Chevrolet Cruze 2.0D LT
Some cars are about the sheer joy of driving. The exhilaration and freedom that can only be delivered in the seduction of the open road, the mountain pass in that moment where the separation between man and machine becomes vague, you know all the cliches. Enter stage left the Chev Cruze diesel, and you just know that this isn't one of those. A car by the numbers for the numbers. This car is there to tick the right boxes. Practical. Frugal even.
These are not concepts to lure you into early wakefulness just to get a few moments irrevocably burned into your synapses. This is the choice of the accountant I am afraid.
We need to sum it up then: practical. Those of you who have driven it would know that already. So the question to be addressed is what does the addition of a lump in front powered by diesel make then?
First the numbers, 110kw from 2 litres of electronically controlled turbo breathing diesel. More impressive is 320Nm of torque. Torque is often the more important factor in a daily commuter than power. Torque makes for effortless driving. More is always better, and this has lots more.
Diesel burners are all about economy though, and this car delivers, 5,7l/100km in the combined cycle. Not too shabby. All this for a mere premium of R13 000 over the 1.8l petrol sibling in identical LT trim but which does however have an automatic transmission vs the diesel's manual. The engine is smooth, relatively quiet and feels robust.
At R261 100 this does represent value. You get 17” wheels, a half dozen airbags, rear PDC, MP3 entertainment with iPod connect, leather where it counts most, rain sensors, auto headlights and dual zone climate control. Which brings me to my pet hate of the Cruze. All models do it. If your legs are longer than midget, and you happen to sit the way I do, the every adjustment of your left leg results in your knee and the climate adjust knob intersecting with each other.
No matter what I did I ended up cooking or freezing due to unintentional, unwilling ambulatory adjustments to the damn knob. What useless ergonomics. This was my complaint on previous Cruze tests. Damn irritating, and enough to cause me to dislike an otherwise perfectly decent car. The only other car that has come even close to this level of knee induced irritation was the Land Rover Defender, pre Puma, where your ownership of a knee was always made obvious by the window winder kneading it constantly in some form of carefully orchestrated torture.
Almost a bad engineering joke it was. I wonder if those Chev engineers have a similarly twisted sense of malicious humour? But I digress.
A diesel with respective service plan of three years 60 000km's for only a slight premium on the petrol variant.
