Greg_E

Just wondering if you got my old car.

You didn't buy it from a ford dealer in central new York did you?

I have 2 sets of rims and tyres: the expensive rims for summer with good summer tyres, and some cheaper rims for winter with Michelin Alpin 4. The salt on the roads during winter really destroys our cars and rims, so i am glad i have cheep winter rims.

By law, we change to winter tyres when the outside temperature is under 7 degrees celsius, and can change back when the temperatur is above again.

I'll stay out of the arguing and say the above is what I did, and even with a Spark that pulled to one side I managed to keep it out of the ditch on the worst of days with my 30 mile each way commute through the hills of central New York. Snow tires on a separate set of wheels is the only way I will go through winter. You can fit 14 inch wheels to the spark which opens up a lot of choices in tires for a lot cheaper than 15 inch sizes.

Narrow tyres are great in the snow - will cut through deep snow very easy. I have done alot og snow and winter driving in my Spark, and it works perfect. And you don't need tons power in snow.

The pounding from the pedal is quite normal for the old and rudimentary system in the Spark, and with good winter tyres it stops great. With 65.000 km a year and 30% of them in snow, I can say it does very well.

I agree, the snow performance of the USA version was pretty good with my snow tires, didn't really drive it in snow without the winter tires so no idea how the stock tires will function.

Actually, mine was up right at my shoulder. But there were other places where you could see the seams were being strained.

That's probably a bit far for me as it would be more than 300 miles. I'm pretty much in the center of the state.

And for some reason I didn't get an email saying there was a reply, so sorry it took a couple days to get back to you. I don't come in here very often anymore since I got rid of my Spark.

Mine did that too, dealer had someone stitch it up.

Take a look at the leg bolsters, mine was starting to crack in the gray part just before I ditched it.

The tire plug kits actually work pretty well, something that you might want to keep in the car for repairs.

The tires on my Fiesta are junk too, they flat spot after about 6 hours parked. Not really noisy and seem to grip OK, but looking forward to the day I have money to junk them. Probably find some decent low rolling resistance

Michelin or something high quality. Need to pump my tires up for the colder weather, hit freezing last night and really close this morning when I left for work (thump thump thump thump...)

That said, the stock Spark tires on my car were pretty much done after 30,000 of which at least 10,000 was on snow tires (december through march for two seasons). But there was no problem with the alignment as I was told many times. Pressures were always run right around 40psi like the sticker says and obviously rotated a few times. Wish I'd had a better Spark experience, could have used the money that I spent toward the Fiesta right now on something else important.

You are now doomed to pick up a nail the next time you drive it.

They don't put as much light down the road as the Spark did, and they spray to much around the sides and straight up in the air. They may be very poor when the snow starts flying.

Need a jack and 19mm socket wrench too.

This goes a little beyond normal, but the spare in my Fiesta is an alloy with the same 8 spoke pattern as the main wheels. Couldn't believe that when I had to use it for a screw in the tread! Ended up stuffing a plug in the hole and it has been fine for 1000 miles now. The tire plug kit now lives in the car for other repairs and for rapid response for other cars.

I think Sonic has rear disks and I bet the hub mounting flange is pretty much the same. Caliper mount might be the only thing you need to make. And then you need to make a bracket to put bigger rotors up front. There is a popular mod for the Fiesta that moves the front caliper out for larger disks, still using the stock caliper and pads. With the larger rotor people say it stops a lot sooner, couple that with a rear disk kit for all around gains.

Since you want an auto transmission, I'll say to hold off on the Fiesta or Focus. The dual clutch system has had problems and pretty much anything you currently buy is going to have the old clutches and will probably give you issues. My manual has very good cruise control, barely ever notice it adjusting speed, nice and subtle in operation. I know you aren't an import guy, but for fun go check out Kia Rio and Forte. Versa Note is another small car you may want to look at, a guy at work has one and I was surprised by the features packed into the base model and the room in the back seat.

I miss the parking lot handling the most, and what were pretty good headlights.

It would be easier to buy a wider tire in a 50 series. The series number is a percentage of the width, so a 205/50r15 would be pretty close to the same diameter and probably a lot easier to find and maybe cheaper. A 185/60r15 might be another possible choice.

I think LoJack has a cheaper monthly cost than OnStar, but it can't call for help if you crash.

No sparks have a LoJack system, they have OnStar which is a cellphone connected data service that can report the cars position through GPS if the OnStar person is given a police report number, they will report where the car is located. If a thief takes the car into an area where there is no cell phone service, then no one can find it. It's also easy to unplug it, so any thief worth their time will just unplug it before starting the car.

30 days out of service and you should have a good lemon law claim if you are under about 20,000 miles.

I said in another post on the subject of hood latches, look at any 4 to 5 year old KIA in the winter salt areas and tell me how bad the problem really is. When you need to break the hood pin loose from the rust to open the hood, it's bad. The trend to go ever cheaper on all parts catches up with you in things like rust.

I now drive a Ford Fiesta.

The design of the Spark is good, with decent features and I was happy with this aspect. The dealers near me were a let down, the car sucked down a gallon of oil in 10,000 miles which won't be good for longevity, and at the time of trade in there was no fix just more jerking me around. Support from our Chevy people on this forum was good, but once it got elevated to higher level support they were not helpful and just wanted to close the case and move on to the next case.

It's no biggie until you consume too much, the carbon tends to build up and can gouge the cylinder walls. It can also cause the rings to stick which might cause issues with blow-by and could also cause cylinder wall damage. It also causes the catalyst to fail early, they are expensive and only guaranteed for 80,000 miles in the USA.

It really seems luck of the draw with some users in hot states reporting no issues ever, and some users reporting extremely poor performance even after having all the recall work performed. My only comparisons are a 2010 Kia Forte (chilly) and my 2015 Ford Fiesta (chilly is understatement the few times I've needed it). I will say one thing, the greenhouse effect on my Fiesta is high, seems to let a lot of light in but I'm not sure if they have different windows for sunny hot states. In comparison, my 2013 Spark with all the recall work the dealer said it did (never verified if it was really done) was not good and on a 90 degree day would barely blow cool air until you got up to about 3000 rpm (highway cruising speed).

If rust is the issue, then they need to compare to Kia, the latches on the few Kia models I've seen are horrible rust magnets! And yes I did own one of those rust magnets.

If someone can get the program number, I'll edit the title and make it a sticky.

Trade it in for some brand that is better supported in your area! I doubt you will get proper satisfaction from this dealer, ever. I doubt the general manager will care, but you can try, the BBB is a joke so don't waste your time. The customer support people on the forum will get things started, then they need to hand it off to higher level support. This higher level will probably tell you to go to another dealership, and when you say no, they will tell you they are closing the case since you refused their solution.