Back in September, I spent 10 days and 900 miles on a business trip to Illinois. This time I was assigned the 2018 Chevrolet Sonic sedan. Available engines are a normally-aspirated 1.8l 4 cylinder, or a more powerful 1.4l turbo. I got the “Premier” edition which had the turbo.
The trend for automakers is to replace a larger engine with a smaller engine plus turbo. This supposedly results in a car with better fuel economy and higher torque at low speeds. They are doing this to meet fuel mileage requirements. Driven conservatively, I would agree that a 1.4 liter should get better fuel economy than a 1.8 liter. I sure didn’t drive conservatively, and I do not think most people do.
Observations:
Turbo is not noticeable. I did not feel it kicking in. I did not experience torque steer- the sensation of the car pulling strongly to one side when you floor it. Acceleration was OK. Good job engineers.
The fuel economy was ok but did not seem that great. I think the tank only has 9 gallons, and I was filling up a lot. Measured economy was (30.5) on mostly highway driving. I only remembered to record this once.
Driving was fine. The seats were good. Visibility was good. The trunk was large.
I have mixed feelings on the level of luxury. The Sonic sedan comes in 3 trim levels. “Premier” is the highest. The best part was the Sirius XM radio. It also luxury features of leather seats, the ability to unlock doors and trunk just by touching the handle, and push-button start. I did not have to take the fob out of my pocket which was nice because I always seemed to be running late. It also had Apple Car Play and a little cubbyhole on the right for my sunglasses. I enjoyed the available options. I am accustomed to driving larger cars where these features are standard, but on this car, I guess they are a kind of luxury. Good job interior designers.
My main complaint was that it felt that the car was too small for me. I am 5 feet 11 and medium build. The tiny little sun visors were almost useless when driving at sunrise and sunset. I could not find a good place to see out where the sun was blocked on the side because the visors were not long enough to cover the entire length of the side window. Maybe if the seat was moved closer to the steering wheel it would have been better. In addition, the windshield washer nozzles were pointed very low on the windshield so the wipers whisked away any fluid before it got to the top half of the windshield. I felt too tall to see out of the clean part of the windshield. Bad job interior designers.
This could be a good car if you are not very tall and need 4 doors for your carpool.
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