regfootball

well, 2 new engines and neither of them are right for the job, three strikes and you're out. why come out of the gate with 2 misses? sounds like classic old GM. meanwhile, Ford comes to bat with the right stuff.

Love it, Dwight. Really though, all GM really had to do was buy the next gen focus powertrains from ford. They nailed it. 2.0 base with real power, and a kick ass turbo. Simple. Good. Done. GM really blows chunks on simple stuff sometimes. On the Eco actually, why not just a nice turbo 1.6 4, DI, CVT. ?

any turbo gas jetta will be way too expensive. fast fun cars with any sense of real quality are quickly becoming extinct.

i thought the rear seat was an epic fail. not enough leg room. otherwise the car is pretty decent. agree on the trunk, hubcaps, and firestones.

no cruise on the cruze even standalone = epic fail

I had a chance to sit inside a new Cruze LS today. I had met a excoworker for lunch today for some MONGOLIAN and the dealer i bought my cobalt from was only a couple miles away, i had seen they had a Cruze in inventory. After all the years of ballyhoo Chevy has been giving us, making us wait like 8 years after images and the continual promise that it was going to be the event of the century and the total antithesis of the cobalts and g5's.... Well they had the Cruze.... a very unassuming grey LS with automatic and connectivity package. 18 and change MSRP, gray. For the buildup it just really amounts to a perky pleasant SMALL car. There is not much different about it in person than what you have seen in pictures actually. It's upbeat looking inside and out, very mainstream. It's not like VW's new Jetta which is trying to look like an A4 with an Ikea level of build. It's fairly honest to the mission of 'volume chevy getabout'. Maybe the mission is not challenging enough or maybe it's just right. In any case, the car represents the Chevy badge accurately. The front beak looks clumsy and needs a redo. The rear is plain, like has already been mentioned. The 3d aspect of the car is ok, and the side profile is really the car's best look. All in all, upbeat, in with the times, not dorky. Pretty good, in no way over the top. There's a little bit of a rental flair to the LS in its dishwater color scheme and hubcaps (they are ok hubcaps though). Like has been mentioned, the car just really lacks compelling detail outside. Maybe that's ok for an 18k sticker price. The new Jetta does look more expensive. The real improvements as far as the interior are not in the materials. Dash plastics and all of that are middle of the road, they are nice and completely within expectation....but there is not really much in surprise and delight. Seat cloth is a bit disappointing. Overall textures and such you can be ok with, but it could be close to being considered cheap. Actually the center stack is pretty nice, it's more or less the highlight of the car. The cupholders are perfect, the handbrake is perfect, the climate controls are very nice and easy to figure out (those three items alone fix a lot of what is wrong with the cobalt). The radio is nicely laid out affair with a neat set of controls and a very handy dash top display. Well done chevy. USB is under the small center armrest. Control stalks are the blocky euro design and they click nice and feel good. (power mirrors and cruise control are indeed missing on this LS). Steering wheel adjusts up and down and forward and back nicely and the wheel itself is nice and thick although looks a bit cheap without all the SWAC. It would also feel better with leather. Padded inserts on the dash are nice to touch but really are not what they were hyped up to be and this unit had some wavy surfaces (QC!) on them. Gauges look really neat but seem cramped together and are a bit tough to see through the smaller wheel. Doors have some nice padding and a generous armrest. Shifter seemed nice and really well located and especially would work well in manual mode where the gate was for that. What really is best about the interior is the design theme, the layout of all the features and controls, the level of detail in the design, and quality of all the things you interact with is good. Again, seems perky, new, upbeat. USER FRIENDLY. great for commuting. I couldn't get the seat comfortable, it seemed too narrow and dug in. Perhaps i needed to adjust it better. the pull up adjuster on the side of the seat was very stout and worked great. A lot of bolstering and sculpture in the seats for a car this class. I am guessing smaller women would fit these seats well. Driving position is very upright and chair high once you adjust it. Again, great for commuting and taking in the view of the airy greenhouse (with a bit of a low roof). Cabin width is perfect for this class, feels great, and corrects another big cobalt flaw. Nice girth here. I felt like front leg room was tight because of the knee blockers....and it forced me to push my seat back. Here is where the fatal flaw is exposed to me. Get that front seat where you want it, heck even on the passenger side, guess what happens. SUBPAR rear leg room. it's just not there. It's not really an improvement over the Cobalt in available leg room. WTF? Larger, heavier car, longer wheelbase. WHAT GIVES? THis is bull$h!. Singles or Couples without kids may not care since they won't use the backseat, sure. But still. For those of us who may be considering going down from the big midsizers to a compact but still want a little legroom, this looks to be a fatal flaw. It really doesn't matter now that rear shoulder and hip room is nicely increased and really good. I sat back there, i did fit but my knees knocked the seatback. Fortunately GM gave the car good rear footspace...something GM has failed miserably at on so many cars in the past. But if you are window shopping at the dealer, the Jetta appears to have 3-4 inches of advantage in rear leg room over the Cruze. THe current Elantra has a major advantage in space over the Cruze, why can't GM package the car efficiently like Hyundai did? Trunk is large, regular shaped, and accessible much like the new Regal's is. Very delightful how spacious it is. Very little wheel intrusion, high, wide, and deep, large opening. Cruze's trunk arms look cheap and the rest of the trunk is trimmed cheaply (although probably new par for the class). I just don't think a Cruze with a 26-27k sticker should settle for a trunk as basically trimmed as this is. Let's give credit to chevy for getting points on some of the things they intended, that this be a pleasant, upbeat commuter with some neat features and a good personality in the cabin. After sitting in one, it's REALLY hard to imagine this car being configured with either a hatchback or as a performance model. You just don't get the VIBE from it that it would make that transition well. ANother great reason for the full astra line to be sold here at Buick to take up those issues. If you need a get to work car and care about interior, I would say check it out. It won't wow you on materials, but the rest may make a good daily tool to get to where you are going. If you need rear seat room you probably won't want this car. I hope to drive one when available. I think the public will like the car at lower price points (i.e. non loaded versions). Seems to me the best value for the Cruze is an LT automatic with cloth and few options. LS interior with gray is too gray, and the LS lacks power mirrors and cruise which alone discredits the whole car to me, regardless of what is likely a gutless engine. I'd encourage anyone to go out and find a Cruze and sit in one and see what you think, especially a more loaded version. Maybe in loaded trim it would feel just that much more special. It's not mecca, but it's probably a good solid cup of coffee, like a tall starbucks Pike Roast. Makes me wonder though, the Malibu is probably looking like the better buy right now in comparison.

