The engine is an Opel A20DTH made in Germany by Opel, not Fiat. GM identified this as the LUZ for the NA market. The A20DTH is different from the Fiat Multijet 2.0. They share some architectural similarities however they are not the same.
The next generation 1.6 diesel sedan with the 6 speed manual was crazy. Deleted and properly tuned, is the highest mpg setup. You could scrape up over 70 mpg with that setup
@morarliece1428 My mistake you are correct. I just looked it up. Don't know why I thought that.....if I knew they came in a manual I would have bought one.....went with a golf tdi instead
@@paulsz6194Well,the Chevette was jointly developed by Isuzu & GM Europe(Vauxhall & Opel) A similar car,same platform,but not the same body panels,was built & sold here in England & Germany as The Vauxhall Chevette & Opel Kadett....not in only hatchback style,like the Chevys,but we also had saloons/sedans,estates/station wagons & even small vans.
Only North American Cruzes got the Italian diesel and the Aisin transmission. Aero came from the Cruze eco, sound deadening and front hubs/brakes came from the Buick Verano.
I owned one of these for 7 years. Fuel economy was astoundingly good on the highway; I could routinely go 1100 km (690 miles) on a tank. Alas, even though it was driven sensibly and given all regular maintenance, the engine suffered a catastrophic failure. The repair estimate reached $7000 and was still climbing, so regretfully I decided to scrap it. I don't know whether that was typical for that engine, or whether I was just unlucky.
@@SplosionMovies It seems that the computer that runs the engine failed in some way, which caused a cascade of damage. The tech said that the car filled the repair bay with black smoke.
I own this same car. 122,000 miles and still going. Lots of upkeep and maintenance. Had to wait almost a year for a catalytic converter replacement during the supply chain shortage of 2021. It's a good little car.
my cousin has one of these and even though it’s fun to drive and economical, its in the shop constantly and parts take always forever to come in because nobody bought them
actually had one of those and they are quick vehicles. You just don't know how to drive it when you learn how to drive a diesel say it's like dating a strong woman.
The reason GM was able to use this engine is that they one time had a partnership since 2010 in owning diesel manufacturer VM Motori, who made the engine for the Cruze. GM would sell their interest in VM Motori to Fiat in 2013.
Good review, but he didn't mention that this is obviously the top of the line model, with leather seats, heated seats, moonroof, etc. Base Cruzes wouldn't have had those things.
actually had one of those and they are quick vehicles. You just don't know how to drive it when you learn how to drive a diesel say it's like dating a strong woman.
The Chevy Cruze diesel while forgotten, I feel like it's still pretty well known. But what a lot of people don't know is that there were also diesel versions of the Chevy equinox and GMC terrain.
I learned about the terrain LONG before the cruze. if GM made diesel versions of the late 90s sedans, i wouldnt hesitate to own one. provided they learned their lesson with oldsmobile.
We had a 2014 Cruze Diesel. Ours was fully loaded. It drove REALLY well and felt very substantial and relaxed, an excellent highway vehicle. I especially liked the Aisin transmission which was very smart at downshifting to assist with braking etc, probably the smartest feeling automatic transmission I ever owned. MPGs were excellent and the range per tank added mentally to the feeling that it cost very little to fuel. Another smart idea was that if you turned the heat control all the way to hot, an electric assist helped the car heat up very quickly, not something diesels normally do well. We did have some DEF tank and fuel injector issues which came up early in the ownership and were covered by warranty or recall. None of the issues impacted reliability or performance, just dash error messages. The Pioneer audio was excellent but the on-board navigation was clunky and after an update to the map files it frequently spoke in tongues when trying to read street names which was amusing. After a tree fell onto our car the suspension was never right again. I took the car to multiple dealerships, a few tire/brake/suspension shops and nobody seemed to have any idea why it rode so low and slammed into freeway expansion joints etc so we reluctantly traded it in on a 2019 Cruze hatch which I still have and enjoy. The 2019 gas Cruze hatch has been exceptionally cheap to run and maintain, perfectly reliable but not as premium feeling as the 2014.
Like Ford, GM doesn't make sedans anymore because they don't make high enough profit as SUVs do. Chevy is discontinuing the Malibu - the last sedan they make. Of course they were not as good as a Toyota or Honda sedan
I dunno why the country has gone so SUV/Crossover crazy. Sedans are still useful to most people. But no, let’s buy a fully loaded truck that’ll never leave the road or haul anything.
