a/c blows nice and cold. That's part of why I bought it. It had better air than pretty well any of the other compacts I looked at. I've done my own oil and filter changes. It still looks pretty good on the outside when it has a good washing. The interior is ok. The carpets and floormats that came with it were pretty weak and I replaced the floor mats with a nice set of CocoMats.
But that potential hidden cost is pretty off-putting. When did most of you have the timing belt and associated parts changed?
Thank you,
-Bill
My car is a 2015 Sonic LS hatch with a 1.8l engine and 5spd manual transmission. I bought it brand new back in early September 2015. A few days ago, it rolled up 70k miles on the odometer.
With that mileage, I knew some maintenance items would soon be coming due. I was looking at the list in the owner's manual, and verified that the timing belt interval is at 97k miles. I thought to myself that changing it at 90k would probably be a good idea and it would maybe go another two years before I got to that point.
Well, I just happened to notice that there's a footnote in the manual stating that the TB interval is 3 year or 97k miles, whichever comes first. Three years is quite a ways back in the rearview, which makes this sound scary.
Am I currently driving on borrowed time? Based on that footnote, I should have changed the belt and its associated parts twice by now. On top of that, this is starting to look like a hidden maintenance cost. If that job costs at least $1000 each time, it's going to exceed the car's value at some point.
The car has been pretty good to me so far. Thermostat housing cracked and was replaced under warranty. Purge valve failed and was not under warranty. Radio works and the a/c blows nice and cold. That's part of why I bought it. It had better air than pretty well any of the other compacts I looked at. I've done my own oil and filter changes. It still looks pretty good on the outside when it has a good washing. The interior is ok. The carpets and floormats that came with it were pretty weak and I replaced the floor mats with a nice set of CocoMats.
But that potential hidden cost is pretty off-putting. When did most of you have the timing belt and associated parts changed?
Thank you,
-Bill