sweet

nice, even has the floor shifter.

i do agree the US needs to jump in with ten feet into electric. but this is just a veiled disguise for what he really wants, 7 dollar gas to keep you down. an economist doesn't understand how crippling a huge gas tax increase would be on raising the good of all our transported goods?

everytime I have sat in a new CTS the seats to me have a weird contour to them and i do bump my knees a lot. it's odd, the new SRX / Cadillac Vue had great seats I thought.

my cobalt has cruise and a stick, so, i know that. what my question is, is cruze standard on the cruze LS manual. i believe i have seen conflicting info on that.

New York Times some truth and some of his usual blather

http://www.km77.com/fotos/KIA/Pop_Concept_2010/index.html i am not entirely certain this is even a Paris concept (mods move if need be). this could be the COOLEST thing i have seen in a LONG TIME

lol the dealer i got my cobalt from is showing a Cruze LS manual in their inventory.... question, i am honestly not sure on this. does the Cruze LS manual come with......wait for it...... cruise control? it would seem to me that a Cruze with no Cruise would really be a stupid proposition.

hate the bling wheels. the next gen cordobas / MIRADAS were cars i lusted after. me, lusting after a chrysler. MIRADA. look at all that interior progress over three decades.....where do they find that inspiration for gear shifters leaning forward.... i really dug the miradas / cordobas creased exteriors....

