Cruze Owners' Discussion Thread

[Marco]

Marco, how did you get the coolant temperature readout on the dash?
Maybe this is an SRI thing as the Equipe doesn't show it??
Or is there a special service mode like in the Commodores?

"It was like that when I got it" lol.

On ours at least, press the menu button on the right hand stalk which toggles between trip computer stuff (distance to empty etc) and the engine status stuff, then use the twist selector on the end to cycle through until you get to it. Ours has coolant temp/battery voltage/speed warning on that cycle.

[Marco]

Looks like GM is putting a VF-style rear on the current Cruze sedan, as spotted in China:

http://gmauthority.com/blog/2013/10/...pied-in-china/

[team illucid]

We drove it all the way back from Melbourne to Adelaide on one tank of gas

700KMs on 1 tank is V8 territory - I would have expected a lot better out of a 1.4L engine, or am I missing something here?

[zorro]

700KMs on 1 tank is V8 territory - I would have expected a lot better out of a 1.4L engine, or am I missing something here?

Most of these small capacity hatch things are geared to keep in a powerband. Top gear at 110kph you are easily seeing 2800-3200rpms depending on the car. The small tanks and gearing don't equal magical economy unfortunately

[Thunder]

My wife bought an SRiV 1.4 petrol turbo in 2011 after she wrote off the VX V8.
She misses the V8, but she fills up every 3 weeks instead of each week now.
It is going in for its 20k service in a couple of weeks - it has less than 15k on it

She got the red one as they go faster, and just to make sure, we got the racing stripes as well

IMAG0047t.jpgIMAG0045t.jpg



Cheers
Greg

[Marco]

Filled ours for the first time this week. Trip computer reported 9.3l/100km but the app I used calculated it at 10.0l/100km. Either way, I'm not taking those figures as being in any way indicative; not with 452km on the clock!

[Waughy]

What sort of driving was that? I'm mostly doing 80, 90 and 100 to and from work with a few roundabouts, and a little bit of running around 50-60 stop start stuff, and I'm averaging 700-720/tank at 7.3-7.6L/100km. 1.6T M6. I've done 13k so it's when and truly loosened up, you're economy should improve over the next few tanks. I'm running BP Ultimate at he moment and will probably stick with it. The extra poke and economy is worth the $3/tank (5cpl) more at the moment.

[Marco]

That was just general pottering about the Canberra suburbs - short runs to school, shops, that sort of thing. This week has been better already with a few more 80 and 100km/h runs so I think at the moment it's sitting in the high sevens.

[VYBerlinaV8]

That was just general pottering about the Canberra suburbs - short runs to school, shops, that sort of thing. This week has been better already with a few more 80 and 100km/h runs so I think at the moment it's sitting in the high sevens.

The first tank is always poor, once you have a few more kms on board it will be much better.

[Marco]

We’ve had our Cruze for about a month and 1800km now; long enough to post some first impressions for anyone interested. Ours is a MY14 SRi manual hatchback, six speed manual.

Fit for purpose?
Our purpose was to buy a second car primarily for my wife to drive, that wouldn’t be miserable when I needed to drive it or if I end up with it as a daily at some later date; it’s proving to be excellent at that. She’s very happy with it, and I like it.

It has a decent amount of space inside, a good sized boot, and is very easy to drive. Unusually for a small car, I’m 195cm and I don’t have the seat all the way back. An adult couldn’t sit behind me while I’m driving and be comfortable, but my three year old can. With my wife driving, there’s a stack of space left over and it could easily serve as a family car for four people.

So how does it go?
Well enough. It has a 1.6 litre turbo four with 132kW and 230Nm, and weighs 1400kg or thereabouts so it’s not the quickest thing you’ve ever driven but it’s decent. There’s not much happening below 2000rpm but things improve dramatically over about 2500 until it runs out of top end a bit over 6000. You could rev it to 6500 but there doesn’t seem to be much gain; better off changing gear. You only notice torque steer when you’re flat out at the higher end of the RPM range; otherwise there’s not really enough torque for this to be a real problem.
There’s only very mild turbo lag of less than half a second and it’s not noticeable unless you’re foot to the floor. In everyday driving you just wouldn’t notice.

