CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic is fairly new & is already showing an early trend of transmission problems.
Owners report hesitation when shifting & grinding/hard shifting into gears. Some dealers are calling the condition "normal". Another owner reported his dealership replaced the transmission under warranty, but the new transmission had the same exact grinding problem. Design defect?
This is not a complaint, I am writing to the one complaining about the adjustment of the lighting "going on and off for no apparent reason" and that the "radio adjust the volume on it's own" and that the "A/C blower adjust up and down". Have you ever read your owners manual? These are not malfunctions of the car, but part of the design Battery Load Management system, which is designed to redirect power from being used in one area to another where it is failing or if the area is causing the battery to overheat and therefore stops it from draining the battery all together-, if you notice the lights dim for less and a few seconds, but NEVER do they go off completely, then they go right back to their normal brightness. The same applies to the speed of the A/C fan, too, it may momentarily slow but goes right back to where ti was for the same reason, and the radio not still being set as "on" when you get back in the car is part of that, and also the other part is you have a "max volume at start up" setting on your car, and if you have the volume set below that when your turn the car off, then when you go to start the car, it recognizes it below the setting you have set and sees the radio as being turned "off" when you turn the car off, however, that setting is great to now have the radio be blaring loud when you start up first thing, if you are over the setting (mine is level 15) it will adjust back to like level 15 but never adjust up to that level and sets as off. The radio volume adjusting on its own- does this happen mostly when you apply the brakes? If so you have to check your setting on the radio itself, as there is a setting that automatically adjust the volume on your sound system based on the speed of your car, it has an off, low, medium and high- the purpose of this is as you pick up speed the sound adjust up with it to cancel out road noise and that you are not reaching to turn it up each time you get a little faster, it does so own it's own- you do not notice it going up, but it it very obvious when you go to stop and apply the brake and it seems to just turn down instantly. Turn that setting to low or Off and you won't have that problem anymore. I've seen this many times on these "complaint" pages, that people are launching complaints against things that a simple read through your manual tells you all about and that they are supposed to happen. Before rusing to complain how about instead looking for the answers in the material provided (I've read my book cover to cover on my Sonic and anytime I question it I go there FIRST before taking it to a shop), because the reason that the dealer isn't finding codes or seeing the problem that you see when you take is in is because they see the normal behavior of what the car is supposed to be doing. Before we give a bad reputaion how about looking up something on the features of the car instead of going into a panic about something that isn't a problem, but maybe an annoyance of yourself and giving people bad names. You don't like people attacking you for no reason, so why do that to a company or any one else?
The headlights are just one symptom of a system wide electrical "ghost" that I have been complaining about since I bought my Sonic in 2012. So far I have been repeatedly told, "If we can't recreate the problem, we can't fix it." A random, intermittent, blink of the headlights may not seem like much, but when cruising down a dark highway at 60+, that second without light seems like an eternity, a very dangerous eternity. Oh, and, of course I only notice this at night...
- Michelle N.,
Humptulips, WA, US
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
This is not a complaint, I am writing to the one complaining about the adjustment of the lighting "going on and off for no apparent reason" and that the "radio adjust the volume on it's own" and that the "A/C blower adjust up and down". Have you ever read your owners manual? These are not malfunctions of the car, but part of the design Battery Load Management system, which is designed to redirect power from being used in one area to another where it is failing or if the area is causing the battery to overheat and therefore stops it from draining the battery all together-, if you notice the lights dim for less and a few seconds, but NEVER do they go off completely, then they go right back to their normal brightness. The same applies to the speed of the A/C fan, too, it may momentarily slow but goes right back to where ti was for the same reason, and the radio not still being set as "on" when you get back in the car is part of that, and also the other part is you have a "max volume at start up" setting on your car, and if you have the volume set below that when your turn the car off, then when you go to start the car, it recognizes it below the setting you have set and sees the radio as being turned "off" when you turn the car off, however, that setting is great to now have the radio be blaring loud when you start up first thing, if you are over the setting (mine is level 15) it will adjust back to like level 15 but never adjust up to that level and sets as off. The radio volume adjusting on its own- does this happen mostly when you apply the brakes? If so you have to check your setting on the radio itself, as there is a setting that automatically adjust the volume on your sound system based on the speed of your car, it has an off, low, medium and high- the purpose of this is as you pick up speed the sound adjust up with it to cancel out road noise and that you are not reaching to turn it up each time you get a little faster, it does so own it's own- you do not notice it going up, but it it very obvious when you go to stop and apply the brake and it seems to just turn down instantly. Turn that setting to low or Off and you won't have that problem anymore. I've seen this many times on these "complaint" pages, that people are launching complaints against things that a simple read through your manual tells you all about and that they are supposed to happen. Before rusing to complain how about instead looking for the answers in the material provided (I've read my book cover to cover on my Sonic and anytime I question it I go there FIRST before taking it to a shop), because the reason that the dealer isn't finding codes or seeing the problem that you see when you take is in is because they see the normal behavior of what the car is supposed to be doing. Before we give a bad reputaion how about looking up something on the features of the car instead of going into a panic about something that isn't a problem, but maybe an annoyance of yourself and giving people bad names. You don't like people attacking you for no reason, so why do that to a company or any one else?
- jonga, Cumming, GA, US