Introduction
The Chevrolet Cruze is an excellent choice among compact sedans. It’s the best small car GM has offered in North America in decades. More important, it’s among the best cars in its class.
Fuel economy is improved for 2012, and the list of standard equipment has grown longer, especially in the mid-range LT level. Otherwise, the 2012 Chevrolet Cruze is unchanged from 2011.
Launched as a 2011 model, the Cruze replaced the sturdy but boring Cobalt, and represented a great leap forward in technology, features and appeal. The Cruze was developed jointly by GM tech centers in Asia, Europe and the United States to battle compact competitors such as the Hyundai Elantra and Kia Forte, the best Volkswagen Jetta in years, and perennial leaders like the Honda Civic, Mazda 3, and Toyota Corolla. The Cruze holds its own with all of them, and surpasses many in key areas.
Cruze is conservatively styled, to be sure, but in our opinion it’s a well designed, handsome car. Its interior is one of the roomiest in its class, with acceptable space for four adults, and it’s also one of the nicest. By the quality of materials, fit or function, it surpasses nearly all its competitors. Its trunk is also one of the largest in a compact sedan.
The 2012 Cruze is offered with a choice of two adequately powered engines: a 1.8-liter four-cylinder and 1.4-liter four-cylinder with a turbocharger. As with most cars in this class, the Cruze is front-wheel drive. Both the manual and automatic are 6-speed-transmissions, which is rare in this class. The automatic offers some high-tech features that help conserve fuel.
Fuel economy for the 2012 Chevrolet Cruze is an EPA-rated 26/38 mpg City/Highway with the 1.4-liter engine with manual or automatic transmission. With the 1.8-liter engine the government rates it 25/36 mpg with the manual, 22/35 mpg with the automatic. The 2012 Chevrolet Cruze Eco rates 28/42 mpg with the manual, 26/39 mpg with the automatic.
The Chevrolet Cruze might be the smoothest, quietest compact offered in the United States. Ride quality is outstanding, yet the car is nimble, balanced and handles exceptionally well. Its steering is powered by electricity to save fuel. Underway, the steering feels sharp, with decent feel. The Cruze comes standard with a long list of safety features, including advanced electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, and a full complement of 10 airbags. There are knee-protection airbags for front passengers, side-impact airbags for rear passengers, and head-protection curtains with rollover deployment. Every Cruze comes with GM’s OnStar telematics system, including a six-month subscription for automatic accident response and other services, a great safety feature.
Among the 2012 Cruze models, the Cruze Eco delivers the best fuel economy. Its aerodynamic features, including grille vanes that close at highway speeds, help it slip through the air more easily, and it weighs more than 200 pounds less than other models. To achieve its superb fuel economy, however, the Cruze Eco sacrifices performance, resulting in slower acceleration, longer stopping distances, and poorer handling than the other Cruze models.
The Cruze LTZ comes swathed in leather and loaded with technology. The Cruze LTZ is available with a full-feature navigation system, rear park assist, concierge services, premium Pioneer audio and remote starting. A loaded LTZ will crack the $26,000 barrier, however, at which point the Cruze makes less sense for many buyers, unless they seek a smaller, fuel-efficient car loaded with the latest features. For that kind of money, the alternatives include larger, very nicely equipped midsize sedans such as the Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata or Nissan Altima. We think the midrange Cruze LT hits the sweet spot in this class.
In short, the Cruze deserves to be on the list for anyone shopping for a fuel-efficient economy car.
Lineup
The 2012 Chevrolet Cruze is available in four model levels, with a choice of four-cylinder engines and either a 6-speed manual or 6-speed automatic transmission.
Cruze LS ($16,720) is powered by 1.8-liter inline four delivering 138 horsepower and 125 pound-feet of torque, with a standard 6-speed manual. Cruze LS comes with air conditioning, power windows, power door locks with remote keyless entry, floor mats, and six-speaker audio with single CD, an auxiliary jack and XM satellite radio. The standard wheels are 16-inch steel.