Around corners it’s also decent. There’s a slightly odd sensation of a moment of ‘float’ before it turns in – I’m guessing that it’s a bit soft in the first part of its suspension travel in the interests of ride quality – but once past that it’s fine. It’s not noticeably nose heavy unlike bigger engine FWD cars. The steering ratio is very quick so it feels quite darty and changes direction quickly.

Brakes are very decent with a good firm pedal.

Put together properly?
Yes – I’ve had personal experience with a number of cars built at Elizabeth and this is the best I’ve seen. I’m a fussy bastard with this stuff but the only fault I’ve been able to find is a really minor pin-prick sized paint blemish on the bonnet that would probably polish off if I tried hard enough. Everything lines up properly and has been properly attached with the exception of one minor plastic trim panel which I snapped into place with my hand.

It feels solid, really solid. There’s no reason to think, with this car, that Australian made somehow means not properly put together.

There’s not much in the way of soft plastic inside (in fact, none) but while there’s lots of hard plastic, it feels solid rather than flimsy. The bits you touch regularly are leather anyway so it’s not cheap and nasty like a Mazda 3. The door trim fabric continues across the dash and that makes it a bit nicer than just acres of plastic (but the versions with full leather trim have the same nasty leather across the dash which makes it seem worse than the cloth-trim models).

Value for money
Outstanding, I reckon. We put ours on the road for $23,250 (manual, non-metallic paint) which is with the full complement of safety equipment, the MyLink infotainment system (which is very good, but a bit slow to respond to changing tracks from USB/Bluetooth), rear parking sensors, 17” alloys, cruise control, power everything other than seats.

We looked at everything in its class for about the same money and there wasn’t much that came near it. Everything else is either more expensive, slower, or doesn’t come with as much equipment.

Things to improve
Coming from a mindset of someone who likes performance cars, I reckon it would be dramatically improved with 30% more power and torque, and I think the steering, clutch, and gearshift are too light. I also think it’s too quiet. But in the context of this being a small family car with a bit of a performance aspect to it, rather than being a performance car per se, it’s fine.

Rear visibility is not terrific. A reversing camera would have been good, but that meant stepping up to the SRiV for another four grand or so; it wasn’t worth the extra money just to get that and some low-grade leather trim.

I don’t like the seat adjustment much – it has one of those lever arrangements where you can only move it to set angles. I drove it 200km or so to Cooma and back on Friday and couldn’t quite get the angle I wanted, and was constantly fiddling with the seat adjustment. It doesn’t help that you can’t adjust the angle of the seat base, only the height.

Conclusion - should I buy one?
I drove a couple of Cruzes when they hadn't been on the market long - a 1.8 petrol and a diesel - and both were awful to drive. I wouldn't have bought either, and I've bagged those models in many threads over the years. It was a good sized, comfortable car begging for a decent drivetrain and suspension to be put in it. They've now done that.

So - if your needs are similar to ours, I'd happily recommend this car. Similarly, If you must have a new car and only want to spend about this much, yes.

On the other hand, if you want a car that will blow your mind, or a car that you walk out to on your driveway and think “hell yeah, let’s go for a drive just for the sheer fun of it”, no. This is a warm hatch, not a performance car.

[super coach]

hope someone might be able to help me I rang Holden to see where our SRi-V is along the line and they said at the 1st Nov it was at milestone - 34 Broadcast. Can anyone tell me what that means? the predicated delivery date to the dealer is 28th Nov

[Waughy]

I can't help but you'd think they'd be a bit less technical and just tell you.
On a side note, just dropped mine off for its 15k service. I'm not confident they know about the my link update so here's hoping they get it right and it's updated when I pick it up tomorrow. Checked out a VF SS on my way out, damn they are a nice car. Just added one to my mental list of Cruze replacements at the end of my lease.

[super coach]

Seeing as mine will either be a Oct build or Nov is there anything I need to check before picking it up? like certain updates of some sort?

[Waughy]

To my knowledge the only update available for the MY14 models is to add the voice controls to the early models that missed out on the GPS and voice controls. the update only adds the voice stuff, GPS is not an upgrade option. I think you should be fine with yours, as long as nothing was stuffed up during production.

[Marco]

Yeah, there's been nothing about my 30 Sept build to raise any questions so I'd think yours will be fine.