K-Bob
New member
LT Sedan, 1.4L, 6 spd
20,296 miles
OK, so I've had the car for a year now, and put over 20k miles on it. I really like it, would even say I have grown to love it. It has been the perfect replacement for my old car ('01 Prizm).
The Sonic looks great, drives good, and is getting excellent gas mileage: 36.0 calculated mpg according to Fuelly, and 37.1 according to the car's computer (I drive about 85% highway).
It did take me a little while to get used to it, and I had some initial complaints, most of which have been resolved.
I had to do a little bit of work to get the suspension sorted out: Eibach springs, GM performance dampers, and up-sized touring tires. But now it drives great with none of the handling issues mentioned in my initial review. I cannot recommend getting one without a similar setup, or else the factory sport suspension option. The base suspension just sucks. But that is, IMO, the only real deficiency in the car (aside from some trade-offs that you can reasonably expect at the price-point).
Over this past year the car has been very easy to live with, and very practical. I'm glad I bought it.
The fold down rear seats are nice and allow a bicycle to fit no problem – no need for a bike rack to haul my bike. But without a flip-down front passenger seat you are limited to 6' long items. 8' items would fit if it had a flip-down front passenger seat. Kind of surprised it doesn't have this feature, given that the hatchback body is the big seller, and the Trax is available with one. Anyway, no 8' boards for me.
One odd thing I noticed, that is kind of a negative, is that the trunk, while a decent size, is actually quite narrow: It varies from 5” to 10” narrower than my old car, even though the Sonic is 1.6” wider with a rear track 2.3” wider, and rear hip room .4” wider. Weird. I can't understand how it is so much narrower in the trunk. The car does look tall and narrow (like any new car), but it doesn't appear particularly tapered in the rear.
This means you cannot lay a golf bag in there transversely and leave half the trunk still empty in a nice usable rectangular space. A golf bag must go diagonally across the entire trunk – most inconvenient if you want to carry your clubs around in the summer.
But one thing I really like about the trunk: the tie downs. They are great for securing a cooler so it doesn't go sliding around and spill. Why don't all trunks have those?
Oh, and I absolutely love the keyless. I never want to go back to using a key (or a remote, even). It's so annoying when I drive the wife's car and have to actually unlock it and use the key, and then remember to lock it again.
Well, there it is, the one-year review.
20,296 miles
OK, so I've had the car for a year now, and put over 20k miles on it. I really like it, would even say I have grown to love it. It has been the perfect replacement for my old car ('01 Prizm).
The Sonic looks great, drives good, and is getting excellent gas mileage: 36.0 calculated mpg according to Fuelly, and 37.1 according to the car's computer (I drive about 85% highway).
It did take me a little while to get used to it, and I had some initial complaints, most of which have been resolved.
I had to do a little bit of work to get the suspension sorted out: Eibach springs, GM performance dampers, and up-sized touring tires. But now it drives great with none of the handling issues mentioned in my initial review. I cannot recommend getting one without a similar setup, or else the factory sport suspension option. The base suspension just sucks. But that is, IMO, the only real deficiency in the car (aside from some trade-offs that you can reasonably expect at the price-point).
Over this past year the car has been very easy to live with, and very practical. I'm glad I bought it.
The fold down rear seats are nice and allow a bicycle to fit no problem – no need for a bike rack to haul my bike. But without a flip-down front passenger seat you are limited to 6' long items. 8' items would fit if it had a flip-down front passenger seat. Kind of surprised it doesn't have this feature, given that the hatchback body is the big seller, and the Trax is available with one. Anyway, no 8' boards for me.
One odd thing I noticed, that is kind of a negative, is that the trunk, while a decent size, is actually quite narrow: It varies from 5” to 10” narrower than my old car, even though the Sonic is 1.6” wider with a rear track 2.3” wider, and rear hip room .4” wider. Weird. I can't understand how it is so much narrower in the trunk. The car does look tall and narrow (like any new car), but it doesn't appear particularly tapered in the rear.
This means you cannot lay a golf bag in there transversely and leave half the trunk still empty in a nice usable rectangular space. A golf bag must go diagonally across the entire trunk – most inconvenient if you want to carry your clubs around in the summer.
But one thing I really like about the trunk: the tie downs. They are great for securing a cooler so it doesn't go sliding around and spill. Why don't all trunks have those?
Oh, and I absolutely love the keyless. I never want to go back to using a key (or a remote, even). It's so annoying when I drive the wife's car and have to actually unlock it and use the key, and then remember to lock it again.
Well, there it is, the one-year review.