Cruze Eco ($19,245) is optimized for fuel economy. It’s powered by a smaller, 1.4-liter turbocharged engine that delivers the same 138 hp as the base engine, with an increase in torque to 148 lb-ft. It’s lighter than other Cruze models, with aerodynamic aids that make in slipperier through the air, and low-rolling-resistance tires on 17-inch alloy wheels. The 2012 Cruze Eco comes with Bluetooth phone connectivity, USB port, steering wheel-mounted audio controls, cruise control, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob.
Cruise LT ($18,475) is powered by the same frugal turbocharged engine plus body-color power side mirrors and all the new goodies that have been added to the Cruze Eco. Sixteen-inch machined-face alloy wheels are standard on 2012 Cruze LT models. The 2012 Cruze LT is available with a revised 2LT option package ($2,130) with leather seating surfaces, a six-way power driver seat, heated seats, remote vehicle start, a sport-tuned suspension (new for 2012) with 17-inch five-spoke alloy wheels, and four-wheel-disc brakes.
Cruze LTZ ($23,110) comes standard with the automatic transmission and the contents of the 2LT package plus automatic climate control, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, ultrasonic rear-parking assist, and 18-inch alloy wheels. The 2012 Cruze LTZ also comes standard with fog lights, keyless entry and keyless start.
Cruze RS is an LTZ with an RS Appearance package ($595), which includes unique bumpers, rocker moldings, and a rear spoiler. A similar package for the LT2 ($695) adds all that plus fog lights and racier instruments. Navigation ($995) is available for LT2, LTZ, and Eco. Other options include a 250-watt Pioneer audio system with nine speakers ($445), a power sunroof ($900). LT2 buyers can also choose keyless access ($300). The Eco and LT1 can be spruced up with a Driver Convenience Package ($495) that includes a six-way power driver’s seat, rear park assist, and remote start. (All prices are Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Prices, which do not include destination charge and may change at any time without notice.)
Safety features include front, side-impact and knee-protection airbags for front passengers, rear side-impact airbags and full cabin head-protection curtains with rollover deployment. GM’s OnStar telematics are standard, with Automatic Crash Response and other services free for six months. Other standard safety features include Stabiltrack electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes (ABS), front seatbelt pretensioners, daytime running lights (DRLs) and the federally mandated tire-pressure monitor.
Walkaround
The styling of the Chevrolet Cruze is handsome and nicely proportioned.
The Cruze is large, as compact cars go. Measuring 181.0 inches bumper-to-bumper, on a wheelbase of 105.7 inches, the Cruze is slightly larger than most of its competitors, including the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, and the all-new 2012 Ford Focus.
Cruze is more angular than other recent Chevrolet sedans, including the popular Malibu. Its front end mimics the Volt plug-in sedan with a prominent Chevrolet Bowtie logo. The headlight housings are large, sweeping upward and around the front edges of the car.
The roofline arcs subtly from its steeply raked windshield through fast-sloping rear pillars, creating a generally sporty profile. Its wheels are pushed out to the corners of the car, with minimal overhang. No, this compact sedan doesn’t break new ground or wow with its curves. But it’s tidy and quite confidant looking, and the package generates a feeling of quality and solidity. Wheels range from 16-inch steel with plastic covers on the base LS to spoked 18-inch alloys with low-profile tires on the loaded LTZ.
The Cruze Eco is a slightly different beast, because it’s designed to be Chevrolet’s conventional-engine fuel economy leader. The differences start with 42 steps intended to trim weight, right down the size and location of welds in the body. As a result, the Eco tips the scales at 3,009 pounds, or 214 pounds less than the mid-level Cruze LT. Cruze Eco adds a host of aerodynamic tweaks, including some adapted from the Chevrolet Volt. These start with active grille shutters that close at higher speeds, blocking much of the grille surface when the cooling demands of the engine allow it, and smoothing air flow over the front of the car. The Eco also sports a lower front air-dam extension, plastic panels that cover large portions of the underbody and a carefully crafted rear spoiler. It’s finished with low-rolling-resistance tires on specially designed rims. That means a bit less braking performance or grip through the corners, but it also means less friction when the Eco is cruising along for better fuel economy.
Driving Impression
The Chevrolet Cruze is a product of joint engineering among GM tech centers around the world, and the co-operation shows in the way the Cruze performs. It isn’t perfect, but the Cruze moves Chevrolet to the front of the small-car pack.
