A milquetoast and still common sedan, it’s easy to ignore the Cruze. That might be a mistake for historically-minded car enthusiasts. The Cruze has struck me for a while now as a pretty significant car in the story of GM and Chevrolet. I considered a few alternate titles for this piece including:
-I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
-Where Were You In ’82?
-Deed You Hear An Eco?
-Too Late Too Little
We’ll hit these points, but I decided to approach it from the perspective of the animal kingdom. Based on an incident which I’ll relate a little further down in the article, I believe that birds hate this car. Maybe not all birds, just particularly angry birds.
It’s been well known since 2009 that certain birds are really angry, at least if video games are the accurate reflection of reality we should obviously assume them to be. The game was released the same year as the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic, which is why the punishing birds targeted pigs. In those simpler times, a rampant respiratory virus just inspired cute video games, rather than spurring society to tear asunder, but I digress.
As the Angry Birds game became a big hit in 2010, Chevrolet was introducing their latest reinvention of their compact/small car, a class we could diplomatically say they historically had a hard time succeeding in. Most here will be familiar with the tale of woe, but a quick overview may be welcome:
Chevrolet’s first compact car was the 1960 Corvair, a fine and ambitious car in many ways yet famously controversial due to some myopic packaging and rear suspension decisions on GM’s part. Chevy did shortly introduce their Chevy II/Nova, which was much more conventional and commercially successful.
Then there was the Vega…
Oops! Wrong photo…
That looks correct. The Nova was not a particularly small car by 1971, when GM needed something subcompact to effectively compete with the increasingly popular small cars from Europe and especially Japan. They put considerable resources into the 1971 Vega, but as with the Corvair, the quest to keep it profitable made them skimp in areas that would prove unwise. At least this time it wasn’t unsafe (at any speed), just unreliable and un-durable. As with the Chevy II/Nova, Chevy salvaged some small car goodwill by later introducing a more conventional car, the adequate but spartan Chevette. It was largely borrowed from GM’s global subsidiaries, an idea that will be seen again in our Cruze story.
While Chevrolet struggled to field a competitive small car in the 70’s, the market for Japanese imports had grown exponentially. GM recognized that they needed something good in the “small” market and again put a lot of effort into developing their own homegrown J car line, with [nearly interchangeable] versions sold by every division including Cadillac. GM failed to understand the things that were most important to import buyers, hitting at best a base hit when they needed a home run. The 1982 Cavalier was nice-looking and rode well, but suffered from too much weight, a coarse engine with underwhelming power, an unimpressive interior, so-so fuel efficiency, and they weren’t particularly well screwed together. Basically its strengths and weaknesses were the polar opposite of popular Japanese models.
Chevy soldiered on with the Cavalier on the same platform for 23 years, albeit heavily revised and refined. It eventually became a passably functional little car, but the public had integrated the baseline reality that Chevy’s small cars were not anything special and appealing only on price. Meanwhile, Honda set the bar so high with excellent new Civic and Accord generations every five years like clockwork, Cavalier was like the short, stout kid in gym class: it couldn’t even touch the bar, much less do a pull up.
The 2005 Cobalt was finally an all-new platform, which corrected many of the Cavaliers’ weaker points. It was structurally sound with a decent engine, performance, and fuel economy. It was kind of homely, though, with an interior that made clear where GM cut costs. The Cobalt did OK, but it wasn’t enough to convert many import buyers (the truly impressive performance of the SS notwithstanding!).
I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
Which brings us to our avian-reviled Cruze (don’t worry, the bird story is coming soon!) where GM tried once again to reset the public’s perception of what a small Chevy is. After three tries at doing the job themselves and later attending several 12 step programs, GM North America finally confessed “We are the General and we aren’t good at making small cars.” They made amends by going to their subsidiaries Daewoo in Korea and Opel in Germany and letting them design a car for their highly small-car-buying markets and then using the Lordstown, Ohio plant to build it with minimal adaptations for the North American market. GM couldn’t completely kick their habits, though, as the American version added weight, GM’s small-car drug of choice.
Probably owing to the extra weight, N.V.H. was commendable, especially on the highway, while also having a European tautness and quite decent handling for a non-sporty car. The Delta II body structure was stiff. Styling was very pleasant, hardly groundbreaking, just easy on the eyes. Performance was not any better, sometimes a little worse, than its peers but the engine was smooth at moderate acceleration and cruzing speeds, something GM had not traditionally been very good at in its four pots. The standard six speed manual shifted precisely.
