Sonic First Drive: First Impressions are everything?

[Sidewinder]

Ok, I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been about test driving one of these ever since I saw the final look, to the point that I ran into the salesman that sold me the G3 and asked him to set up a test drive for me today. Turns out the car that was available was a white hatchback, exactly the body style and colour I would end up getting, except for the 6 speed auto (more on that later).

The one I test drove was the 1.8 with the aforementioned 6 speed with AC as an option, so essentially bare bones except for the keyless entry which I believe is standard. The stereo had no cd player if that gives you an idea.

Anyway, I drove it a fair distance but nothing too crazy, and well, I’m somewhat disappointed. It’s one of those don’t read into the hype, that or don’t read into biased auto reviewers. Before I explain why though I’m going to talk about the car briefly.

For starters, it feels like a heavier car, there is no way around that really. The steering is glorious though as is the ride. I tossed it around a bit and it felt well planted. It is also much quieter than my G3 in terms of engine noise, though to be perfectly honest I’m not sure whether I like that or not; I like hearing the engine working. The speedo I think works very well with the car, easy to read and you can see the entire cluster through the steering wheel. Even with the 1.8 it really doesn’t feel underpowered at all and gets up to speed nicely.

That brings me to the 6-Speed Auto, I hate it. It seemed to hunt for gears, then again every GM auto I have driven seems to do that. Even my previous car which I loved to death the one thing I hated was the autotragic. Now that is personal preference, in terms of its function it is very smooth and even has a manual selection mode with up down buttons on the shift lever.

The interior is well designed, the e-brake lever is a bit smoother than the G3s (I really don’t know why that stood out to me). The seats were comfy for my short drive (fabric was fugly though). The materials I would say are even or slightly better that the G3 in terms of the dash, the door panels are MUCH better. The climate controls I found to be stiff, but they did feel better than the rotary knobs in the G3. Oh and one thing for me, THANK GOD they kept the true intermittent wipers, not like my mother’s HHR that has 3 speeds, too slow, too fast and why does this speed exist.

It looks fantastic in person, having alloy wheels standard on the hatch makes it look that much better (personal preference says I hate steels) and just parked it looks glorious. Me personally I love hatches, and the hatch looks so much better than the sedan.

Why then was I disappointed? Well it felt like an updated Aveo really. Don’t get me wrong I like the car, quite a bit still. However the reaction of auto reviewers made me think it would be light years ahead of the Aveo and at least with my 2010, it doesn't feel like it. It is better, and if you ignore the cash incentives on the Aveo it’s about $2000 between the top level Aveo and the top level Sonic (here in Canuck Dollars). However, I did drive the base with an automatic, so I’m going to hold of my final opinion until I test drive the turbo with the manual. I’ll be going Friday to test out one of those, which in reality is what I want, and if the driving dynamics of the base are already good I can only imagine what the LTZ will be like.

Having said all that, if first impressions are everything, then I would say that my first impression is generally people were too hard on the Aveo.