Gadgetory

I first started out at Siena and every now and then now still I spend a lot of time behind the wheel of our 2007 Chevrolet Aveo it was yellow and it was crap but I kind of liked it in spite of that so it's only fitting that they've stuck me behind the wheel of this car this week it's the 2013 Chevrolet Sonic RS it's not the spiritual successor it's the actual successor to the avail it's sold under the Aveo badge in the world market now if that yellow car was the limit I guess this bright red one is the tomato I'll call it let's get behind the wheel and check it out the fondant comes with a lot of small touches on the outside that also make it look pretty sporty out here in the back we've got these tail lamps that kind of look like aftermarket tail lamps from about 10 years ago kind of date it but I don't mind it I've also had a lot of fun watching people look around for the door handles here they're actually integrated into the window which kind of hide them other touches that are specific to the RS include these larger alloy wheels that are actually a dark color which kind of looked again cool and aftermarket and around front we've got fog lights and again headlights that kind of have it a sort of aftermarket headlamp feel now in the cabin we've got a lot of neat little touches that sort of speak to the RSS sporty message we've got these RS sport seats with embossing on the actual seat and a little bit of embroidery on the back of those RS logos and red trim everywhere that you look and we've also got this motorcycle inspired gauge package that's supposed to look like the sort of gauge pod on a sport motorcycle with a big digital speedometer right there and a large large tachometer on the other side one of the other things the RS model also comes with is yet another variant of Chevy MyLink system this is the third variant that we've seen in the 2013 model year vehicle you go into the different menus you've got your audio sources which includes am/fm Sirius XM satellite radio you've also got USB for audio and pictures it also says video but I haven't gotten any codecs to play on this particular model the end interesting thing about this version of my link is that it works very well with apps on your smartphone you see we've got Pandora we've also got bring Oh which is actually a navigation app that you can install on your Android or iOS phone and when you connect an Android phone via bluetooth you get all of that connectivity so I can pop into Pandora and it'll actually open the app on my phone sign in to my account and start playing songs from the last custom Pandora station that I've chosen and then I'll actually also even have access to thumbs up and thumbs down and then I can pop into the menu here and view the rest of my custom stations that I've already preset we pop back into the smartphone link and going to bring go and what it does is it doesn't exactly mirror the interface on the phone it gives you a sort of custom car interface it'll allow you to do things like search for destinations enter addresses and get those turn-by-turn navigation the interesting thing about bring go is that it's a $50 app that you install on your phone and you get locally stored maps and turn-by-turn navigation as opposed to buying like an 800 or 1200 dollar navigation option that's a very interesting way to keep costs down on this really inexpensive car and give the owners the sort of tech that they want underneath these Sonic's short hood there's not a ton of space in the engine bay but that's okay it's got a teeny tiny little engine here this is the 1.4 liter turbocharged Ecotec engine and it's got about 138 horsepower but the base 1.8 liter also has 138 horsepower what you're getting here actually is an eco engine in performance guys you get 148 pound-feet of torque which is more than the base engine so it's a little bit more get up and go but this isn't really a fast engine now when equipped with the manual transmission the APA tells us you only get about 34 miles per gallon on the highway 27 miles per gallon in the city and that evens out to about 30 miles per gallon all around now I've only got about 25 and change out of this engine and that's because I didn't actually realize that there wasn't any power to be had and I've been revving the crap out of it all week now we called our 2007 Chevrolet Aveo the lemon because well it was yellow and it was crap the sonic isn't crap it's actually a pretty good it's got an interesting engine that turbocharged engine makes just enough power but like I said earlier don't fool yourself into thinking that it's a high-performance engine just because you've got a turbo badge on there 138 horsepower is just enough power for a vehicle of this size and it's pretty high up in the power band so you've got to actually rev the crap out of it to get access to it what I find weird is the gearing which is a little bit odd particularly in stop-and-go traffic or in a when tooling around the city we often find myself in a weird no-man's land between first and second gear where first gear is just maybe a little too many revs make it a little too much noise a little too jerky and second gears maybe just not enough power to keep the vehicle moving and I find myself constantly going back and forth and back and forth between first and second gear got to do a lot of shifting in this car if you want to have any amount of fun with it now one thing that the sonic RS does really well though is handle the suspension is actually pretty well sorted out for a cheap Chevy car it's really good turn in the the sort of initial like responsiveness of the handling is pretty good there's not a lot of feedback that you get through the steering wheel but that's kind of par for the course in this day of electronic power steering not sure if this vehicle is actually equipped with it or not but I wouldn't be surprised I'm not feeling a lot through the wheel but I am getting a pretty good seat-of-the-pants field through the suspension which is firm not punishing I think 16 year old me would love this car but 16 year old me didn't really know better 16 year old me was happy with a 1990 Toyota Camry and be as giddy as a schoolgirl in this now Athena chose the Chevrolet Aveo we're looking for a tech car for our stereo installs because it was the cheapest car in America in 2007 when we bought it now the sonic is no longer the cheapest car that Chevy makes Barbie it's not cheapest car on the market anymore but it is still pretty cheap starts at 14 70 85 for the entry-level hatchback model now our RS steps above that with a lot of nice amenities and touches features but it still only tipped the scales at twenty thousand one hundred and eighty five dollars and there are no options to add on top of that unless you count the bring go app for navigation that's only about 50 or 60 bucks other than that what you see is pretty much what you get and as long as you're looking to look sporty and maybe not drive too quick what you get isn't that bad