Can anyone explain what ON or OFF Earth possessed Chevrolet to build a FOUR Seat, TWO Adult Passenger automobile, namely the Chevrolet SONIC (There are doubtlessly more examples in this category. . We just never thought to check. .In order to keep this discussion civil, I will not further mention the hazards to vision posed by the present headrest designs found in almost all autos these days ! .
I always remove the rear seat headrests when not in use.
Re reduced rear seat room, that is, I think, due to the insurance companies. A two seat car is classified as a “sports car” and pays a much higher rate. So the manufacturers put two mini-seats in the rear to avoid this. Silly, I know.
And yes, newer cars tend to have poor visibility. All you can do it pick models that do not have this problem.
Bottom line, no one is forcing you to buy that model. Buy a different car.
b
Why doesn’t Chevrolet take the rear seat out of the Sonic and call it a “business coupe”. This style was made by most manufacturers in the 1940s. Chevrolet could bring back the business coupe.
It’s called a “2+2”. The design of using marginally functional rear seats to place the vehicle in a lower insurance category has been used for a very long time and by many manufacturers. My dad’s Fiat 124 Spyder (late '60s) was a 2+2.
Re: the headrests, you can send your letters of complaint to NHTSA. Headrests must meet very stringent size, angle, and location requirements.
I assume by the post the OP has purchased this Sonic. Which makes me wonder did they not test drive this thing.
I wondered that too.
OP???
Believe it or not, from a practical sense, couples with small children requiring child seats would buy these cars. They can happily service the entire family for several years as they become toddlers with booster seats too. They are fully functional for “non adults”, up to a point of course. Much to the complaints of our kids, we kept cars like these much too long. ;-(
An ad for a Chevy Sonic just popped up on my computer . . .
I kid you not
:grimace:
Dag, they’re relying on young couples not knowing how fast kids grow. {
I don’t get the post. Small cars have small back seats. Always have.
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SMB, we did keep ours a long time but always had more then one car, usually larger. Otherwise, you are right, they may only be good for about seven years…if you time it correctly. Besides, if kids grow up with very little leg room like we did, they don’t know the difference and you can even squeak another year or two out of them. We were all weaned riding in the back seat of the VW Beetles. It works if the taller kid rides behind the shorter front seat passenger and is perfectly adaquate for kids and in laws
allenwoll wrote:
We just never thought to check.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. What didn’t you check? Surely you’re not saying you bought a car this small without ever getting in the back seat, right?
I bought a 92’ Camaro RS for my daughter just after her high school graduation. The only complaint from her was that the back seat was too small for some of her friends. I just told her to get smaller friends. I never thought to check the back seat and yes…it was very claustrophobic when I finally crawled back there to check things out.
The Sonic (still sold in some markets as the Aveo) fills a need for some people, It’s more for markets outside of the US but for the city dweller or someone starting out with small children it’s not the best choice but on a limited budget some go for the new Sonic over a slightly used larger car.
Is not a matter of space or thinking about kids getting bigger, is all about the clasification of the car and the insurance issues.
“Surely you’re not saying you bought a car this small without ever getting in the back seat, right?”
Unfortunately, I think that IS what the OP is complaining about.
Based on that belief, I will attempt to rephrase the OP’s complaint as I see it:
We recently purchased a Chevy Sonic. Despite having the opportunity to sit in the back seat and to drive the car in order to assess vision problems that might result from the placement of the headrests, we chose not to sit in the back seat or to do a comprehensive test drive. Clearly, it is GM’s fault that we chose not to exercise normal due diligence prior to buying this car.
An ad for a Chevy Sonic just popped up on my computer
It’s called targeted advertising. Websites have ad-systems that look at what pages you’re on and it determined that you were looking at the Chevy Sonic…so it posted an ad on the page or in a pop-up about the Sonic.
It’s done all the time now…and I HATE it.
The Sonic is a very popular size for the rest of the world. The part with smaller (read; less fat) people in it and much higher fuel prices. The headrests are required by our federal government so adults don’t get whiplash when this car gets rear-ended. IF the rear seats are omitted, a very large portion of the buyers will not buy the car. Not that many of them regularly carry full size adults in there but they CAN in a pinch. They can carry very small kids pretty well.
Hey, at least its not a Scion iQ!
My Mustang has a back seat but I try not to force people to actually USE it! I’m not that cruel! But it has carried the occasional passenger a short hop to lunch and back.
The ultimate “non-seats” in the back were in the VW Karman-Ghia sports model in the sixties. I once had to ride in that back seat for 100 miles and came out walking like the Hunchback of Notre dame.
As an aside, a lot of that target advertising is handled through Google even if you aren’t signed in to a Google account. You can opt out of it by going here, choosing “Ads settings” (middle column) then “manage ads settings” and then opt out of both interest-based ads on google, and across the web.