Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Isn't the Sonic like $12 more than the Spark? When I saw them at Gm HQ, they looked like little brothers of the Sonic, except the price difference and MPG difference were minimal. Looking at them the Sonic is clearly the better made car. From what I saw the only reason to get a spark instead of a Sonic is because you want to be seen in a really tiny car.
My Wife wants a Spark . . . This awful pink color
I want her to wait until the new Fiesta comes out to make a choice.
Im not a car person anymore, but I rented a Focus for an interstate trip, and was very impressed with it.
We just got a flyer in the mail about a Nissan Versa that looks like a competitor for the Spark.
The Spark feels like a child's toy in terms of materials and overall quality. The Sonic feels far more substantial, and that's not the sturdiest feeling car on the lot. What worries me about the Sonic and Spark (as well as the Cruze and Buick Encore) is the Daewoo engineering...
Coming out very soon, very similar to the Spark, better color palette: Mitsubishi Mirage
Scions are almost never discounted at all. A current model year Scion has a non-negotiable price according to a couple friends of mine (one who tried to buy one, and one who works at a Toyota dealer), though I know of a '12 xB that may still be sitting on a lot with a pretty good discount...
Coming out very soon, very similar to the Spark, better color palette: Mitsubishi Mirage
I wouldn't want to bet any money on Mitsubishi remaining in the US marketplace much longer, due to their incredibly low sales figures.
Perhaps it is different in Canada, but in my neck of the woods, I might drive for several days without seeing even one Mitsubishi. By contrast, I almost always see 2 or 3 Porsche Panameras each day, and it is not unusual to spot a Maserati Quattroporte (or two) in my area on a weekly basis.
When a producer of, "popularly-priced", cars--like Mitsubishi--is being outsold by expensive, somewhat exotic cars, there is something wrong with their cars, or their marketing, or both.
Thanks for the comments guys, especially NJGoat. You guys really know your stuff.
I guess the bottom line is that the Spark is too new to have sufficient data regarding its reliability but Chevy, by and large, makes reliable car. That eases my mind a bit.
I considered the Scion IQ but one has to jump through a lot of hoops to buy an IQ in my neck of the woods. I don't know why but the IQ are sold out everywhere. It's always like that with the compact Scion cars, when I bought my Scion XA, I spend two months kissing up to the dealers and finally one 90 miles away called me and said they have one in stock and they could only hold for me for a couple of hours. I was running late and on the phone with the sales guy begging him to keep holding the Scion for me, and he was annoyed that I took so long. You know what, this time I just don't feel like working so hard. So the IQ is out.
Curiously, the Yaris, which I think is quite similar in spirit to the Scion XA, has plenty of inventory and there are rebates and such, so I'm considering the Yaris in addition to the Spark.
The Spark has been around for a while in other markets and is pretty reliable. It's one of the more "simple" vehicles on the american market (with a manual transmission) - if something does go wrong ... it should be fairly simple to fix.
The IQ is not even 1/4 as useful as the spark. There's no usable back seat, no cargo area.
Isn't the Sonic like $12 more than the Spark? When I saw them at Gm HQ, they looked like little brothers of the Sonic, except the price difference and MPG difference were minimal. Looking at them the Sonic is clearly the better made car. From what I saw the only reason to get a spark instead of a Sonic is because you want to be seen in a really tiny car.
They're about $2k apart in price. You really don't start to see the difference until you begin optioning them up. The one big advantage to the Sonic is that you can get the 1.4T motor in it and they hit 40 MPG highway. The Sonic also feels downright "upscale" compared to a Spark, lol. Of course just to be ironic, the Spark has more rearseat passenger room and more cargo space with the seats down than the Sonic does, lol.
It's weird though because from what I've heard, Spark buyers hate the Sonic and Sonic buyers hate the Spark; even though they are pretty similar. I've driven both and oddly enough kind of like both, but for different reasons. For a commuter car I'd prefer the Sonic for my highway driving. However, as an around town car, shuttling the kids to things, the Spark is the better choice. In the class though, I would probably take a Fiesta over a Sonic, whereas the Spark is the best car I have driven in that segment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thunderkat59
My Wife wants a Spark . . . This awful pink color
I want her to wait until the new Fiesta comes out to make a choice.
Im not a car person anymore, but I rented a Focus for an interstate trip, and was very impressed with it.
We just got a flyer in the mail about a Nissan Versa that looks like a competitor for the Spark.
The Fiesta is more of a competitor to the Sonic, not the Spark, though it's definitely worth checking out. Which ultimately may be a better choice comes down to what you are using it for. The ironic thing about the Spark is that it actually has USABLE rear seat room whereas the Fiesta, Sonic and even the Focus class cars have less rear seat room than the Spark. If your wife works locally in town and needs to shuttle the kids around a Spark is probably a great choice.
The Versa is really dependent on which model you are looking at. The base model is VERY basic. Once you start equipping it with pretty standard things, the price jumps up quickly. Truecar shows the Spark holding about a $2,000 value edge over the other cars in the class when similarly equipped. Basically, the Spark packs a lot of content into it's price.
