Chevy Sonic LT rental
 

Recently, I rented a Chevy Sonic 4 door sedan. I had to drive it quite a lot (work trip). And I liked it a lot. I drove it fast on the freeways, keeping up with all the fastest traffic. I used cruise control heavily.

I found that I could manually switch to 6th gear at 35/36 mph. It was easy to keep well under 2000 rpms. At 75mph, it only turned about 2600 rpms. The A/C seemed very efficient. I was able to cool the cabin in 100 degree sunny conditions with inly parttime use, with the cabin air recirculation setting going.

The coolest thing was the discovery that in cruise, using the manual gear selecting setting, the car would stay in 6th even under heavy load on the freeways. So, climbing a steep hill at 65mph, for example, the car would stay in cruise, stay in 6th gear, and slow down under the set speed, only to regain that lost speed without my intervention once the car got back to more level ground. Nice little go box!

Some pictures
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1471544994
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1471544994

And here is the final, total, combined city/highway fuel economy. It was mostly freeway driving, but I was driving with the fastest traffic. No turtle here. Only the hare.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1471544994

Nice car.

Not bad at all. Remind me what engine they put in that?

I should have checked the owner's manual, but online they say the standard is 1.8L.

According to Wikipedia, the Aveo and its assorted aliases get the Family 0 or Family 1 (some Ecotec branded content there) range of engines, from 1.2 all the way up to 1.8l straight fours.

According to Chevy's site, the 1.8 is the base engine on the LT, so that's probably it.

In 2013 sedan only had 1.8 NA engine, Later years only the LTZ and RS trims got the 1.4 turbo. 1.4t also has 6 sp manual instead of 5 sp of 1.8 manual. Either engine makes 135 hp, but the 1.4t has lots more low end torque. With a trifecta tune 150 hp & 190 ft lbs at the wheels. The Cruize has the same engine options.

1.8 in the LT and 1.4T in all the other models has been the standard Sonic lineup since 2012. 6 speed manual on the 1.4T, 5 on the 1.8. There's been some small perturbations, but that's pretty much it.

Too much detail is available if you want:
2016 GM Powertrain Guide

Other years are available too.