The most notable thing was that the interior was actually well done, with styling, ergonomics, colors, build materials, and soft touch areas up to the standards of foreign makes. Wow, give Chevy a break, it only took them 40 years!
The photo car is 12 years old and gives every appearance of being a daily driver not leading an especially sheltered life. I don’t know the mileage, but one might expect the cloth driver seat of a car this old to look more worn. It still looks sharp!
Where Were You In ’82?
A good-looking car, well-built and engineered with class-competitive cabin, refinement, economy, and reliability? Oh Cruze, if you had only been around in 1982 when GM really needed you! An American-made car hitting all those marks, even if it was largely designed overseas, might have much more effectively resisted the Japanese onslaught of the 80s. So many buyers, especially small car buyers, became permanently estranged from Detroit’s automakers over that decade. “Buy American” sentiment was a big thing in those days, and probably accounted for a fair percentage of the sales of Detroit’s more lackluster cars. That patriotic sentiment was still strong enough that if GM in particular hadn’t given buyers so many good excuses to jump off the Sloan ladder to buy Japanese in the form of the Cavalier and many others, they might have gotten off the glide path to massive loss of market share, perpetual struggle, and eventual insolvency that they were on in 1982.
It’s never a bad time to sell a good car, though. Especially when it’s the first major car you introduce after your bankruptcy. The buff books had mostly good things to say about it in its first year and buyers responded pretty well. In the U.S., the Cruze sold between 230k and 270k every year of its 2011-2015 first generation, which was 50k+ shy of what the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla were moving, but beating the Hyundai Elantra and Ford Focus by 10-30k most years. Most importantly to GM’s beancounters, it sold roughly 25% better than the Cobalt averaged in 2005-10 (granted the Great Recession made 2009-10 rough years for every maker). Not a home run, but probably a solid double, helping GM take a healthy step as it emerged from Chapter 11.
So, why do I believe that the Cruze made birds angry?
In 2013, I came across a display of avian animosity on a scale I haven’t seen before or since.
This was well before I started curbsiding, so the pictures aren’t the greatest. The nighttime setting wasn’t doing the photos any favors, either.
Even with the bad photos, it’s clear Angry Birds had their way with this poor Cruze. What is it that they hate so much about this car? Are they spelling purists offended by the Cruze’s assault and battery on the English language? Are they traditionalists aghast that for the first time Chevy offered no coupe body in a compact car? Are they miffed that Chevy never had an SS version or any real performance variant at all?
I think, personally, it’s that bird species (in both the animal kingdom and video games) relate by power and dominance, qualities lacking in the mild-mannered Cruze. The prevalent issue magazine road testers (and maybe birds) took with the car was barely adequate engine power. Cruze came standard with a 1.8L DOHC 16v I4 making 138hp and 125lb-ft, though most were equipped with the optional 1.4L DOHC 16v turbo (Ecotec, Family 0) making the same 138hp, albeit with a worthwhile 23lb-ft torque bump. Neither engine would make the Cruze fly, and if one tried to take off with the turbo, the normally quiet and smooth engine would become much less amiable.
Also, the Cruze commonly suffered turbocharger and/or water pump failure in middle age. Never-the-less, human owner reviews are generally positive.
Deed You Hear An Eco?…
The little green tag next to “CRUZE” indicates the birds singled out the Eco model to dump their load on. This is an interesting choice as the Eco is arguably the best version of the car and the closest thing to a performance model Chevy would offer. As the name implies, it’s specially designed for better gas mileage, though its features also enhance performance, giving it a one second 0-60 edge over other Cruzes and most other cars in its class. The Eco comes with the turbo engine, a specially geared 6-speed manual (regular auto optional), lowered suspension, unique and handsome 17″ forged aluminum wheels and 200 pounds of weight savings. Chevy gave the model a surprisingly large number of engineering tricks considering its relatively low price among the Cruze models, to allow Chevy to lay claim to having the highest highway EPA rating (42 mpg) of any gasoline non-hybrid car on the market.
For serious hypermilers, the Cruze actually offered a turbodiesel engine from 2014-19, the first oil burner in an American-branded passenger car in the North American market since 1985 and likely the last ever.
As is often the case, American buyers didn’t get the most interesting stuff, which in the Cruze’s case was a wagon model offered in Europe and Australia. A hatchback was also offered there.
