[lostjuan]

Comparison Test: Compact Cars - Autos.ca | Page 6

The cruze finished first in front of the new focus, jetta, mazda 3, civic,
corolla, imprezza, sentra and elantra. Oddly though this comment was
made about the cruze, they had "admiration for the smooth shifting six-speed
automatic transmission that always seemed to intuitively know which
gear you wanted to be in"
Gee I wana buy this car...wait I already own one. Did they fix the tranny
or what? I would say by the posts in this forumn that NO would be the answer.

I used to take these kind of reviews as gospel but now that I have owned
a brand new car (my first) I realize that if I was to choose a different make of
car in the segment, that their would be as much too lose as to gain. Unless this car develops
huge reliability problems, I have grown accustomed to the strengths of the cruze.
It's quiet, has a huge trunk, great seats (14hours straight driving)and great
hwy mpg. It owns the hwy as great vacation car. It handles so well, I would love
to buy some sticky rubber just to see what the limits truly are and to find out if
I am right about how bad the oem tires in any season. Plus I like the way it looks
inside and out.
The things I would change would be a manual trany (now available), get rid of two doors
dump the factory remote start for something that allows for longer run times, better
range and heated cloth seats. The lack of heated cloth seats is a huge mistake and I have no
desire to pay for leather seats heated or not. A car with a 1.4L engine that sits outside
in -30 weather for 4 days takes an interminable amount of time to warm up.
Their is a reason that a 1.4L engine is good on gas it's doesn't use a lot of energy
which means that it does not produce a lot less waste heat so less heat in the cabin.
Heated cloth seats would be wonderful. I make do with a heated cushion
but it's a stop gap nothing more. nuf said for now.
One thing that is new is that I am now getting about 25ish mpg imp. around
town. Winter warmups really take a bite out of that figure.
nuf said for now.

 

[Starks8]

I agree with you about having no desire to have leather seating in the car as well as the awesomeness that having heated cloth in this car would bring! Its so funny that people who make these cars seem so out of tune with what the average consumer would want/need in a car!

 

[weimerrj]

I agree with you about having no desire to have leather seating in the car as well as the awesomeness that having heated cloth in this car would bring! Its so funny that people who make these cars seem so out of tune with what the average consumer would want/need in a car!

Back in the old days, they merely had a laundry list of options from which to chose - they didn't need to try to anticipate what the average consumer wanted, since each consumer could create his own custom build if he wanted. However, in the interests of economy-of-scale, it is smarter to try to create packages and limited options that (mostly) satisfy the largest number of potential customers. Honda and the other Japanese led the way with that - building in Japan precluded custom ordering due to the long lead times. People snapped them up faster than they could be built, at premiums over MSRP (this wasn't necessarily the reason, but it showed the auto world that you didn't need so many options).

It also created the expectation in consumer's minds that they could "drive away today" - something you can't do if you have to order to spec.

Later, Chrysler made money hand-over-fist with it's "America" specific content versions of it's cars, mostly by browbeating the suppliers with promises of large orders if they lowered their per-unit cost.

 

[jblackburn]

That's a pretty good comparison article. I drove just about everything in the small car segment before making my decision, and I would agree with most of the things they said about the cars in this article. Except the Cruze having a nice automatic transmission - it was dreadful. I'm glad they hate the new Civic and Corolla as much as I did - they're awful excuses for a modern car (and I've owned a Honda and Toyota in the past!). I drove the Focus on three seperate occasions, but I just couldn't bring myself to figure out what the heck everyone was praising it about. It had a nice, very responsive engine for a small car, but I really didn't care much for the cheap interior (Cruze and Elantra were much nicer), the exterior, and the clutch was touchy.

I LOVE the 1LT manual transmission. The car is responsive to your right foot no matter what gear you're in. If the ECO were the only model available with a manual in this car like in 2011, I would not have bought it and would have gone for the redesigned 2012 Camry SE instead since I couldn't find anything else I liked in the small-car segment.

The 1.4 engine warms up VERY quickly - but only above idle. If you're blasting the heat full blast at idle, it's taking the heat away faster than it's making it. Keep the RPM above idle, my car is pumping out heat in just a block or two - quicker even than the Volvo I owned before it.

The Firestone tires on the 1LT are garbage. I believe the suspension has a lot more in it to give if the tire sidewalls weren't so mushy. I can go into a turn fast into my complex at 25 mph and just feel the tires ready to give in.

Another thing I'm finding myself growing to hate - a lot - is the climate control blower speeds. I think every other manufacturer put some thinking into that; why not Chevy?

 

[NickD]

Leather power electric heated seats, rear center fold down arm rest, not one, but two cup holders, plus an upgraded radio, spare tire, and jack for a thousand bucks was a great deal. How many compact cars have beautiful Rolls Royce like tan leather seats?

