Spacious and comfortable
Suffice to say, the new Cruze interior is spacious and comfortable. It's bigger than a typical compact and it feels that way.
The drive was designed to get a feel for Chevy's new little Ecotec engines and the car's ride.
Both are excellent.
When the Cruze arrives, it will come with either a 1.8-liter inline four-cylinder engine or a 1.4-liter turbocharged I-4.
The smaller of the two is designed to provide maximum mileage and Chevy promises 40 miles per gallon while still producing 138 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque. (Chevy has not announced the city mileage for the Cruze Eco; however, some of its press material stated a city mileage of 27 mpg, though engineers said that number could improve.)
The engine feels very competent while accelerating or cruising at highway speeds. There's no sense of a turbo lag; by performance alone, it's difficult to know when the turbo is on and when it's not.
One of the reasons for this is that Chevy allows the engine to hit maximum torque around 1,800 rpm so the car never needs to strain to grab the power it needs -- it's already there.
The 1.8-liter engine, which is the base engine for the Cruze, is nearly as good. It creates 136 horsepower and 123 pound-feet of torque.
Confident, quick and quiet
No matter which engine the Cruze comes with, it will have a six-speed manual or automatic transmission. Both were very responsive, never rushing to sixth gear in hopes of stretching out a few more feet with a gallon of gas. And while engineers will continue to tinker with the calibrations, its overall feel was confident, quick and quiet.
The ride on the three test vehicles was surprisingly smooth and quiet. Chevy even has a patent to show for its work on the rear suspensions, which it calls a Z link. This allows the rear axle to react independently to each wheel input. Add to that the Watts Link, which allows more precise tuning, and a MacPherson strut front suspension, and the bumps are gobbled up.
The car, while not a racer, can certainly handle tight cornering. Even the rack-mounted electric power steering provided nice resistance and a good return to center (though I would have liked a heavier feel the more you turn the wheel).
All of these suspension improvements become especially noticeable when you realize how quiet the car is on the road. The 17-inch wheels on the Eco Cruze (they are the same wheels used on the Volt) do allow more road noise into the cabin than the bigger 18-inch wheels, but, in both cases, the noise levels are very low. It's easy to hold a conversation with someone in the second row without ever raising your voice.
In back-to-back-to-back comparisons with the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, the Cruze was considerably
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