Too Late, Too Little
As commendable as the Cruze was, it faced two unyielding headwinds: too late and too little. The Cruze entered the world during an era of high compact car sales, in a market crowded with good alternatives. Volumes in this class would start falling across all makes within a few years. More and more consumers wanted something other than a traditional passenger car. No matter how good the car sitting on the dealer lot was, CUV’s got the test drives and sales while passenger cars looked on forlornly. Terminally ill sales resulted in euthanasia for many compact cars, including the second-generation Cruze in 2019. Even were it the best compact car in the world, it was too late to conquer a shrinking market.
Of course, the other problem for the Cruze was that it wasn’t the best compact car in the world. The Cruze brought too little to the table to make a big difference. Being competitive in quality helped it to be, well, competitive in sales, but buyer tastes for Asian food were too well entrenched to be overcome with American fare, even the figurative hamburger-flavored noodle bowl that was the Cruze. Conquest sales were hard to come by when most compact customers were children or even grandchildren of people who gave up on GM, or American cars generally, in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s difficult to break habits (as GM knows well from hard personal experience).
Who knows why the birds hated this car? We don’t understand their language much beyond what they universally communicate in who or what they drop their fecal enmity on.
The Cruze is historic for a number of reasons. It was the first truly competitive compact car from GM in North America. Yet, it was the last ICE compact passenger car from GM in North America. Its platform was used for the Volt, a truly groundbreaking vehicle. Yet no respect from the air…
How can one prevent angry birds from aggressively defecating on a Cruze’s bodywork?
Chevrolet recommends parking upside down. Your results may vary.
Curbside Cruze photographed 7/3/23, Poop-shamed Cruze photographed 7/29/13, Houston, TX
Related CC reading:
Curbside Rental Service: 2014 Chevrolet Cruze LTZ – This Isn’t Quite So Easy by Jason Shafer (with 191 comments and never rerun!)
COAL: 2011 Chevrolet Cruze LS –Part 1 – Sometimes, Dreams Do Come True & Part 2 – The End of the Dream by Adam Dixon
CC Newsstand: The Chevrolet Cruze, General Motors Last Compact Car For America, Rolls Off The Assembly Line One Last Time by Edward Snitkoff
See also Corvair, Vega, Cavalier, and Cobalt links in story
Personal addendum:
I’ve thought the Cruze an attractive car ever since they were introduced, particularly the Eco, though I’ve never driven or rode in one. After reading positive reviews of it when new, it occurred to me that if GM had this caliber of small car in the 70s or 80s, things might have gone differently for them. My parents bought a three year old Vega in 1977 and drove it for two unhappy years. The car was one problem after another, according to them, and they replaced it happily with a new 79 VW Rabbit. When they were looking for their next new car in 1985, they didn’t even consider GM or other Detroit makers because they had been burned so badly by the Vega, which would turn out to be the last American car they ever owned. I thought that was a little unfair at the time, but I can admit now it was totally reasonable.
Since I went to a private high school, I needed a car after my older brother graduated. I went half in on a 100k mile used Cruze with my parents. It was an absolute base model 1.8 (bigger but slower and less efficient engine) and automatic with the only options being steering wheel radio controls and the sublime autumn metallic color.
The first gen Cruze is a fantastic car, but you haven’t mentioned the biggest problems with them. They had criminally weak transmissions. The less torquey 1.8 is easier on them and even with multiple fluid changes, the transmission in mine went out at 150k miles. This is not an unusual experience.
It’s a shame because I loved so much about the rest of it. Surprisingly quiet and refined, with almost Germanic heavy but precise steering coupled with that WTCC dominating stiff chassis made the car far more fun to drive than a non-sporty compact should be. And the quality of the interior blew the Civic and especially the Corolla out of the water. Mine was well put together, but what stood out was that the design didn’t insult you with mediocrity. You could get all kinds of lovely non-boring and well implemented color schemes inside and out. I lived my bronze with tan and black cloth interior. Visibility was great too.
Really, my only complaint is that the transmissions were just crap. Sure, GM was just trying out 6 speed autos, but c’mon.
Transmissions are frustrating. Enough manufacturers have made various excellent, bulletproof automatic transmissions that the industry knowledge clearly exists to do it right. So why doesn’t everyone? And it’s not like the old days when you could get a rebuild for a few hundred bucks. Nowadays, a rebuilt tranny on a modern fwd car is a major investment that can easily total an older car.
I know several people who have owned this generation of Cruze. They sold well in Ohio, but perhaps it is because they were built by locals in Lordstown.
I agree with the author’s thesis: These were perhaps the most class-competitive small cars ever built by GM, but unfortunately by the time these came out Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai/Kia had sewn up the small car market and gave people no reason to look for alternatives.