In many respects, particularly measured by interior comfort and overall refinement, the Cruze performs a class above the compact-sedan standard. We can’t say that about its engine and transmission performance, however. Cruze’s powertrain isn’t glaringly weak, but it’s not one of the highlights in its dynamics portfolio.
The Cruze is available with two four-cylinder engines, and both have most of the latest control, durability and maintenance-reducing features, including fully variable timing for both intake and exhaust valves. The base engine displaces 1.8 liters, producing 138 horsepower and 125 pound-feet of torque. The upgrade engine is actually smaller, at 1.4 liters, but it’s equipped with a high-tech integrated turbocharger.
The turbo engine generates the same 138 hp. It does produce an additional 23 lb-ft of torque, but that in itself doesn’t seem enough to offer a choice. So why the second engine? We’re not sure either, but we can guess. The 1.4-liter four generates its power using a bit less fuel. It’s one reason the Cruze Eco model is EPA-rated at 28 mpg City, 42 Highway, with the manual transmission, and 26/39 mpg with the automatic. Those are the best Highway ratings for any compact with a conventional gasoline engine, and better than most subcompacts.
Both transmissions have six forward gears. That’s rare in this class, and another contributor to Cruze’s overall fuel economy. The 6-speed automatic is technically advanced for a conventional torque-converter automatic in this segment, with GM’s ActiveSelect manual-shift feature and a control program that unobtrusively puts it in neutral when the car is idling, even when the gear selector is in Drive. That, too, helps save fuel. We found the 1.4-liter turbo engine does an adequate job of propelling the Cruze. It’s impressively smooth and reasonably quiet, even when working hard, and at 75 mph hour on the freeway, it’s only turning about 2800-2900 rpm in top gear. The power comes on fairly low in the rev range, and then evenly all the way to redline. You don’t have to wait until it’s screaming at 6000 rpm for it to demonstrate any gumption. We’d guess that maybe 80 percent of typical drivers will be satisfied with its performance in daily use.
The dissatisfaction comes for that percentage of drivers who more than occasionally like to accelerate full bore, or drive harder than normal commuter-grade travel, and not just because the Cruze is slower than most cars in this class. On paper, it accelerates from 0-60 mph in the high 8-second range, which is not quick but probably quick enough for most drivers. Our complaint is more about how hard the engine is working in the process, and how you really need to keep it floored to get this car to go. It may also be that, because the Cruze is so well sorted in other respects, it could handle a lot more power.
The 6-speed manual transmission works fine, with a firm, smooth, shifter and gear ratios well suited to maximizing the limited power.
The automatic, though, has a similar bi-polar character as the engine. It works great when you’re going at a relaxed, fairly casual pace, but not so well when you really step on the gas. As a full automatic, the transmission’s shifts are positive and impeccably smooth. If you step on the gas just a bit to gain speed around a dawdler, it will shift down one gear smoothly, deliver a moderate bubble of acceleration, and then find top gear again as quickly as it can. But if the road opens up through the countryside, with nice curves that mean slowing fairly hard and then speeding up again, the automatic is less co-operative. Perhaps to maximize fuel economy, Chevrolet engineers seem to have programmed it to always seek the highest gear mechanically possible. The Cruze automatic doesn’t like to shift down more than one gear at a time, and it won’t unless you floor that gas pedal. And once it does downshift, it’s most concerned with getting back up into sixth gear as soon as it can. In such circumstances, the manual-shift feature is the preferred choice, and it works almost surprisingly well. The shifts are quite quick, but still smooth, and the transmission will hold the chosen gear at fairly high rpm.
One important way the Cruze surpasses much of its competition is in its tight, ultra-solid body/frame structure. The Cruze unibody has as much extra-high-strength steel in key locations as any car Chevy has built, according to engineers. It has earned the highest scores in government-mandated crash tests in Europe, and Chevy says it expects the same in the United States. More to the point, the solidly built body provides a solid foundation for a lot of good things that make Cruze pleasant to drive.
