SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


Dae-who? Changes to Dae-wow! as we get to know Chevrolet’s 2012 Sonic 1.4 LS

Don’t let prejudice cheat you

Published in Witness Motoring on Wednesday January 25, 2012

General Motors appears to have a perception problem in the eyes of SA buyers. While Korean brands H and K are going like gangbusters, Chevrolet’s small and medium cars, that just happen to be built in Korea, lag behind. New models introduced after Spark Lite, Aveo and Optra are sometimes dismissed as ignorable 'Daewoo' products, which is a pity. Cruze is potentially a great car; Orlando and Captiva family busses are brilliant and the new Sonic has its highlights too.

Launched as a five-door hatch, in LS trim only and with a choice of 1400 and 1600 petrol engines, the Sonic is completely new. In some parts of the world, it adopts the Aveo moniker and in SA the old car is retained, but please don’t even speak about them in the same sentence.

Sonic is built on General Motors’ new Gamma small-car foundation that is expected to account for as many as 2,4 million vehicles, in 50 countries, by 2014. It is stronger, lighter, handles well, sits firmly on the road and was designed from the floor pan upwards to meet and exceed all current safety standards. Steels used to build it have two to three times the tensile strength of those used to build previous models. Most cars boast of crumple zones and force dissipation paths up front. Sonic is built with these on the sides and rear too.

It seats five in reasonable comfort, has a fair-sized boot and is quite well equipped. The 1400 cc version we had on test, while not a Cruise missile, performed well and displayed excellent road manners. The engine is the 1398 cc, Family 0 (zero) unit developed by GM Powertrain Torino during the Opel division’s technical co-operation period with Fiat. It has a light cast-iron engine block, an aluminium cylinder head with variable length intakes, Hollowcast camshafts and a chain-driven DOHC, VVT valvetrain.

A quick glance through the spec’ sheet reveals four air bags, ABS with BAS and EBD, power windows on the front doors only, heated and powered mirrors, remote central locking with autolock, ISOFix anchorages, an RDS radio and CD unit with four speakers and auxiliary input, 15” alloy wheels, fog lamps in front and an onboard computer. An optional Comfort package at R7500 gets you a nicer radio with two more speakers; a USB input that reads MP3 files and WM4-encoded iPods, Bluetooth and remote controls on the steering wheel. It’s a no-brainer – spring for the package. Don’t get too excited though; the remotes include cruise control buttons but they only work if you pay for this function as well.

Wandering through from the back, the 290-litre boot is nicely shaped, is big enough for a trolley-full of groceries and the hatch opening is sufficiently wide to make loading easy. A 185/75 R14 steel spare lives in the usual spot, under the carpeting. Rear seatbacks fold one-third, two-thirds and almost flat, but leave a step.

The SA Standard Tall Passenger rated rear seat accommodations at 10 for headroom and feet, with knee space getting an 8. He found the seat cushion somewhat hard and low, which compromised dignified exit manoeuvres somewhat. There are three belts and as many head restraints. Storage is limited to one seatback pocket and a shared cup holder at the rear of the centre console.

Those in front are better cared-for, with a further pair of cup holder bins, a card slot, two small glove boxes, slots on either side of the vent- and radio panel, and a dash-top recess. The upper glove box houses the USB and auxiliary inputs, while keeping your music box out of sight. The driver’s seat adjusts mechanically for height and the usual functions, while the steering wheel adjusts for rake and reach.

Interior trim is pleasantly conservative, in shades of black and medium grey. Dash surfaces are of hard plastic, without looking cheap, while fit and finish is generally good. Visibility out through the side rear windows was better than most, the five-speed manual gearbox shifted smoothly and the ratios were pleasantly spaced. Fifth is geared for about 3500 rpm at 120 km/h, which struck us as biased slightly toward fuel economy, because roll-on acceleration from that point was gentle at best.

The overriding impression we have of this car is that, while not quite as attractively appointed as a certain Brand H Korean competitor at almost the same price, it sits more firmly on the road, handles more confidently and would possibly be nicer to live with if one does a lot of long distance driving. Our advice, therefore, is: don’t let your prejudices cheat you out of a potentially good experience. Try them all, weigh up toys vs. needs and then decide.

Breaking news: Sedan and 1,3-litre diesel versions will be here in a couple of weeks, but GMSA avoided our question as to when or if the 1400 turbo, available overseas, will arrive in SA.

The numbers
Price: R156 990 basic or R164 490 as tested
Engine: 1 398 cc, four-cylinder, DOHC, 16-valve
Power: 74 kW at 6 000 rpm
Torque: 130 Nm at 4 000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 12,7 seconds
Maximum speed: 177 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: about 7,5 l/100 km
Tank: 46 litres
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km with 5 years’ roadside assistance
Service plan: 3 years/60 000 km at 15 000 km intervals

For the launch report and more technical detail, click here



1600 cc version shown

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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