Chevy Cruze Diesel Reviewed by TDD

GM Engineer Drives 2013 Chevy Cruze Diesel 900 Miles On One Tank

 

Green Car Congress: The Cruze's official EPA figures are a more modest 46 mpg highway and 27 city, for a combined rating of just 33 mpg.
YAWWWNNN

Then pay ~ 15% more for diesel, making the combined fuel economy ~ 28
DOUBLE YAWWWNNNN

But wait, there is more! The owner gets GM's famed (un)reliability for free !
ONE BIG SNORE

 

My wife & I have had three VW diesels. 1980 VW Rabbit, 1999 VW NewBeetle, and our current 2006 NewBeetle diesel. The 1999 NewBeetle was the best on fuel mileage. Fuel tank capacity 14.5 gallons, "vented full tank", (topped off to filler cap), it would go 600 miles on every tank without any fuel savings measures. With effort, I assume it could have traveled 750 miles per fill up. By comparison, our current 2006, while refined and problem free, gets around 400 miles per tank. With the constant high cost of diesel fuel, and many other more efficient vehicles on the market, I've lost my lust for diesels.

 

Thats a good article. I would like to see more choices. I do not think America will buy diesel. They are not buying that many hybids. The maintance cost will be interesting. Will it be like the TDI?


SCH-I535 ? 2

 

My neighbor just pulled up in a brand new 'still-has-paper-plates' cruze diesel. I accidentally spoiled it between him and his wife. Apparently he didn't tell her it was a diesel. I opened my big mouth and said "hey is that a diesel?" I could clearly hear the blaht blaht blaht blaht blaht blaht blaht exhaust noise as it sat there idling. It was either that or he had a really bad gas mixture

Apparently his wife told him, "do NOT get a diesel" - but he did it anyway . I think he paid an extra $7000 ( above the base cruze price ) or so. I didn't even know GM had a plan to manufacture another diesel car. So I went in the house and read the following article;
Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel
Considering this offering is from GM - it may not be too bad ... at least in comparison to many of their past offerings.
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Double post
But so as not to waste the space I'm wondering if this car can run on ( well filtered ) french fry grease the way many folks do nowadays. Or does the manufacturer say "don't you dare". If it can run on biodiesel then I might think a little more highly of the car.

 

Not a hope. It will completely wreck the emissions system and fuel pumps. Modern diesels don't like bio diesel in the same way your petrol car wouldn't like leaded. It'll run - just not for long and will cause a lot to put right.

 

Just saw a video review for the cruise diesel & was surprised the combined difference MPG for the gas & diesel was less then 5 MPG. They said it would take 100 years to get your money back. What a surprise.

 

do not know about how long the 'pay back' is . . . and of course that turns on a similarly sized vehicle that you get rid of. But if you get rid of a land barge ... isn't that better? Anyway, here's a couple shots of my neighbor's new ride:





For my neighbor to give up his 8 year old gas powered pick up truck ... which virtually never carried a single thing in its entire life - this is a huge improvement when it comes to being responsible.

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I don't think any diesel from 2004 MY on will run for long on WVO.

The issue with biodiesel and the new cars is the DPF. Regenerating the filter requires burning the captured soot down with fuel. The simple and cheap way of getting the fuel to the filter is to just spray some into the cylinder on an exhaust stroke. Biodiesel is bit more viscus than diesel. So it can stick to the cylinder walls, and not all of it get pushed out to the filter. From there, it can work its way into the crankcase and oil. This is why VW and BMW only recommend B5 or less in their diesels.

The other way of getting fuel to the filter is to have its own delivery system. So the only fuel going into the engine is being burnt there. I'm pretty sure this is what Ford and GM do on their trucks and the Cruze. They all can take B20. In theory, they could handle higher concentrations if that is the case. All the manufacturers have to balance what they recommend with the fact that biodiesel can be readily homebrewed, but those doing so might have little to no quality control.

Unfortunately, the Cruze is a little porker to begin with, and then the diesel adds more weight over the petrol. So the city mpg suffers in the rating. Which may be underrated for being a diesel. Fuelly users are getting 41mpg with the diesel, which is 8mpg higher than the sticker combined. At best, petrols were 6mpg higher. Fuelly doesn't sort by displacement or trim. The 6 is in comparison to the least efficient base engine. It's only 3 better with the better engine and 2 with Eco trim.

The Cruze's highway rating is 2 shy of the Prius'. Depending of the person's needs and daily route, it can reduce oil use.

Was it apples to apples? Many of these payback comparisons use the base trim while the diesel is equipped like the mid or high level one. Back when I had the gen2, these review were using a Corolla as the comparison. In which case, it will take 17.45 years to make up the difference in fuel savings.

The higher cost of diesel fuel does make it tough to justify the cost of a diesel. But as with hybrids, there are reasons beyond the cost of fuel for getting one.

 

Besides clogging up the particulate filter, the frying grease gets into the crankcase and messes up the oil. In older diesels you have to make more frequent oil changes. Pump biodiesel is much safer and manufacturers usually allow 5-10% blend.

 

And that's the important thing. He's now running a car that probably has a 50% improvement in fuel efficiency. He's now running 45 mpg instead of 25. If the rest of your neighbours did the same, the skyline of Dubai might be a little less extravagant.

 

I commend anyone going with a more fuel efficient vehicle. But, I don't see any current diesel passenger vehicle as a good option. You could eventually pay down the cost of the diesel option, but the twenty cent per gallon average higher cost of diesel over premium unleaded fuel is a never ending additional expense. Too many cars today require premium unleaded fuel. The best scenario, some of the best fuel mileage available, with the lowest fuel cost (regular unleaded). Prius owners have that figured out. I hope the owner of the Cruze diesel enjoys his vehicle. It will be interesting, how many fill ups before the cost of diesel fuel sours his experience?

 

Not everyone wants the lowest possible fuel cost. I simply wanted *low* fuel cost (even though the costs are on par with a Prius for me) and found I enjoyed driving a Golf much more than a Prius.

 

You should really know by now that because the EPA ratings understate driving speed and overemphasize acceleration, diesel drivers typically beat EPA ratings while gasoline car drivers don't.

2014 Chevrolet Cruze MPG Reports | Fuelly

Unless you're a hypermiler, in the USA you don't really buy a modern diesel for the fuel economy, you buy it because you don't want a hybrid and you want decent fuel economy. In Canada it's different because diesels don't have the same forced upgrades and the fuel costs are closer to parity.

I'm very happy to see the Cruze diesel and I hope the next generation is available in larger numbers, especially since the next generation should see a significant reduction in weight. VW has had the US mainstream diesel market to itself for a long time and used that monopoly to maximize margin instead of growing the market and it would be a good thing for their market to be squeezed.

 

The Cruze diesel is $7k above base price, but it's a loaded Cruze. The real question is what they do on the next generation.

 

Not far from Cruze Eco for all the extra hardwares and fuel/DEF expenses.

 

I will say this: Between the low sulfer fuel now days and the pee tank (urea?) emission system . . . I don't smell any rotten exhaust stink that I associate with diesels.
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