Swordsmith
242hp/252 ft-lbs BNR EFI
For my honeymoon, we flew down to Miami, and rented a car for a week, drove down to the lower keys, stayed in a little cottage on the water, tooled around, and then drove back up to the airport.
I paid for the rental with airline miles, and it doesn't specify a car, just a class. I'd selected Compact. The way rental works there, you go in and pick a car off the lot, get in and drive it up to the exit, where they scan your contract and a barcode in your window, and off you go.
So we're wandering around the lot, they have some Notes, Yaris, and other misc cars. No Fit, no Soul, a couple cars I'd wanted to try. But they also had a Sonic... the opposite of my 1.4T 6spd hatch; a 1.8 auto sedan. Tired from the 5am drive to the airport and the flight, we decided to go for something we already knew.
Now I can't say it was an absolutely fair test. Route 1 down to Key West is mostly 45mph, with a few stretches of 55... and it's mostly 1 lane each way so we aren't talking 55 but you drive 74 either. And it's mostly flat, with only a few mild "hills" as the bridges go up high enough to let tall ships under.
But you do have to merge from a dead stop into traffic moving at 50-60 mpg at right angles most times when you come out of a business, so some get up and go is required.
The Sedan passenger compartment seemed to be the same as the hatchback. The trunk looked much larger... but in retrospect I'm not sure it was. Turns out it's missing the top false floor the HB has, so when you fold the seat down you find out a lot of that extra room is really just the regular room below the deck that makes the HB level with the folded seats. The price you pay for the added length is less height, and a much less convenient access. Not bad... but not as amazing as I've heard folks describe it. Still, I could probably have slept back there with the seats up. If you constantly carry passengers the sedan is probably the way to go.
The 1.8 was certainly not as powerful as my modified and tuned 1.4. But it was never sluggish, never felt anemic. Maybe at 80 mph, or climbing a long steep hill, it would be, I didn't get to experience that. But it did just fine as an ordinary drive, something I found missing from all the cars in the segment that I drove back in 2012 when I was shopping. That shouldn't be a surprise since it was a 1.8 that hooked me on Sonic to begin with... but it was a nice reminder.
I have a heretical comment to make. The automatic is fine and I wish I had that instead of my manual. I first suspected this (after 20+ years of fanatical support for "manual is better" in my past) when I drove a ford Focus rental for a week, and found that the manual mode automatic did everything I wanted a manual to, while letting me relax and drive automatic most of the time. I had heard that the Sonic's automatic manual mode was not as good, but this was my first time actually driving one. I agree, the automatic mode was lacking from time to time. But putting it in manual mode so I could make the decisions worked fine, and most of the time there was really no need to. Particularly when stuck in stop and go traffic near the airport, or again in Key West itself, the automatic mode shone. And back in my Manual Sonic driving home, stuck behind an accident edging forward a car length at a time for 22 minutes, I missed auto.
I also hear that some of our vendor's tunes let us alter the Auto's behavior, and that due to learn mode, the rental I drove probably wasn't behaving at it's best anyway, as who knows who had driven it prior to me.
If I buy another Sonic in the future (I hope to keep this one for several more years, so who knows what will be on the market by then), it will still be the 1.4T, it will still be the Hatchback... but it will be automatic.
I paid for the rental with airline miles, and it doesn't specify a car, just a class. I'd selected Compact. The way rental works there, you go in and pick a car off the lot, get in and drive it up to the exit, where they scan your contract and a barcode in your window, and off you go.
So we're wandering around the lot, they have some Notes, Yaris, and other misc cars. No Fit, no Soul, a couple cars I'd wanted to try. But they also had a Sonic... the opposite of my 1.4T 6spd hatch; a 1.8 auto sedan. Tired from the 5am drive to the airport and the flight, we decided to go for something we already knew.
Now I can't say it was an absolutely fair test. Route 1 down to Key West is mostly 45mph, with a few stretches of 55... and it's mostly 1 lane each way so we aren't talking 55 but you drive 74 either. And it's mostly flat, with only a few mild "hills" as the bridges go up high enough to let tall ships under.
But you do have to merge from a dead stop into traffic moving at 50-60 mpg at right angles most times when you come out of a business, so some get up and go is required.
The Sedan passenger compartment seemed to be the same as the hatchback. The trunk looked much larger... but in retrospect I'm not sure it was. Turns out it's missing the top false floor the HB has, so when you fold the seat down you find out a lot of that extra room is really just the regular room below the deck that makes the HB level with the folded seats. The price you pay for the added length is less height, and a much less convenient access. Not bad... but not as amazing as I've heard folks describe it. Still, I could probably have slept back there with the seats up. If you constantly carry passengers the sedan is probably the way to go.
The 1.8 was certainly not as powerful as my modified and tuned 1.4. But it was never sluggish, never felt anemic. Maybe at 80 mph, or climbing a long steep hill, it would be, I didn't get to experience that. But it did just fine as an ordinary drive, something I found missing from all the cars in the segment that I drove back in 2012 when I was shopping. That shouldn't be a surprise since it was a 1.8 that hooked me on Sonic to begin with... but it was a nice reminder.
I have a heretical comment to make. The automatic is fine and I wish I had that instead of my manual. I first suspected this (after 20+ years of fanatical support for "manual is better" in my past) when I drove a ford Focus rental for a week, and found that the manual mode automatic did everything I wanted a manual to, while letting me relax and drive automatic most of the time. I had heard that the Sonic's automatic manual mode was not as good, but this was my first time actually driving one. I agree, the automatic mode was lacking from time to time. But putting it in manual mode so I could make the decisions worked fine, and most of the time there was really no need to. Particularly when stuck in stop and go traffic near the airport, or again in Key West itself, the automatic mode shone. And back in my Manual Sonic driving home, stuck behind an accident edging forward a car length at a time for 22 minutes, I missed auto.
I also hear that some of our vendor's tunes let us alter the Auto's behavior, and that due to learn mode, the rental I drove probably wasn't behaving at it's best anyway, as who knows who had driven it prior to me.
If I buy another Sonic in the future (I hope to keep this one for several more years, so who knows what will be on the market by then), it will still be the 1.4T, it will still be the Hatchback... but it will be automatic.