Interior comfort is one of them. Very little vibration finds its way into the Cruze cabin, and it’s one of the quietest compacts we’ve driven, even with its little, hard-working engine. Moreover, the noise passengers do hear is the sort that tends to be less obtrusive, like the crack of tires on pavement seems. There is very little wind noise, and not much of the high-pitch mechanical or vibration buzz that can come across as white noise.
The solid body also contributes to excellent ride and handling. Even without a fully independent rear suspension, something that can make cars of this type jittery and prone to bounce in the rear, the Cruze’s ride is nearly flawless. It absorbed mid-winter potholes with the aplomb of a luxury sedan, without a lot of bounce-rebound-bounce, or anything close to mushiness or float. In total, this compact leads the pack in ride quality, but it isn’t sluggish.
In wintry weather we found the Cruze stellar, even with its standard all-season tires. Its lithe, balanced quality helps the Cruze on slippery roads, because if the driver is reasonably smooth, there won’t be any squats, dives or side-to-side body swaying that can shift weight, upset traction and make the car harder to manage, as if there were a giant bowling ball rolling around in its shell. Traction control takes care of modulating the gas pedal. The driver just steps on it, and the electronics allow the Cruze to accelerate as fast as it can accelerate, given the traction available. The electronic stability control helps the driver stay ahead of the game, and it rarely lets anything get to the point where the Cruze might spin or swap ends.
When the pavement dries and the road clears, the Cruze can be good fun to drive, though more so with the manual transmission, as mentioned. Its power-steering pump runs on the electrical system rather than by drawing its power directly from the engine, and it’s reasonably well sorted. It requires almost no effort to turn at low speeds, but resistance builds somewhat as speeds increase. The steering is also fairly quick, to the point that a driver might have to correct and re-adjust the car’s trajectory through a curve, because the wheel was initially turned too much.
Overall, we’d rank the Cruze as a fine handling car. The nicely controlled body motion that helps in sloppy conditions applies on warm, dry pavement as well, at much higher speeds. At a more urgent clip, the Cruze maintains the poise it exhibits in a blizzard, with nothing jerky or surprising in its reactions. And there is quite a bit of lateral grip in the upgrade, low-profile tires, so it holds the pavement nicely though a fast curve. No real complaints about the brakes either. The pedal can seem a bit grabby when first applied, but the driver gets the hang of things in short order. The anti-lock brake system (ABS) manages full-panic stops nicely, and smoother, steadier braking quickly becomes a breeze.
The Cruze Eco’s outstanding mileage ratings will no doubt appeal to many compact drivers. Though we haven’t had a chance to drive one, experience suggests that there will be at least a slight payback for the higher mileage. The Eco’s so-called green tires will be harder, less sticky, than those on other models, and that could adversely affect both ride and handling. The Eco may prove at least a bit less responsive than other Cruze models. Everything about designing a car is a compromise.
Perhaps more significantly, the Eco’s weight-reducing measures could influence overall performance, and not from the safety perspective. Chevrolet engineers have trimmed weight from the Eco’s body by using thinner steel blanks and fewer, smaller welds in strategic locations. They’ve probably trimmed some of the sound-insulating material, and all that could affect the Cruze’s excellent structure and noise and vibration control. Shoppers are encouraged to drive both the Eco and other Cruze variants before buying.
Summary
The Chevrolet Cruze is among the best of the compacts. Measured by features, mileage and ride-handling balance, or interior noise, space and quality, the Cruze matches or beats the best. It falls off a bit in power or engine performance, and it gets pricey at the high end of the model range. The Cruze LS and Cruze LT offer the best value.
J.P Vettraino filed this report from Detroit; John F. Katz reported from south-central Pennsylvania.
Model Lineup: Chevrolet Cruze LS ($16,720); Cruze Eco ($19,245); LT ($18,475); LTZ ($23,110).
Assembled In: Lordstown, Ohio.
Options As Tested: automatic transmission ($1,185); 2LT Package ($2,130) includes six-way power driver seat, heated front seats, leather seating surfaces, remote vehicle start, sport suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, 17-inch alloy wheels.
Model Tested: Chevrolet Cruze LT ($18,475).
Reviewed By: New Car Test Drive
