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Went, saw, and inspected the car in question today. It was a good example of a 2012 Sonic with the 1.4 liter turbo and the super tall 6 speed manual transmission. The price point was really great. But I was of course suspicious that it might be too good to be true.
It was too good to be true. The check engine light even came on while we were test driving the car. The trouble codes (two of them) were for problems in the vacuum management system. One was a valve in the intake manifold that can't be fixed without replacing the entire intake manifold. And then there were numerous other little problems that you would expect with a car that has 88000 miles and hasn't really been thoroughly maintained. The other problems like a warped rotor brake rotor and a minor coolant leak I would easily fixed myself. But the intake manifold and the check engine light coming on during the test drive were just bad signs. Total dealbreaker.
What I would really love is to find one of those examples of the sonic out there that has the 6 speed manual transmission and the 1.8 liter naturally aspirated engine. A car like that at the right price could have 6 different problems even problems that the kid didn't disclose to me and I'd fix it.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.
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