These are still ubiquitous, and most of the examples are still rust-free, despite the oldest examples going on 13 years old.
I had a 2015 that I was pretty impressed with. Cruising at 70-80 seemed effortless quiet and very solid. It certainly compared well with accords and civics terms of noise.
It was only a 3 year lease so I can’t comment on the longer term aspects.
It was a handsome car, the second gen not so much.
Years ago on one TV auto show they addressed the issue of bird droppings and auto colors. If I recall they painted a dozen or more 2-foot square panels in various auto paint colors. They laid the panels on a flat NYC rooftop for a few days. The result was the white color received the most bird droppings. I have owned four white cars and can verify these results. I can park my white car in an open lot with hundreds of other cars and mine gets hit more than surrounding autos, mostly on sunny days just after the car wash. Think it might have something to do with big birds eye vision and reflective attributes of white. The birds see the white as an enemy and either it scares the crap out of the birds or they bomb it as a defense. Anyway, that’s my story and I will “stick” to it.
My theory is that the unfortunate owner of the bird dropping covered Cruze left it parked under a tree or light pole or power line or some other spot where birds like to perch for an extended period. Because that happened to me once — I left my car in the long term parking lot at the airport for a week. When I returned from my trip my car looked like Cruze in these pictures. Because I had unknowingly parked it under a light pole where the pigeons love to roost.
the 1960 Corvair, a fine and ambitious car in many ways yet famously controversial due to some myopic packaging
Not to nitpick, but I don’t understand the second part of this line: “Myopic packaging” What does this specifically refer to?
In your paragraph about the Vega, you make this reference about the Corvair : “At least this time it wasn’t unsafe at any speed”. That was the title of Ralph Nader’s book, of which the Corvair was just one chapter. The title refers to the industry as a whole, not the Corvair.
The 2005 Cobalt was finally an all-new platform which corrected many of the Cavaliers’ weaker points
A more detailed and clarifying statement would be that the Cobalt was essentially a federalized Opel Astra (G), but “dumbed down” for the US to make it cheaper to build. Opel fully and solely developed this platform (Delta). What this really means is that GM North America finally realized that they were utterly incapable of designing a competitive compact car. Not surprisingly, the Cobalt turned out to be mediocre, thanks to GM NA’s efforts to make it cheaper.
As to the Cruze, it was all-too obvious to (GM-skeptic) me that the Cruze was not exactly going to set the world on fire. And out here on the West Coast, they are literally unicorns. I did rent one once (gen 2) and it was an ok drive; a classic GM rental car experience. The Olds Ciera of its time.
The clarification on the Cobalt/Delta platform is helpful. GM also used their foreign subsidiaries for that car, but then screwed with it so much for the American market, it’s faults were mainly then American. The difference with the Cruze was that they took a much lighter touch with the German and Korean work and sold the car in America with minimal changes. Seemingly, they were starting to learn some lessons.
The Corvair and Vega sections make thinly veiled references to two famous works, in a perhaps unsuccessfully jovial way. “At any speed” (which I’ve now put between parentheses rather than commas to try to make it clearer) is of course alluding to the famous 1965 book Unsafe At Any Speed which was largely responsible, I think, for the public becoming aware of the the Corvair’s rear suspension problem. As you point out, it was only one part of the book’s larger message and GM had redesigned the suspension by then, but Corvair sales really tanked after 1965.
The “mypopic packaging” calls out Brock Yates’ article “Gross Pointe Myopians” and is making a two-word summary of many of the points in your own Corvair deadly sin article (linked above). GM executives used a European rear engine layout, but arriving at that decision and then executing it were done through only their own Detroit frame of reference in typically “mypopian” fashion. It had to be stylishly low. It had to seat six passengers and their luggage. So it was designed with many compromises to achieve that and low cost.
I drove a gen 2 Cruze about 50 feet once (really just parked it) and wasn’t too impressed, but it would be unfair to judge it based on that. The Gen 1 Cruzes are extremely common in Texas. The one person I’ve known who had one liked it. As I state in the article, GM gets points for finally making a competent car but that wasn’t enough at that point to overcome decades of buyer behavior.
You’re misunderstanding the issues with the Corvair. Being low was a feature, not a bug, as it lowered the center of gravity, which was a distinct positive.
There’s nothing about the Corvair’s packaging that is “myopic” or in any way a shortcoming. It was the most advanced rear engine car in the world at the time, with remarkable space efficiency. That’s a major reason the Europeans were so taken with it.