Manual transmission in the Cruze is one of the best transmissions I have ever used based on either Honda, or 50's-60's British sports cars. LOL, who wants an automatic where a computer replaces your thinking ability, lives on fluid, lose a couple of drops of that, and will find yourself stranded. Can even let my Cruze coast down my driveway and start it that way, don't even need a fully charged battery for that. Try that with an automatic. And I can use the parking brake and leave it in neutral, so if someone bumps my rear end, doesn't cost thousands of dollars in damage when you are force to leave your in park, breaking off that little pawl and cracking the case.

 

[zr1000a1]

Maybe it is because I just skimmed and scanned the article, but I was disappointed with it's layout and uniformity for each test on all 6 pages. Very disappointed that there was not a summary or stats page. Trying to compare gas mileage or any performance stats is next to impossible in this article. I do not know if they were joking or not, but it sounds like they were going by the D.I.C's to measure gas mileage, but could only figure out Mazda's by having to fill it up at the end of two days of testing and "doing math" because of it's lack of having a D.I.C. Not seeing any relevant accuracy here, just seat of the pants opinions. Anybody that has spent more than a few minutes behind the wheel of more than a few cars knows that impressions of how fast a car is or how strong or weak an engine feels is very subjective an hard to accurately evaluate unless there are real measurements. This is due to many factors such as NHV, transmissions, gearing, suspension, tires, insulation, exhaust sounds, cockpit design, height of vehicle and height of drivers position, etc.
For the love of all that is car sacred, give some real numbers!.....and in a format that is easily comparable.

But hey, I am easy. I still enjoyed the article, just venting on a couple things that irritated me.:sigh:

 

[mcg75]

I don't know why but I've had no odd shifting issues with the auto tranny in my Cruze since new. It does what it's supposed to do including kicking down a gear when I need it with out hesitation.

I'm also a big fan of the new setting for the heater/ac unit. #3 puts out a decent amount of air while remaining virtually silent. #4 gets stuff done quickly although I normally don't even use it.

 

[lostjuan]

Leather power electric heated seats, rear center fold down arm rest, not one, but two cup holders, plus an upgraded radio, spare tire, and jack for a thousand bucks was a great deal. How many compact cars have beautiful Rolls Royce like tan leather seats?

Manuals rock!
They pkg stuff different for different markets and to get leather it was LTZ only and it was more than $1.8K. I have pretty much every option except power vanity mirrors (convenience group) and what comes with the LTZ in cdn. I have found that power seats often limit the range of the seat movement, add weight and of course if it breaks.... Now if I wasn't the only one driving and it had memory buttons that would be a whole different kettle of fish.
I just sat in a focus and it had cloth seats with variable heat settings. Unfortunately without adding "ST" I wouldn't buy one. I was playing with the dreaded MyFord touch interface and I don't know if it's the upgraded one but it still sucked. Being called a knob should be a compliment because they are one of the best touch interfaces for hvac and radio I know of.
One thing that gm has that I love is the fact that I never have to turn my headlight on or do I need to turn up the radio on the hwy. The car automatically does that for me. I was disappointed that they move the auto volume to the menu instead of it old place as a secondary ring around volume. Now if we could get the ford thing that slows your wipers when you stop at an intersection.
I was wondering does anyone know why they reversed the fan and temp controls, I am always grabbing the wrong one.

 

[rbtec]

Manuals rock!
They pkg stuff different for different markets and to get leather it was LTZ only and it was more than $1.8K. I have pretty much every option except power vanity mirrors (convenience group) and what comes with the LTZ in cdn. I have found that power seats often limit the range of the seat movement, add weight and of course if it breaks.... Now if I wasn't the only one driving and it had memory buttons that would be a whole different kettle of fish.
I just sat in a focus and it had cloth seats with variable heat settings. Unfortunately without adding "ST" I wouldn't buy one. I was playing with the dreaded MyFord touch interface and I don't know if it's the upgraded one but it still sucked. Being called a knob should be a compliment because they are one of the best touch interfaces for hvac and radio I know of.
One thing that gm has that I love is the fact that I never have to turn my headlight on or do I need to turn up the radio on the hwy. The car automatically does that for me. I was disappointed that they move the auto volume to the menu instead of it old place as a secondary ring around volume. Now if we could get the ford thing that slows your wipers when you stop at an intersection.
I was wondering does anyone know why they reversed the fan and temp controls, I am always grabbing the wrong one.

Fan and temp controls are that way because the car started as a right hand drive overseas.


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[Mick]

Nice! Beat the Elantra and corolla... Only 2 other contenders as far as I was concerned. IT would have been nice to see a summary page for us on the go. Guess I'll read the details later but I'm happy worth the result.

 

[jblackburn]

I don't know why but I've had no odd shifting issues with the auto tranny in my Cruze since new. It does what it's supposed to do including kicking down a gear when I need it with out hesitation.

I'm also a big fan of the new setting for the heater/ac unit. #3 puts out a decent amount of air while remaining virtually silent. #4 gets stuff done quickly although I normally don't even use it.

Did you have it reprogrammed?


Sent from my Autoguide iPhone app