I recently rented a Cruze RS, and I was pleasantly surprised. Not a lot of room in the back seat area for larger passengers, but had a nice big trunk and plenty of room up front. Plenty of power, good gas mileage....hand calculated 35mpg. The one I got had leather also. For 20ish thousand, not a bad car at all, except for the Gold Bow tie on the grill. I think if I got one, it would have to be the diesel.
Cruze vs. Dart
- Thread starter daves87rs
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Removing all the dealership detail shop "detail" work.
Mainly cleaning the greasy protectant off nearly every interior surface and polishing out all the swirls in the paint.
I don't know why they used a musk fragrance in the car. It is slowly fading.
The clutch engagement is still on the low side. It does not have an adjustment in the linkage to the clutch master cylinder like earlier Civics did so I will just have to live with that. (the Subaru Impreza was worse - engagement happened in the first inch and a half and then there was what felt like 9 inches of dead travel)
I'm getting used to the EPS. GM did a better job programming some on center feel with the Cruze than they did with the Malibu. I drove our 200 yesterday and it felt "heavy" at low speed. (I got used to the 200's hydraulic a lot faster than I did the Cruze's EPS.)
Fuel economy is everything I expected. Meter shows a 37.1 average right now. I have seen as high as 50.4 average but that was on a 45 mph stretch and I was catching most of the lights. I had to switch the display over from fuel economy to speedometer. Bad drivers around me doing unnecessary things that kill my mileage cause me anxiety. If I had left it on I could see myself becoming one of those lunatic hypermilers. Windows up, no A/C, shutting off at stoplights, taking 30 seconds to accelerate slowly across the intersection, never exceed speed of 55mph....etc...
Weird getting used to the widely spaced 6 speed. Ample torque coming out of a corner in second though. It doesn't rev like an old D16Z6/D16Y8 but it actually has some power at 2000 rpm unlike the Honda D's.
I miss having a hatchback. I saw a couple with a Chrysler 300 trying to load a gas grill into their car. It wouldn't fit in the trunk opening or back seat. My Mazda could have easily swallowed that thing up whole. I laughed until I remembered that I too had a sedan with an even smaller opening. This will probably be my final sedan. We'll see in ten years.
I still need to address the stereo. It is sorely lacking. Then again, our 200's Boston Acoustic system is merely adequate. A little boomy on the low frequencies a little lacking in the midrange. Everything is lacking on the Chevy. Weight savings in action.
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