Acceleration issues

[dani]

Hi,

I have a 2012 auto 1.8l Sonic with about 36k miles on it. It's mostly great, but lately I've noticed an acceleration lag, followed by slightly excessive acceleration, too high RPM. Also, I noticed that if I take my foot off the gas, the car experiences what I can only describe as sort of jerky deceleration, almost as if the car hesitates about the gear to switch to, and sort of clumsily drops after a second.

I know that a tune would improve this, but I'm not keen on doing mods right now necessarily. My question is whether there could be a problem that I can fix on the stock? I drove a rental Sonic with the same engine recently and it didn't drive like this at all.

Thanks

 

[$ub$onic]

I'm going to assume no cel?


Maybe stop somewhere and have then check for pending codes

Something's I would check are plug gap and maybe a tank of high grade fuel cleaner.

Edit: maybe take a look at the air filter real quick for ****s and giggles.

 

[SuperFudd]

Perhaps a transmission issue. Low fluid level / leak?
I seem to recall these symptoms were mentioned on this forum a time or two.

 

[qwed94]

My 12 Sonic 1.8 AUTO, did that same thing tonite. First time it has done that to that extent. I didnt freat just too much. I didnt really let the car warm up for very long. (a minute or two). It is -6* so I just took it with a grain of salt, but if it starts doing this alot (where it can be duplicated at most any time). Then I will return it to dealer.

 

[Swordsmith]

I know you said you don't want to mod the car, but you might want to look into a Trifecta tune; this includes changes to the automatic transmission's decision making that many have reported are a marked improvement. On the other hand, its possible that you have an actual issue, since you say a rental didn't have the same problems.

 

[dani]

Hi, came by to update that I took my car to the dealer and they couldn't find any real problem. The guy did think I would benefit from a throttle body/fuel system cleaning, since my car was previously in a rental fleet before I bought it and probably needed to be freshened up. He suggested I think about it first, since I'm a rather broke grad student now, but I mentioned the issue to my dad, who gave me the daughter discount and did it himself for free sweet!

Anyway, just wanted to drop in because my car has been running significantly better this week now.

Also, yeah, I'll eventually get it tuned probably, but I'm still considering budget and warranty and all that.

 

[bandita52]

i might be having an issue sometimes when i accelerate either slowing down when someone is turning or stopped at a light. is this normal. would something like this be covered under warranty. i did have the auto transmission replaced back in july last year and the gas pedal was stiff since when i was breaking in the new transmission. my car is still stock.