Ed Cole did not just want to copy the VW or Renault; he wanted the most advanced compact, and he got that. The only real flaw was not adding a camber-compensating rear spring, which they finally did in 1964. But the VW, Porsche and lots of other European rear engine swing axle cars didn’t have one either at the time.
Brock’s criticism of Detroit in his “Grosse Pointe Myopians” was all about the Big 3’s inability to look past what folks in the Midwest liked to drive: conventional cars, and mostly on the large side. The Corvair was a very rare exception to that.
Maybe it was the name, but the Cruze is surprisingly common here in Santa Cruz, especially considering we have no GM dealership in town. We even know a young woman who had one, though replaced with a crossover (also GM) after having a kid. Though the second gen Cruze is less visible. In either case, though we only moved here in 2011 I’d say the Cruz had better sales locally than the Cobalt. The Bolt is the really outlier for a GM passenger car in California; both the standard Bolt and the EUV are ubiquitous here. I realize it was a huge money-loser for GM but it’s an example of GM’s outsourcing to Korea that has struck a chord with California buyers, many of whom have probably never owned a domestic passenger car in their lives. And every Bolt owner I know loves their cars.
The Bolt is made in the US. Yes, it has Korean genes, and the battery and other EV components are sourced from LG, but it’s officially a domestic car. Or maybe you meant that?
It has not much to do with the subject automobile but I know exactly where the daytime images were taken. That is the parking lot of the Spec’s liquor store at 2314 W Holcombe Blvd. in Houston, Texas. I recognized it immediately because I lived at the 3100 block of W Holcombe from 2016 to 2021. Yes, I did make a “couple” of visits to that Spec’s during that time. 🙂
Bingo!
I recognize exactly where the daytime images were taken. That is the Spec’s liquor store parking lot at 2314 W Holcombe Blvd. in Houston, Texas. I lived in the 3100 block of W Holcombe from 2015 until 2021 and I did make a “couple” of visits to the store at 2314 W Holcombe. 🙂
The Cruze is one of those cars I never see.I guess they sold poorly and them suffered expensive failures.Come to think of it the only older small Chevys I see are Volts and the occasional Spark or Sonic.
I suppose I am part of the problem, when these came out I was already driving a small GM car (Saturn SL2) and was far more interested in a Mazda5 to haul the family than another small sedan. I eventually bought a Mazda but it was totaled and I now have the very American combo of a crossover and an old pickup. These were well well reviewed at the time but not interesting to me and decidedly second tier more Nissan Versa than Honda Civic..
Where are you located? They are real common still here in Texas.
Oregon, there’s a strong bias toward imports here.
In 2015 I picked up a still new 2014 Cruze diesel. Black with black leather. It was a terrific buy and I needed it to drive Uber/Lyft. What a fantastic car! I put 32K on that car in a short 9 months and averages 32.8 MPG for the entire time I owned it. On the highway, I would easily get 55 MPG. Many people getting in my car would ask what it was. Several times I had people ask if it was an Audi or Mercedes. The look on their face when I told them is was a Chevy was priceless.
Today I (proudly) own a last year 1988 Cimarron and love that car. Way back in 1985, my parents and I purchased (co-purchased) a brand new 1985 Cavalier CS sedan in gray with automatic. At least for the 2 years that I drove it, the thing was great with zero problems. But as young kid, I was ready to move on to the sportier Z24 model which were my next two cars. Again, never a problem with any of them.
I feel that GM’s problem was constantly changing the names on the models and they still do that today. I know the original Cavalier had it’s short-comings, but they should have kept the Cavalier name and they should still offer a smaller (than the Malibu) Cavailer today.
That’s interesting that you’ve had such good experiences with Cavaliers. Once GM worked out many of the early bugs, most accounts I’ve heard are that they were decent reliable cars, just still lacking the refinement of the best Japanese comoetition.. A late Cimmaron is certainly the ultimate J-car and would have a lot of nostalgic appeal today. I actually did a couple articles on the Cimarron a few years ago, one was on the first 1981 road tests from C&D and MT, the other on an 88 I found still doing daily driver duty.
In 2016, when I was looking for a new commuter car to retire my Mustang from such abuse, I cross-shopped these along with others in its class.
On a Saturday in August:
I tried the Mazda 3, which I liked, and because my stepson had one and it was fun to dive.
Then I went to the Chevy dealer and drove a bright blue second gen Cruze. I felt it was a little underpowered, but otherwise liked it. It was my first experience with a backup camera, and I felt a little like JPC on a first backing experience in trucking school. It wasn’t pretty.
