Josh's Coal-Rolling Cruze

[JoshInKC]

Last Saturday, in the midst of this rabbit-based drama (http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?1062-Miscellaneous-Stuff&p=43454&viewfull=1#post43454), my wife and I started discussing the possibility of picking up a newer, more reliable, and still under warranty vehicle. We did some research that afternoon, focusing on highway mpgs being >40. Came up with a short list including many of the hybrids & diesels on the market, ideally under 5 years old, and sub-70k miles or so. That evening, we decided to hit up a few dealerships and check out local selection and pricing. The first dealership we hit was chevy, because it happened to be the closest. Were checking out one of the new diesel Cruzes they had in stock when a salesman walked up and said, "Checking out the diesel, huh? Want a test drive?" Yeah, why not, seems nice enough even though the price is substantially higher than what we were looking to spend. I was a really nice drive - Leather, heated seats, back up camera, etc. Handled well for a non-sporty sedan, and had really decent pickup, especially from part-throttle. Once we got back to the dealership, salesman wanted to talk price, and we said "Eh, we're more looking for a few years old, sub $20k, etc. Have any of those in stock?" He says no, I say give me a call if you get one in in the next few weeks, and we take off.

Check out a few other vehicles, and mostly mark them off the list - due to pricing, discomfort, lack of local selection, etc. We sort of settle on keeping our eyes open for good deals on low-mileage Priuses, TDI Passats or Jettas, or the outlier diesel Cruze.

Skip ahead to Tuesday afternoon, when my phone rings and its the chevy salesman. He says that they've just gotten a shipment of several '15 Cruzes and he's talked to his sale manager, suggesting that they ought to drop the pricing on the 2014s and he has somebody interested. Manager tells him to bring us in and we'll try to work it out. Wife and I discuss, and go down there Wednesday afternoon. It goes well, we showed up with a firm number we're not going to go above and a spreadsheet for price, apr, payments, etc.(Wife is an accountant). LSS - I'm now the owner of a new Tungsten (Dark Grey Metallic) 2014 Cruze CTD with the "Driver convenience" and Pioneer Audio packages. So far, it's been really nice and I'm looking forward to shaking it down next weekend on a few hundred mile road trip.

[speedpimp]

:up:

[Kchrpm]

Very nice :up: I was a "high" performance package away from having a Cruze as well.

[thesameguy]

Very cool - I'd love to hear how it goes over a while. I really like these cars, and a the ecodiesel is icing on the cake. Congrats!

[neanderthal]

:up:

This

[21Kid]

Rolling coal!!!?!!! :mad:

Oh... you just mean diesel. Cool. :cool: I always kept my eye on TDIs. But, they hold their value too well.

[JoshInKC]

Thoughts, 1 week in:
The chevy All-weather floormats are crap. Maybe it's because I got spoiled by the very effective mats in the Rabbit, but the ones for the cruze a) Aren't as deep, making them less effective at holding crap when we get into snowy weather, and b) Offer no traction for your heel whatsoever, when driving with them in place my foot (regardless of what shoes I'm wearing) slips forward until it's at an uncomfortable angle. It's pretty weird. I'm definitely going to pick up some aftermarket ones before the weather turns.

OnStar is kind of weird. We've got the free trial and tried out the "Navigation" feature the other day - The way it works is you press the OnStar button on the rearview mirror; The car then makes a phone call to an onstar operator; You say "I want to go to blah-blah address or business." The person on the other end says, "I can do that for you, do you need anything else?" Then, you hang up and they send the directions to the car. Seriously, I have to talk to a person to get directions? What am I, a farm animal?
Also, the onstar navigation package is $35/month? What? I can get the highest end Garmin with lifetime maps, traffic, and all the bells and whistles for like $250.

Beyond those two (very) minor things, the first 425 miles have been great. Passing power, especially on hills, is GREAT, there's a very steep one on the way to my wife's work and the Cruze just zips up it with basically no effort, leaving pretty much everything else in the dust. Also, the fuel gauge only hit the halfway mark yesterday, so the mileage seems to be as expected.

