Hey All,
Long time no (Cruze) talk!
As some of you may remember, against my better judgement, I sold my 2012 LTZ back in the summer of 2017. We had 62k great miles together, but I had grown tired of the car and issues associated with the mods I did. I had about an hour one way commute at that time, plus a lot of other driving meant a lot of seat time. I was ready for something different and I had an opportunity to get into a different (some may argue nicer) car, a 2014 Lincoln MKZ. Well about three weeks after selling the Cruze and getting the MKZ, I abruptly left the job that gave me that horrible commute, thus solving that problem in a different way than planned.
The MKZ has been good to me, but I never had anywhere near the connection to it that I did to the Cruze. The Cruze I found fun to drive, easy to park, easy to fit in my garage, and surprisingly spacious inside. Plus, I love to hypermile (in a mild form) when given the opportunity, and the Cruze always delivered results. No matter what I did, the MKZ has been a fuel hog that does not deliver any sort of better results to reward my efforts. Above all, this has been the best car community I've ever been a part of with so many good memories. I remember even saying that at the time, this is a unique group of people we had gathered at Lordstown and we'll probably never experience anything like this again.
About two years ago, I stumbled across a 2012 LTZ RS at my local Chevy dealer, advertised on Facebook Marketplace, in the same Autumn Metallic as my old one. It had the black interior, but that still didn't keep me from test driving it. Immediately I remembered how much I enjoyed driving the car and how much I missed it, but the black interior with the mesh dash just didn't do it for me. I needed my Cocoa/Light Neutral again.
I reached out to the people who bought my old Cruze, to see if they were interested in selling. They never responded. I haven't written it off but I also wondered about finding another example of this rare combination. So I set up an Autotrader alert for this color combo. I hardly heard from Autotrader until recently, when a handful of examples have come up within about 500 miles of me. I was tempted to go check out a couple of them but with them between 5 and 8 hours from home, that's not an easy day trip. Unfortunately the current (stupid) car market requires moving pretty fast, too.
Fast forward to a couple Wednesdays ago, Autotrader alerted me to a 2012 LTZ RS in Autumn/Cocoa about an hour away from me. I immediately contacted the dealer and made plans to go see it the next day. It only had one prior owner and was SUPER clean, aside from car wash scratches. 119k miles but looked like 20k. When I arrived, the car was every bit as they described and more, plus it had brand new tires (that they installed the day before) and a fresh valve cover gasket, plus a list of other recent service. I couldn't resist and drove it home that night.
This Cruze was built in the sixth week of Autumn Metallic production and actually in "autumn" as well. To add to the excitement, despite it being one owner, it was sold new at Spitzer in Lordstown, which is pretty cool that it was sold at the hometown dealer to the plant. This one is exactly like my old one options wise, except this also has the optional Pioneer stereo and the Chevy all weather floor mats. So far, I don't mind either of those.
So here we are- I still have the MKZ and will continue to. With AWD and snow tires, it serves a winter purpose better than the Cruze ever can. So the Cruze will be a fun grocery getter when it's not sloppy/snowy out and in the summer. I'll work on building the Cruze back up somewhat like I had the other one, except no downpipe/mid-pipe this time.
Looking forward to many miles of fun ahead. I know these cars do have quirks as they've aged, but in the end, I think they're worth it.
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