The main turn-offs were two things: a) I seriously dislike engines that shut-off when you come to a stop. Who thought that this was a good idea? I get it, it’s to save gas, but I don’t relish the idea of replacing a starter due its to over use. b) The sales guy (an his manager) were high pressure types. Sorry… no sale.
On Sunday:
Disgusted by the experience the day before at the Chevy dealer, I went looking Honda, Hyundai, and Ford. Sundays are awesome in Maryland, as dealers are closed on Sundays. You won’t get accosted by a salesman, high pressure or any other kind!
When I found the 2016 Civic EX-T Coupe I would eventually buy, I wrote down the VIN and called back on Monday. After a drive, I was hooked on its driving dynamics, and a deal was struck.
I never did drive the Hyundai (not a fan of its looks) or the Focus, which after all that came out about their inferior transmissions, I was quite relieved.
The Civic hasn’t been perfect, but what car is, really? But by tomorrow, I’m gonna roll past 120K, and so far, it’s been a great car and is still reliable and a blast to drive.
I’m with you, I’m naturally a little uneasy about the stop/start feature. I would hope that the starters are heavy enough duty to stand up to the task, still I’m not sure the benefit is enough to justify the added complexity. Feels weird the few times I’ve driven one but I’d probably get used to it if I owned one.
Great overview on an easy-to-overlook car. I agree that the Cruze suffered from being too little, too late. To me, it seems that these sold well in Midwestern markets, where folks still largely bought domestic-brand cars, but made absolutely no inroads into more import-dominated markets.
I learned several new things today: I never knew about the Eco model – an interesting mix of sport and thriftiness, though I wonder if interests of those two types of small-sedan buyers really overlapped much?
I also never knew about the wagon version. Yet another example of an appealing bodystyle that we’re denied here in North America.
Finally, I never knew about the Angry Birds and pig-flu connection. Simple times, indeed. Regarding that poop-covered Cruze, that sort of thing has only happened to me once, and it was on a morning I intended to drive my car to CarMax to sell it. A whole flock of birds must have pooped on that thing, and I had to take it to the car wash on the way to CarMax, which really annoyed me.
I never knew about the Eco model – an interesting mix of sport and thriftiness
I’m not sure why the author characterized the Eco as possessing sporting pretensions; barring the arguably aesthetic enhancing .4 inch lower stance and rear lip spoiler (both to aid aerodynamics), the Eco-specific bits neuter the car significantly. Ecos ditched the Watt’s linkage rear suspension for a straight torsion beam setup, for one, while the available manual was very much retuned for economy. Despite more aggressive first and second gears to mask the difference, the top three gears in manual Ecos are overdrive ratios. Period road tests do not support the Eco being faster than other turbocharged Cruze offerings, showing manual Ecos to be about a half second slower to sixty than the non-Eco automatic cars.
Thank you for confirming what I clearly remembered too but didn’t take the time to confirm the detailed specifics. The Eco was created for one reason: so that GM could brag about its highway EPA number. That was obviously more important to GM back then than building a class-leading (or fully competitive) car.
I did not mean to imply that Chevy was at all marketing the Eco as having sporting pretensions, just that many of the efficiency features had the side effect of also increasing performance (a little), thus it was “the closest thing to a performance model Chevy would offer”. Which is to say not that close, but they weren’t making a SS so you take what you can get!
As I said in the article, the period road tests I read showed the Eco to have a bit better acceleration, owing to the decreased weight. The manual transmission gearing is definitely not set up for performance, though the changes are in the upper gears which wouldn’t affect 0-60 times. The loss of the Watts linkage would hurt handling a little, but the lower center of gravity would help it a little.
A Cruze was never on my radar but I recall that the news reported on them as they were one of GM’s new models after bankruptcy. President Obama visited the plant and took one for a spin. I agree that GM should have kept a continuity in their car’s names. I think that American cars went through their worst phase about 25-30 years ago. Then they became pretty competitive, though now, domestic companies don’t build them anymore.
I think it was wise to drop the Cavalier name, as the public’s associations with the name were mostly negative. Of course, if you consistently build excellent cars the name doesn’t matter.
I rented various compact and mid-sized cars at the time of the introduction of the Cruze. Though, the styling inside and out was new, there was nothing particularly fresh, or endearing about it. As it lent an Audi vibe, in its exterior design. I rented two at the time, and never felt compelled to rent, or buy one thereafter. I was happy to see that GM did appear to have a competitive car, that would compete most likely on price.