Quote:
Originally Posted by us66
The Spark feels like a child's toy in terms of materials and overall quality. The Sonic feels far more substantial, and that's not the sturdiest feeling car on the lot. What worries me about the Sonic and Spark (as well as the Cruze and Buick Encore) is the Daewoo engineering...
I wouldn't be too concerned with that. The old 2002+ Aveo and the actual Daewoo badged cars were all developed before GM took over Daewoo in 2002. The current models that the reformed GM Korea had aactually developed include the current Sonic, Spark, Encore, Cruze, and Captiva. Not a bad list and most of them were developed in concert with another division. Opel had a large hand in the Sonic/Spark/Encore platform and Chevy had a large role in Cruze and Captiva development.
Quote:
Coming out very soon, very similar to the Spark, better color palette: Mitsubishi Mirage
The new Mirage makes the Spark look like it was made by Audi in terms of materials, feel and quality. The Mirage is being made with one goal and one goal only, maximum MPG in class from a gas engine. The CVT model gets 37 city, 44 highway and 40 combined. The manual gets 34 city, 43 highway and 38 combined. It's basically a modern Geo Metro commuter car. It's cheap, has about as much fit and finish as a can of tuna, but man does it get some seriously good MPG for a gas motor.
The problem of course is whether or not Mitsubishi will even be around for several more years in the US.
Quote:
Scions are almost never discounted at all. A current model year Scion has a non-negotiable price according to a couple friends of mine (one who tried to buy one, and one who works at a Toyota dealer), though I know of a '12 xB that may still be sitting on a lot with a pretty good discount...
Scion has gained a lot of steam recently. 2012 was their biggest year since 2008 with sales up 25,000 units vs. 2011. This year they are on pace to exceed 2012 by around 10,000 units. So, no, they aren't easy to get a deal on like they were a couple years ago. However, around here they seem to be a little more flexible on price given how much competition Scion now has. They are low margin cars though, so you're not going to see them hack $2k off the price, but $500 is doable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by beb0p
Thanks for the comments guys, especially NJGoat. You guys really know your stuff.
I guess the bottom line is that the Spark is too new to have sufficient data regarding its reliability but Chevy, by and large, makes reliable car. That eases my mind a bit.
I considered the Scion IQ but one has to jump through a lot of hoops to buy an IQ in my neck of the woods. I don't know why but the IQ are sold out everywhere. It's always like that with the compact Scion cars, when I bought my Scion XA, I spend two months kissing up to the dealers and finally one 90 miles away called me and said they have one in stock and they could only hold for me for a couple of hours. I was running late and on the phone with the sales guy begging him to keep holding the Scion for me, and he was annoyed that I took so long. You know what, this time I just don't feel like working so hard. So the IQ is out.
Curiously, the Yaris, which I think is quite similar in spirit to the Scion XA, has plenty of inventory and there are rebates and such, so I'm considering the Yaris in addition to the Spark.
You really need to layout all of your needs/wants in this car and then price the various options and compare them. Like I illustrated earlier, the price of the Spark starts changing when you add an automatic transmission and the MPG takes a decent hit. The Yaris is an OK car, but it starts at ~$15,300. If you want the automatic you need to jump from the L to the LE and then the price goes to ~$16,825. The city MPG at that point is around 30.
What I'm ultimately getting at is that assuming you want an automatic and that this will primarily be a city car, if you go away from something dirt cheap like the Spark you easily start running into the $16,000-$17,000 range. At that point you should very sersiouly consider a Prius C. Now, I beat up urkorz over his Prius recommendation, but that was relative to a base model Spark. If we are talking about a $16,825 Yaris that gets 30 MPG city versus a $19,500 Prius C that gets 53 MPG city, the breakeven on the fuel savings is around 50,000 miles at $4 a gallon. The Prius C will also come with much more extensive equipment than the Yaris at that price point and since it is based on the Yaris, they are pretty much the same size. If you live in CARB state you will also get a 10 year / 150k mile warranty on the hybrid system.
This is where the comparisons get tough. For a city car, if you aren't going dirt cheap with the base Spark, the Prius C is hard to beat...
Do they still offer a Yaris with a manual? I was talking to a Toyota sales guy and he said that was something they got rid of for 2013 MY?
According to Toyota's website they did in 2013 and still do for 2014. The "L" model of the Yaris in both 3 and 5 door comes with a 5-speed manual. The "LE" model of both comes with a 4-speed automatic.
What does that have to do with anything? Yes, there is a Spark EV, but the vast majority of Sparks are regular gas engined cars. Here's a question for you...
$12,995 and 32 MPG city vs. $19,100 and 53 MPG city. How many miles would you need to drive at $4 a gallon to make up that price difference? Answer, around 125,000. That's why the OP is looking at small city cars, not hybrids like the Prius family.
By now you should know that when the subject of cars come up there are some people whose conversation begins and ends with "Toyota"
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
