2016 Chevrolet Sonic
This year drew an ordinary 48 complaints for a Chevrolet Sonic — the model's median is 37. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.3% of them mention long, against 1.9% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 48 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 37 |
| Involving a crash | 8 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 2 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 29 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- long — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 1.9% across the model's other years (3.4×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
VEHICLE BEGAN HAVING TROUBLE WITH ACCELERATION AND JERKING WHEN STOPPED IN JULY 2019. TOOK VEHICLE TO A SHOP WHERE IT WAS SUGGESTED I REPLACE THE BATTERY AND THE OXYGEN SENSORS. BOTH WERE REPLACED. VEHICLE STILL CONTINUES TO JERK AND NOT PROPERLY ACCELERATE. V…
This car overheated and a head gasket blew. I am on a Facebook forum, and it seems like all of these cars have these problems. The Chevy Sonic ltz turbo 1.4 2016 is known for coolant issues and head gasket failures. My car only had 104,000 miles on it. It shou…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V422000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 16V257000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Chevrolet Sonic was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2016 Chevrolet Sonic? What happened to yours?
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