I am not especially big, but found the interior felt tight. Especially, in headroom.
The Cruz badge was seen first in a rebadged Suzuki so this is the 2nd gen and angry birds I reckon you aint even seen one, in New Zealand we have a variety of Parrot called a Kea and while you are viewing the scenery in certain parts of the south island a Kea will happily pick the windscreen seal from your car, there are usually signs warning you about that but plenty of people dont read warning signs the spectacular views take oner,
Theres still a lot of these Holden Cruz on the roads here and a few Suzuki based versions around too.
That does sound like one angry bird!
It was prolly just parked under the tree I can see……
I’ve never had a Chevette, none left I guess, I’d like to try one as a daily drive/beater .
-Nate
I had a couple of these–both 1.8 NA, thankfully.
The first was a 2012 KDM version I bought as a 2-year old in South Korea. It was a top-line LTZ with every option, right down to in-dash nav and auto-dim mirror, plus a host of aftermarket upgrades. I bought it in 2014 with 36,000 kms and sold it in Jan 2020 with only 72,000. While pleasant to drive and projecting a feeling of solidity due to it’s weight, it had issues that never should have happened. Once, on the hottest day of 2018, the dash lit up like a christmas tree and the trans got stuck in what I assume was 4th. Since trying to drive it to the shop would have cooked the torque converter (it barely moved from a a start)
I had to get it towed. They replaced two ABS sensors and ordered a new shift lever. However, the trans fixed itself after cooling down and it never happened again.
I never did return for the shifter, as it was priced outrageously.
Another time, the coil pack went out and I had to limp in on 2 holes. I took 2 tries for the tech to seal the VC gasket properly.
I was forced to return to Canada during Covid in early 2021, and was faced with trying to buy a car during a so-called car shortage. I found a 2015 base model LS at a Chevy dealer near where I was staying, with 108,000 kms on it. I sought out the base model because in the NA market, it was the only one with the 1.8 NA engine. I was well aware of the 1.4 Turbo issues. It was a bit of a letdown after the fully loaded, arguably better-built Korean unit. It still had the same solid feel, but something was missing. Actually a lot of things were, compared to my old one. It turned out to be a terrible cold-weather car. And when I say cold, I mean prairie arctic temps. The heating took forever to warm up, and would only throw good heat at driving speeds. Letting it idle to warm up was futile, and it lacked the heated seats of my old one. I took it in suspecting thermostat issues. The shop said it was fine. The drivers window regulator also broke, trying to lower a frozen window.
I have rented plenty of cars in Saskatchewan over the last 15 years in the dead of winter, and they all had vastly better heating. I had it less than a year as I got a chance to escape Canada and did so. Due to the car supply issues, the dealer gave me pretty much what I paid for it, and that was that.
All in all, I concur with the article. It was the first domestic GM compact that was in the ballpark, even if it wasn’t a class leader.
I feel cold just reading your comment about Saskatchewan. Glad you could leave!
I wonder how people living there will do with electric cars when those eventually become universal.
I kind of liked the first-gen Cruze, having rented a couple and also driven my father-in-law’s 2012 or so version. Handling was good, but what impressed me the most was the solid structure and quietness within, as the cars felt substantial, like an Audi or baby Benz. The interiors were tasteful, and a giant step up from the Cobalt/Cavalier, but the cabin felt tight and smaller than competitors such as the Civic and Corolla. Overall, it was nice to see GM field a competitive small car, even if it was basically an Opel design.
Where the angry birds should have directed their ire was the second-gen Cruze, which I felt represented GM backsliding from the benchmarks established by the outgoing model. It was longer and wider, less solid in structure and cheaper feeling inside, in keeping with domestic GM norms. This was my father-in-law’s last car, bought because it was cheap and domestic-made, with little other appeal.
While the first-gen Cruze was/is a common sight around here, I rarely see the second-gen cars on the roads in the DFW area, but there are tons of Elantras, Civics, Corollas and the like, so it’s not just a local bias toward trucks and SUVs.
I agree the second generation isn’t nearly as appealing as the first. I haven’t seen it, but I’m sure many have been bird victims.
My opinion would align with that represented by what the birds left on that Cruze in 2013, in both substance and volume. I suspect that many a former owner would like to leave the same flavour of opinion, if from a more personal source, on the desks of the small-brains Trust at GM who STILL could not summon up a decent small car.
