Chevrolet Cruze 2.0 VCDi LS review
by David Finlay (20 April 2010)
What a difference an engine can make. The first Chevrolet Cruze I drove was a 1.6-litre petrol, and it would be fair to say that if I don't drive another of those I won't mind a bit. The car reviewed here, however, is a 2.0 turbo diesel. Different story altogether. I would be okay with having one of these.
It's not just that the diesel is more powerful, faster, about 10mpg more economical on the combined cycle and, because of better CO2 emissions, cheaper to tax on account of being in a lower VED bracket, though none of these things exactly harms its case. It's also easier to drive, because there is significant grunt from anything above 1500rpm and therefore less need to keep changing gear, and the ride is far better.
Each of those points is a natural consequence of the characteristics typical of a diesel engine, with the exception of the last one. Diesel engines are heavier than petrol ones, so they offer a greater challenge to whoever in charge of setting up the suspension, but in many cases this paradoxically leads to a better overall result, and that is certainly what has happened with the Cruze. This version quite definitely handles more precisely and has a more composed ride than the petrol equivalent.
Not that any miracle has taken place. The Cruze is not at all sporty, and if you try to push it at all hard you quickly get to a point where the front tyres have difficulty providing all the grip you need. Most cars of similar size are better in this respect.
Few are cheaper, though. In mid-range LS trim (above the S but below the LT, which has an extra 23bhp that seems at best unnecessary and at worst inadvisable) the Cruze diesel costs, at the time of writing, a fiver less than £15,000. That's about 10% more than you'll be asked to pay for a petrol LS, but you're getting a car that feels more than 10% better, and in this day and age £15,000 isn't a tremendous amount for a reasonably well-equipped C-segment model.
What do you get for that? Well, first of all, you get a saloon, and there's little doubt that Chevrolet is currently handicapped by not being able to offer the Cruze in hatchback form (though the day is approaching when it will be able to). Luggage capacity is, at 450 litres, quite generous compared with, say, the 385 you get in a Ford Focus, though unlike the Focus - or indeed any hatchback - you don't have the chance to fold down the rear seats and create something relatively vanlike.
You also get a car whose interior design brings it surprisingly close to far more expensive rivals. This is something Chevrolet does very well, though as a possible warning I pass on the opinion of a colleague that, while driving the Cruze, he felt as if he was wearing a Harris Tweed suit.
This is by no stretch of the imagination a great car, but I do now realise why several journalists have described the Cruze in far more generous terms than I was previously prepared to. They must have been driving diesels.
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