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Question, has anyone been on a long distance road trip with their Spark? I'm driving to Texas in a couple of days and from Illinois to Texas it's 15 hours and 1200 miles there. Most I've ever drive with the Spark was an hour and half with a distance of 65 miles one way. This will be my first road trip and first for the Spark. I just bought a full size spare with a new tire, got the alignment done along with fluids checked and the oil changed last month. My spark is a 2014 LS manual with 55k miles. 

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I have the 2016 spark 1lt, and I went on a trip from Ottawa, ON to New York City and there were no problems for me on the 500 mile trip each way. On the way back to Ottawa, there was a snowfall warning where I couldn't see an 1/8 mile in front of me with cars lining the ditches all the way up I81 and all through ontario, and this little thing just didn't care at all. Took it like a champ. Turns out over 12 inches of snow fell during the trip. I'll be taking my little spark to nova scotia this summer, so I'm curious as to how it handles the long haul, but if my last trip was any indication, it should be no problem.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I did recently moved from Connecticut to Virginia in January and I drove my car the whole way...in a blizzard!  First off, I was terrified driving it in blizzard conditions, but the traction control in this sucker was unbelievable.  I was super suprised with how well it handled.   Before you ask - we couldnt stop as there were no hotels along the stretch of road we were taking so we just kept on (my husband in the moving truck).  Anyway the trip was only supposed to take 8 hours but it took us 18 to get to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel due to the weather and only being able to go about 25 mph then we got stuck there as they closed the bridge (again no hotels near by with vacancies) so we just stayed in our vehicles until they cleared it.  I had me and two cats in the tiny car and it was a fine trip.  I was definitely a little sore and had to get out and stretch.  

 

But honestly this little car was PRO at handling snow.  It did get stuck a few times while getting gas but its so small its an easy push out. :P

 

It handled the trip very well!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/8/2017 at 3:31 PM, Dakota J Skidds said:

Question, has anyone been on a long distance road trip with their Spark? I'm driving to Texas in a couple of days and from Illinois to Texas it's 15 hours and 1200 miles there. Most I've ever drive with the Spark was an hour and half with a distance of 65 miles one way. This will be my first road trip and first for the Spark. I just bought a full size spare with a new tire, got the alignment done along with fluids checked and the oil changed last month. My spark is a 2014 LS manual with 55k miles. 

 

Just as an added precaution (and because mine is a 2013 with similar miles) i would have done the Brake and disc job on it. Sure you could stretch the brakes out more on those kinda miles but on a road trip ? i would have done it just to be safe.

 

I've driven from Los Angeles to Vegas numerous times and the car is such a trooper. Handles well and cant beat the mpg (on a non hybrid or electric) on those kinda speeds. This last time was a bit rough due to the high winds but i noticed every car was having that issue.

 

I also go to Ensenada, Mexico often (business trips) and the car and it never fails. Also a great drive and gets better once you see the coasts. Never gets old

 

 

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I would love to drive the 2017 Spark LS on the 6500 miles road trip coming up next month.

Would save a bundle on gas, driving from Florida to WA state to attend my daughter's law college

graduation, then driving north to San Jose to visit other daughter, then Los Angeles area & Phoenix to visit more relatives, and finally back to Florida. But wife overruled me so we will drive her Chevy HHR. The dog will have more room in HHR.

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  • 1 year later...
On 3/8/2017 at 5:31 PM, Dakota J Skidds said:

Question, has anyone been on a long distance road trip with their Spark? I'm driving to Texas in a couple of days and from Illinois to Texas it's 15 hours and 1200 miles there. Most I've ever drive with the Spark was an hour and half with a distance of 65 miles one way. This will be my first road trip and first for the Spark. I just bought a full size spare with a new tire, got the alignment done along with fluids checked and the oil changed last month. My spark is a 2014 LS manual with 55k miles. 

Where did you get a spare? Did it fit in your trunk?

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On ‎3‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 6:31 PM, Dakota J Skidds said:

Question, has anyone been on a long distance road trip with their Spark? I'm driving to Texas in a couple of days and from Illinois to Texas it's 15 hours and 1200 miles there. Most I've ever drive with the Spark was an hour and half with a distance of 65 miles one way. This will be my first road trip and first for the Spark. I just bought a full size spare with a new tire, got the alignment done along with fluids checked and the oil changed last month. My spark is a 2014 LS manual with 55k miles. 

 

I've already taken several big trips with my Spark, its only 1 year old. Just a few months ago I did a 5,000km round trip (roughly 3000 miles) in winter and it performed remarkably well. If you don't push the speed, you can easily get around 5l/100km or roughly 45mpg. I kept my speed around 100 and it returned very good economy. Again, converting to the US that's around 60-65mph.

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On ‎4‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 4:17 PM, Shimmmer said:

I did recently moved from Connecticut to Virginia in January and I drove my car the whole way...in a blizzard!  First off, I was terrified driving it in blizzard conditions, but the traction control in this sucker was unbelievable.  I was super suprised with how well it handled.   Before you ask - we couldnt stop as there were no hotels along the stretch of road we were taking so we just kept on (my husband in the moving truck).  Anyway the trip was only supposed to take 8 hours but it took us 18 to get to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel due to the weather and only being able to go about 25 mph then we got stuck there as they closed the bridge (again no hotels near by with vacancies) so we just stayed in our vehicles until they cleared it.  I had me and two cats in the tiny car and it was a fine trip.  I was definitely a little sore and had to get out and stretch.  

 

But honestly this little car was PRO at handling snow.  It did get stuck a few times while getting gas but its so small its an easy push out. :P

 

It handled the trip very well!

 

Often people seem to rag on smaller vehicles and performance in winter conditions, but I experienced reasonable performance when we had a freak ice storm two weeks ago. The traction control seems to help tremendously in certain conditions, although if you're stuck its of course better to turn it off and rock the car back and forth until you get out. I got stuck, rocked it back and forth, and then had to put traction control back on to get into a parking lot. It worked well.

 

If you put a quality set of winter tires on this car, especially if you can get studded ones in your location, it can take pretty much the worst winter driving conditions you can throw at it.

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  • 3 months later...
On 3/8/2017 at 3:31 PM, Dakota J Skidds said:

Question, has anyone been on a long distance road trip with their Spark? I'm driving to Texas in a couple of days and from Illinois to Texas it's 15 hours and 1200 miles there. Most I've ever drive with the Spark was an hour and half with a distance of 65 miles one way. This will be my first road trip and first for the Spark. I just bought a full size spare with a new tire, got the alignment done along with fluids checked and the oil changed last month. My spark is a 2014 LS manual with 55k miles. 

 

 

 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

 

 

IMG_20160830_162553378.jpg

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