2015 Chevrolet Cruze Review

2015 Chevrolet Cruze 008

Rodney Dangerfield built a successful comedy career on the premise that he never got any respect. Compact, economical Chevrolet sedans haven’t gotten much respect over the years, either, and until recently this dearth of esteem was deserved. However, just in the past half decade, Chevy has gotten pretty good at building small cars.

Take the 2015 Cruze, for example. You may have long ago dismissed this car as just another cheap piece of junk in a long line of cheap pieces of junk from Chevrolet. However, the Cruze is so much better than a Cobalt, or a Cavalier, or a Citation, or a Monza, or a Vega (the list is a long one, yes?). In fact, if you rent one like I did, bother to clean it up a little bit, and then spend 600 miles driving it, you might find yourself in the airport return line thinking, “You know, that wasn’t half bad.”

Good Economic Sense

There are two things about the Cruze that make exploring your alternatives a sensible endeavor. First, the rear seat is cramped, even by compact car standards. Second, the Cruze earns a “Marginal” crash-test rating in the small overlap frontal-impact crash test conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Overlook these flaws, and a 2015 Cruze makes good economic sense. In advance of a completely redesigned Cruze that is arriving for the 2016 model year, dealers are blowing out remaining stocks of this car, even though this version will live on as the “Cruze Limited.” As I write this review, rebates up to $2,000, lease specials, and zero-percent financing are available, helping to make my Cruze 2LT test car much more affordable than its $24,195 sticker price might suggest.

For that sum, the Cruze 2LT includes leather seats, heated front seats, a MyLink touchscreen infotainment system, OnStar subscription services, and handsome 17-inch aluminum wheels. Options for this model include heated side mirrors, a reversing camera, a blind spot information system, a rear cross-traffic alert system, rear parking sensors, a power sunroof, a premium sound system, and a navigation system. My Cruze had none of these features, which would have pushed the price to $26,715.

Powerplant

What it did have was a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine good for 138 horsepower at 4900 rpm and 148 lb.-ft. of torque starting at just 1850 rpm. Obviously, the goal with this engine is to conserve fuel, not provide strong acceleration. I got 29.9 mpg during my test, nearly matching the EPA’s estimate of 30 mpg in combined driving.

Power is adequate, and no more. There is a slight delay right off the line, but as soon as the torque kicks in the car accelerates with enough zip. Passing power is weak, so be sure to give yourself plenty of room when overtaking slower vehicles.

The 6-speed automatic transmission is well behaved, for the most part, displaying occasionally clunky shifts in stop-and-go traffic. The electric steering is light at parking lot speeds and feels secure on-center when cruising on the highway, and the brakes work well, proving easy to modulate during a rush-hour crush.

Ride Quality

More impressive is the ride and handling mix. The Cruze feels solid on the road, delivering a connected but compliant ride. Over the crumbling pavement in and around Boston, the front suspension components rattled on a regular basis, but my bet is that this would be true of many vehicles.

Long-distance seat comfort is good, the driver benefitting from a power adjustable seat and tilt/telescopic steering wheel. Front passengers enjoy a seat height adjuster, and the Cruze boasts a big 15 cu.-ft. trunk. As I mentioned previously, the rear seat is pretty tight, but the front seatbacks are softly padded to improve comfort levels.

Controls

It is easy to find and use the Cruze’s controls. OnStar includes a number of useful subscription services, which are free for the first six months of ownership and then cost extra to access. Using the USB port located in the center console, we streamed iTunes and Spotify without a problem. MyLink supplies appealing graphics and an intuitive interface.

Chevrolet’s redesigned 2016 Cruze is going to represent an improvement over this old model, but even now, after half a decade, today’s Cruze is a decent set of wheels. It still looks good, though the facelift rolled out for 2015 is not as appealing as what it replaced. The interior is constructed using agreeable materials. And the car sounds robust and solid when slamming the doors or the trunk.

Still, it takes more than one cycle of competent small-car building to sway public opinion, and for now the Cruze still needs to fight for every ounce of respect it can get.

Conclusion

Chevy needs to start by improving the Cruze’s quality ratings and reliability predictions. For as long as firms like J.D. Power and Consumer Reports determine that a Cruze isn’t up to snuff, this small Chevy will continue to get dumped into rental fleets instead of finding a home in the country’s driveways.