Should have some further updates after this weekend, when we have a several hundred mile roadtrip scheduled.

[novicius]

:up: :up:

[21Kid]

I never understood the OnStar option. It seems like it would be used in a very high end car, like an automotive butler. But, in a Chevy? I don't see the point.

[Kchrpm]

For a lot of people, the OnStar subscription isn't about your every day use (live person Google Maps, basically), but the emergency response stuff. My aunt and uncle got a vehicle with OnStar for her, and upon finding out that it would automatically contact local emergency services with an accident notification and their location if the airbags deployed, said they would only buy cars in the future that also had it.

[Yw-slayer]

That makes much more sense. That would be good to have.

[21Kid]

For $420/year though? :erm: I suppose if you live in a low traffic area, that could be useful.

[Kchrpm]

You can get just the emergency thing for $20/month, or $200 for the year, which also includes roadside assistance (I presume like AAA), and "Advisors" (no idea).

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/plans-pricing.html

Oh, Advisors are the people that call and ask for help during roadside assistance or accident stuff.

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/services/emergency.html

[TheBenior]

FWIW, OnStar isn't bad for theft recoveries.

[JoshInKC]

That all makes some sense, still seems pretty expensive.

[thesameguy]

It can lower your insurance, which might offset some of the cost, so there's that. It might also end up being cost effective if you're the type to lock your keys in the car. Or, if you're like one of the guy I work with he routinely leaves his keys in the car so they don't get lost and just calls OnStar when he's done doing whatever he does.

[JoshInKC]

It can lower your insurance, which might offset some of the cost, so there's that. That's neat, have now emailed my insurance agent to ask about it.

It might also end up being cost effective if you're the type to lock your keys in the car. Or, if you're like one of the guy I work with he routinely leaves his keys in the car so they don't get lost and just calls OnStar when he's done doing whatever he does. That is bonkers.
OnStar does have a phone app now that allows you to lock/unlock your doors or start your engine from anywhere you have data reception on your phone, Also I think it logs some diagnostics. Wonder what package that stuff comes with.

[Kchrpm]

It looks like the remote app is free with 2014s for 5 years, but the diagnostics is only free for 2015s. I both are included with any OnStar package.

Oh, wait...I think the 2014s aren't diagnostics capable :-/

https://www.onstar.com/us/en/services/diagnostics.html

[thesameguy]

Did not know there was a phone app for OnStar... someone here is going to be very happy to not have to call them!

Sad truth: With insurance, it only costs $200 to replace a lost iPhone, but it still costs $400-$500 to replace a lost Mercedes key. Better to lose or break the phone than the key, so I sympathize. #1stworldproblems

[21Kid]

Cool. I didn't know about the insurance, lost key, stolen vehicle aspects. :up: That makes much more sense now.

[JoshInKC]

Since leaving the house Saturday morning the Cruze has done 562 miles at an average speed of 82 mph, largely through hilly north-central Kansas. Filled it up just before I got home with 12.989 gallons. This works out to 43.267 miles per gallon, so I'm pretty damn happy with that.
All-in-all, it was a very pleasant and comfortable drive. :up:

[thesameguy]

Man, that is *nice*. That kind of mileage at that speed in a solid, comfortable car is a-ok. Best I've ever done in my life was 38mpg in a bloody Saturn SL1 at 55mph. :down:

[JoshInKC]

Update: Still very happy with the Cruze. No problems to report at all, it's very comfortable for all of the highway miles I've been putting on it.

About four months/9000 miles* in.
Avg mpgs according to fuelly - 41.257
Avg fuel price - $2.479/gallon
Nothing resembling problems or breakdowns so far.

* - Boy, that's a lot of miles. 2000 of that was from a road trip the wife and I took at the end of July/beginning of August. Another 2600 is from a few recent 650 mile round-trip weekends to western Kansas for the purposes of archaeology. The rest is my normal 80 mile round trip commute and errands.
I should do some math and figure out what the Rabbit would be costing me if I were taking it everywhere - I think it averaged about 26/27 mpg.