I cannot even agree on the looks: such things are obviously subjective, but it appears to me as if the Trust employed a clinic-driven approach, concluding (wrongly) that the best approach was to steal from everyone else and combine the stolen items into a whole that was compulsively inoffensive. Even worse, in this country (Australia) Holden got the job of designing the hatchback, which is the worst of the lot, though at least its awkwardness gives it minor marks for actually causing offense.
Friends had one. It was indeed solid, and rode well, though to experience that, one had to sit behind the wheel and look at the cheapskate dash materials (a Honda, it was not). It handled with no especial vice – or distinction, either – and suffered from a laggy low speed response and steering feel from someone deceased. It needed a new engine at about 40K (good grief!), and other things along the way (a novated lease car, warrantied to the wazoo, the owners were more irritated than angry), and it got to about 80Kms before the lease expired.
They didn’t own the thing long enough to experience what everyone else did – failed door handles, exterior plastic degradations, wholesale weirdarse electrical ghostage, total HVAC failure, leaks at every point of the cooling system, and transmission failures. Oh, and headlights that would turn themselves on when no-one was near the car (an unfixable body-module fault, apparently). The car is hated by mechanics, however much it has enriched them.
The Cruze – why, GM even saved money on spelling the name properly – was the last of a long line of not-good-enough, and it being mildly in advance of its predecessors is also itself not good, or enough.
The birds were right. By expressing their opinion all over the car, they were, I believe, trying to scream at GM that nature itself was telling them the Chev Guano was the better nameplate. But then, GM was never big on listening to anyone else, let alone creation…
Good stuff! You really shouldn’t be so reserved in your opinions, though:)
Obviously, I’m more pro-Cruze than you even if I suspect the birds know more than we give them credit for. With GM, we seem to always grade on a curve when it comes to small cars. Somehow I feel the need to give them credit just for making a car far better than its predecessors, even if that only gets them up to the point of mediocrity.
I will say that I read a good number of owner reviews (U.S.) in prepping this article and none said they had as many problems with the car as your friends. I see tons of them on the road here (9-13 years old now), and most don’t even look that beat up. The lead photo car is typical. It seems to have aged quite well, and with the extreme heat we get in summer it’s not the easiest place to be a car. Maybe the Australian versions weren’t screwed together as well?
It’s just possible I may be prone to hyperbole, but I do maintain that it’s a poor show when years and years of own-goalism only ever resulted in an adequate car of moderate sophistication.
I read somewhere, out there, once upon a time, that the Oz kits and full imports all came from Daewoo’s oldest, shittiest South Korean factory, and there must be something in that, because erstwhile-reliable machines like the Cruze and others like the Captiva SUV (unsure if that was ever US-bound) or the Trax or Encore were simply awful here. In a grim irony, GM Holden’s last 10 years of making cars was otherwise their best for quality (obviously not including the 60% Korean local-assembled Cruzes).
Btw, I am glad you could detect that I held back some.
I think I’ve said it before, you really should be writing articles here. They’d be great.
If you are interested in what the average Cruze enthusiast has to say, or maybe you want to see some very nice Cruze builds and even see plenty of stock Cruzes, stop by and visit us at CruzeTalk.com, the preeminent forum for the Chevrolet Cruze. We would love to show you around.
Robert, I find most of the comments regarding small GM cars will be derogatory. Few people have much experience with them and those that do, don’t haunt this type of forum.
I think one of my kids is a user on your site, as she seems to reference it frequently when talking to me about her Cruze. Her latest fad is to see if she can get a chip from ZZPerformance (which is actually a couple of miles from her house) to raise the boost in her Cruze.
I told her it was a bad idea to do that to a 200K mile motor…
I have some experience with this generation of Cruze. My one kid’s ex had an early Cruze Eco that I found quite delightful to drive, particularly in deep snow. Between the willing motor, the six speed manual trans and the convenient hand brake, it was a drifting dream on the snowy roads around here. I seriously considered buying one to replace my then current car, but I didn’t want to get back into payments again.
A Northeast Ohio native and having grown up near Lordstown, there were tons of Cruzes in my periphery. This includes several relatives who had them. They were relatively popular here in Western Michigan as well, but have been replaced by all types of CUVs as it seems the fate for most sedans.
A few years ago my other kid’s car was totaled in an accident and a seven year-old 2014 Cruze LT was her choice. There’s an issue with the intake manifold on the 1.4 turbos and when we found this car on the dealer’s back lot, that repair had been executed. Here we are 3+ years with no major issues other than the usual 10 year-old car problems, like leaky valve cover gaskets and struts coming up on their “use by” date.
As an aside, I dislike the spelling of the name on this car, too.