Gadgetory

they may have already seen my video on the chevy cruze eco but this is the chevy cruze eco a much more fuel-efficient turbo diesel let's drive Chevy's entrant in the field of powerplant America loves to hate and check its efficiency tab now spotting a cruise diesel is not easy it looks just about like every other cruise they tell me it's got a subtle aero kit I guess the chins a little different beyond that you got to look for this little teeny-tiny TD badge on the rump that makes a VW TDI logo look huge in other words this car doesn't scream I'm green if that matters to you now I'm not going to spend a ton of time inside this cruise because we've shot the Cruze eco check out our in-depth video on that also the 2014 Impala is a great deep dive on the Chevy MyLink radio I'll let it suffice to say that navigation is optional though display radio is standard with Pandora and stitcher rear camera is also optional on this guy which I find a little disconcerting and beyond that the fit and finish is nice leather comes on the diesel as well that's going to be an interesting factor later in the story but the big story is up there under the hood now of course the diesel engine is a big part of the story here you don't often see diesels in America let alone with an American car company 2 liter turbo diesel the turbo parts really obvious here's our little Garrett unit right up there very plain to say we also have direct injection going on here which is what modern diesels all do the numbers 151 horse 264 foot-pounds of torque that last one is the whole point gets this roughly 34 hundred pounds via up to 60 fat 8.6 seconds that sounds pretty class average notice the mileage is what's interesting 27:46 hello neem that's a nice number a cruisee co gas gets 26 39 average of 31 cruz turbo diesel gets 27 a big 46 on the highway but only averages 2 miles per gallon more average 33 annual fuel cost is only 50 dollars less on the turbo diesel but the MSRP is over $5,000 more because the diesel has 4-wheel ABS remote start leather interior available of the sunroof heated seats and even more so if you don't care about the extra equipment the math is pretty harsh it's a $5,000 Delta paid off at 50 bucks a year over a century ok so driving the little Chevy diesel what's it like well first of all you don't hear most of that diesel clatter we heard under the hood it's much better managed inside so you're not gonna find that it's you know a rattle box the torque is very muted once you get spooled up it's there but it's rather muted because I think this car is heavily tuned toward economy and you're not getting a huge amount of great leaf down low just the way this car is engineered that said it has ample orly sufficient power I don't feel like this cars gutless especially if y'all work the gearbox a little bit that's not the idea right we're doing a really nice average mpg and all of us on the car tech team were able to see at least the cars calculated 50 mpg on the highway pretty easily ride quality is real nice member it weighs quite a bit more than the Gaskin June car and that does wonders for suspension planted miss which I always like nice and quiet sight lines are good on this car it's a very livable everyday vehicle that is a little bit sluggish in transitions on the throttle because that diesel is not giving up its torque as much as it is being tuned for economy I find that a little disappointing but they are getting some good numbers out of this car so in sum what I say about this car on the road is that it's it's absolving a lot of sins that general Motors committed in the 80s I mean they're largely the reason that Americans hate Diesel's they did some horrendous diesels back in the day an Americans swaram off back then you could get either a Mercedes diesel that was expensive and for the rich people or then there were these American diesels that were like oh well this sets the record straight General Motors to make a real nice piece of car I'm pricing our cruise diesel you got to know this guy does not start off real cheap they have positioned it as a high trim model as we discussed a little earlier so 25 7 is your entry level then on top of that a number of things to get seen a style one of which is this convenience package that's how you get the rear camera and a bunch of self adjusting mirrors basically I'd normally would bristle at a camera being an optional cost but it's only 380 for the whole package so I'll give them a pass if you want driver assistance rear sensors cross traffic alert and blind spot indicators it's 800 bucks sunroof another 900 navigation as I mentioned is extra 795 it's not gonna break the bank and they do a pretty good job on the all inward just about 29,000 on the nose not bad but notice you've got to care about the high equipment level on this car to make it work out otherwise you can never earn back the additional cost of this versus the cruise Eco gas car it just isn't gonna happen unless you got a century on your hands