They couldn't compete with Japanese quality. I had a few grand am and loved them, but after 100k miles they did not feel reliable any more. A toyota isn't even broken in at 100k
@@senseicorey9979 compared to toyota and honda? sure - but people are buying nissans and hyundais instead... just utter trash garbage. and it's not as if gm hasn't made cars that stand the test of time. the le sabre is famous for its durability and that 3800 v6 is as good as anything made by toyota, their achilles' heel is that the intake manifold gasket can leak and that's an easy fix. but people junk them over it. i mean, i found a junkyard ciera with a blown ECM fuse - and the fact that it wasn't the first thing to get replaced almost certainly means they junked it over that. you don't see people neglecting corollas and civics like this. because the fact of the matter is, the toya/honda durability is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. they are well-made, but people drive them with care, they do regular maintenance, they fix them because they expect it to last. and as for the cruze, my sister has one with well over 100k miles with nothing but regular fluid changes. your mileage may vary, but it's been good to her so far and it's a simple design that's relatively easy to repair.
@@Ben-jz3mtsimply, a SUV/CUV/truck offers a raised seating position that gives a better view of the road ahead; especially if you're someone shorter in stature. Throw in people's need to haul kids and the related equipment to all the sports/ school functions and what not, it's easy to see why they took off. Add in bonuses like available AWD in a lot of models, and here again, sedans lose. Personally, I wish we still had more variety when it comes to wagons. I miss mine every day.
I miss when American companies made cars. I know they didn't sell very well but I was fond of them much more than the crossovers we see today. Small cars were quite charming in their own way.
When General Motors- Holden was still around ( GMH) it was sold as a Holden Cruze Diesel in Australia / New Zealand. It was a little more reliable than the Family2- based 1.4L Turbo Petrol motor.
Those 1.4Ts have cooling systems so bad it makes BMW ones seem reliable by comparison. My mother in law has a 2017 Buick Encore and you cannot keep coolant in it no matter how much money you dump into it
I disagree on the marketing thing. I hear that complaint all the time from journalists. And it’s usually about a vehicle they liked, but had low sales. But to me, so many people have inherent biases about so many vehicles that I don’t think savvy marketing can change. If someone thinks every GM vehicle sucks, I don’t think 50+ mpg will change their mind.
8:27 - As the successor to the Cobalt, these were markedly better in all regards, especially appearance. They weren't just handsome "for a Chevy" or "for a GM" - they were just handsome. I feel like when GM exited NUMMI, they turned to their Daewoo connection to make their compacts. And it worked. Both Cruzes were decent competitors in the segment. Maybe not as reliable, but they got the rest of the package correct.
@@retrocompaq5212 the 2nd gen Cruze is way more reliable than the earlier ones. The Cobalts were like cockroaches but everything else would start falling apart at age 6
Fun fact, the Cruze diesel had different bolt pattern than the gas counterpart lol. No clue why, brakes maybe? I had a coworker that had one and commuted 80mph on the highway and still got 40 mpg all day long. Great cars imo.
I have 4 Small diesels 2017 Chevy Colorado Diesel , 2015 Vw Jetta SEL TDI Manual trans (The dirty One ), 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Eco Diesel ,and a 2014 BMW 328D love them all…..
I can name you at least 2 other engines shared between competitors. Saturn used a Honda J35 V6 from 2004-2007 in the Saturn Vue SUV. This was a deal between GM and Honda. In return, Honda got to use some Isuzu 4 cylinder diesels in the Civic in Europe.
Chevy also made an Equinox diesel around the same time... It also didn't sell well. I think part of the problem is that the math just didn't really add up. Diesel is more efficient and usually more reliable, but you also have to pay extra to get the diesel engine as well as pay extra for the more expensive fuel. At the end of the day, you probably won't save much money, and also have to deal with the inconvenience that several gas stations in the US don't sell diesel. You also have to remember that this is around the time the Chevy Volt came out, so if you bought and qualified for the tax credit, you would be paying $27,500; Compare that to the $26,000 Cruze Diesel. The Volt gets around 40mpg if you count just gasoline efficiency alone, and when you consider that most people can commute just fine with its 38mi EV range, you would rarely be burning any gas and would just be using the much cheaper electricity.
Yes, these cars are some of the least reliable economy cars of their time. However, you can roll coal with these with the right mods; much like the one in this video. Something about a car rolling coal cracks me up. Now, I would NEVER choose this over a VW TDI (I hate VW, but the TDI is great!), but most of them have been bought back after the while DieselGate drama.
These 2.0 engines are originally from Fiat with a whole family of these common rail. Very strong and reliable engine. Quite powerful engines. Very common also in motorhomes over in Europe. Thanks for the video of this "rare" Cruze diesel :).
In india, the only Cruze they launched came with the diesel engine. It used to have humongous 360nm torque, and was quite well known for the push back above 2000rpm
Holden Cruze here in Australia and DSL version as well , what a big pile of Detroit , how the hell did they let this out of the factory in petrol and DSL version . CRAP
only the Eco with the 6 spd did 42. High 30s on everything else. That's still over 30% less efficient than the Diesel which may or may not represent savings (price around here is somewhere in between 87 and 91).
I own a European Ford Fusion (Mondeo over here) with a PSA group 2.0 Tdci (Turbo diesel commonrail injection engine) with 140hp and flooring it on the highway at 95 mph I get 32‐34 mpg (mind you it's a wagon aswell...the Cruze is a smaller car overall). If I sputter along at 75mph I get 40+ change mpg (I have about 190miles to my vacation home along the coast, and there and back I barely use up half of my fuel tank)...Americans usually do a lot of miles so I was shocked to hear they prefer gas cars. Here we usually reserve gas cars for smaller compacts for city driving but anyone that does a lot of miles on the highway usually gets a turbo diesel...but not all TD's are created equal, I had some horrible experiences with Volkwagen TDi's, I wouldn't buy one ever again...
The real Chevy stopped making the Cruize, is because they were crap. There is no such thing as a good cheap Chevy. They were crap new, they were crap used, they were crap the petrol engine, and they're crap with the Diesel engine. I've seen a lot of these clunkers in junk yards, on the back of tow trucks, or on the marketplace for a few thousand or less. You know what I don't see a lot of cars in situations like that? Civic's and Corollas
I worked on a couple of these during my time with GM. They seemed to be decent quality, but considering that the gas version got 46 mpg on the highway, it's hard to imagine why you would want the added complexity and expense associated with diesel engines when it won't save you any real money in the long run.
The first gen Cruze is a nice looking economy car. I owned a 2014 with the base engine and manual transmission. It was the worst car I've ever owned. The seats were not the best but that could be due to it being the base version and the transmission was the worst part. I eventually got rid of it after about 5-6 months of owning it. Oh, I bought it used with only 16k miles and it was less than two years old at the time. Outside of that, I liked the car and from what an old co-worker has told me the nicer equiped version with an automatic had nicer seats and a better engine. I would buy a diesel version but it would have to be loaded for me to even think about it.
engine sharing between competitors is nothing new. Some European market suv had 2.0tdi VW diesel on them as these brands then didn't have a diesel engine at that time and thus bought the 2.0tdi to satisfy the European market.
From what I heard it’s just such a shame how terrible these Chevy cruzes really were I always loved the looks but to me the seats were too uncomfortable
I've seen quite a few Cruzes with MT in Ontario. I've never seen or heard of diesel one. I'm not sure if they were sold in Canada at all. Chevy Orlando was sold here and it is essentially a Cruze with wagon/ van top.
in 2017 i went to gm dealer, looking at the 2nd gen to replace my 2009 cobalt 2.0t, car was 35k$ in lt 2sb and rs trim, got the car for a 24h test drive and i when i gave the car back i said, after 10 gm's, 6 cavaliers/cobalts, i will never buy any gm products anymore, it was painful to drive, its like a hyundai or mazda, completely gutless, wrong transmission gearing, all flash no dash... i still drive the same cobalt today, i made 200k km since then, 396whp, everthing's factory ex the turbocharger... since the bailout, to me, gm is dead...
My dad almost bought one back in 2011, but was cared away by spare parts availability (something quite common in Argentina) so he went for the MK6 jetta TDI instead
as someone who lives in EU... VW Passat / Golf TDI + BMW made me hate diesel cars.. most owners are the following: 1) type who drives the car till it dies no maintiancne, they end up stinking the air. 2) the type of who intentionally love to stink up the air because "coal haha cool" :) 3) angry middle aged man / woman who are road raging to work and got a diesel to save a little bit of money but not really
We have people ramming brooms through exhaust equipment on trucks with torque ratings over 1000 lbs without a commercial license. I'd advise not visiting if the road rage / diesel types bother you in a lot of our cities/rich rural mentality and want toys and not investments. Idk how we stay sane ourselves.
VW Diesels have timing belts and weak head gaskets. BMW Diesels have also been absolute diarrhea, which is why you won’t see 50 year old BMW Diesels driving around the way you do with the Mercedes W123 240D/300D Turbo. Peugeot Turbo-Diesels were quite good, when they still had MFI.
Yeah, I did had a back up camera because it was a high trim level. The diesel was the highest trim level for the Chevy Cruz in 2014. It was above the LTZ.
I have one. Love it. Sadly I haven't had it long and the DPF went on it right when I got it from the GM dealer. They are replacing the DPF now under warranty. $4000 part! Great car otherwise.
My colleague has had one of these since 2014. It’s got almost 250K miles on it. He likes it overall but he admits that it costs about $3-6K worth of repairs every year or so.
I had one. Great car when it wasn’t at the dealer. Tons of emissions codes and phantom coolant leaks. Had to get it bought back from GM. Loved it, great MPG. Lots of features considering the make/model.