part of the reason carmakers have gone to less glass and more metal is you can get the car stiffer with more metal instead of glass and a smaller ORIFICE to frame ratio. I would guess the windshield and back glass have enormous impact on the structural rigidity of a car frame. to get the size of the windshield down in particular helps big time as well as reduces enormous cost of the expensive larger windshields and this can help insurance. the stupid pedestrian safety hangup europe had also plays into this, the eurobangers wanted taller hoods and so the newer cars would look stupid with a big fat chunky hood and a low lean rear deck. and of course that falling character line started by the first decent altima started designers at every carmaker on that path of rising to a big fat ass on the rear. cadillac is about excess, so the ass is big, the character line is dramatic, and the rear glass is pulled back as far as they could. the way the rear pillar essentially becomes the kicked forward tailights is an almost unthinkable detail to those who remember several FEET of distance between the rear glass and the fins / taillights on any old cadillacs. one of the most fantastic views of this car is from the top and back end where you can see the really bizarre connection of all the design elements, brought together in ways not really tried before. but it would still be nice to see out of the f'in car. and i bet if you had a solstice you'd like to pick up grocery with it once in awhile too. the silly backup sensors in the bumper face spoil so many vehicles these days but its absolutely criminal on this car, with all its angles and creases. If i got a CTS the decision of which one would actually be tough. I like them all. The sedan is so expected, you'd almost want to get the coupe or sedan to really stand out. I am not sure how you could possibly parallel park the coupe. GM is certainly no stranger to 'fastbacks'...gotta hate cleaning the rear window inside the car.... ..

YAWWWNNNN

is she built for comfort, or built for speed? my guess is if she is driving a Cube, she is built for comfort. Does she like the feel of the shag rug on the dash? LOL sorry blu, couldn't resist. I think its cool that your mom likes cool cars. My mom just likes whatever 7 year old cadillacs my dad brings home...... srsly though i would be interested to know what real world mpg is on the Cube. there is not much spread between the city and highway mpg on it.

Kim Kardashian also has a giant swollen arse........ GM could have done 2 things here. leave side profile and experiment with a buttress rear pillar to drop the trunk deck height some. the other thing would be to leave the shape, make the car a split hatch, and put a large glass panel on part of the rear face of the deck lid. actually, the trunk lid is so small horizontally, to make it a full hatch would have worked well, the horizontal surface effectively would look like a spoiler on the hatch if a good part of the rear face of the hatch had glass instead of metal. "Please excuse the crudity of this model, I did not have time to build it to scale". i have no photoshop skills. i had to airbrush with paint.

some of those suggestions are kind of sexual. at least leave the word 'thrust' out of it. using 'Eco', even though GM used it first, would look like copying EcoBoost. Unless GM simply used "Ecotec-D" Any use of the word torque would convey semi trucks. GM can't afford that trailer park stigma on expensive cars. Duramax is too closely tied to GM's own pickups. But the 'Dura' part is intriguing. COuld you use the term 'vortec-D'? this one is a stumper, actually. Torq-star. sorry, it was gonna come up anyways.

GM has been plenty guilty of design for sale, and not for living with day to day. The CTS coupe really should have been a hatch. And perhaps some sort of glass panel added in some way, or some other carving out of the back deck (perhaps with fins?) to get some semblance of visibility out the back would have been a worthwhile concession. GM doesn't go the distance on this crap. My Aztek actually stilled looked like horseass while having a split glass hatch which you still could not see through the lower panel. The public doesn't have the same tolerance for functional crap these days like it used to. To apologize for it is to be in denial. Another GM car that pays the price. LaCrosse. gunslit windows on the side and rear. It's not deadly, but it is a detriment. They couldn't have made the car just as stylish with just a little better visibility? Camaro, even the current Malibu needs a little more function. I am willing to cut the Camaro some slack, but even the Camaro design would still be salvaged by enlarging the windows even a tiny bit. Another fault of the Camaro.....huge car, back seat is worthless. Solstice, Sky, no trunk. Grand Prix, pancake roof. Aurora, Bonneville, no back seat. GM's crossover sport vans never had the space other minivans did. Suburban, horseass third row space. But then curiously once in a while GM has a functional design. The trunk on a Saturn Ion is huge. The Aztek and RDV had huge cargo holds compared to other vehicles its size. Saturn Astra, surprisingly comfortable for four people. 04-07 Malibu was a fairly spacious car. GM is not the only one at fault. The Accord Crosstour and ZDX are useless vehicles for cargo, the ZDX especially. and the crosstour looks not only like the horses ass, but it also looks plenty like the by product on the ground that came out of the horses ass as well.

thanks for the real world info, blu. the rippled headliner and shag dash top are a couple of the things about the cube i find pretty cool. any idea what her mpg is?

but the funny thing is Hyundai's turbo is not supposed to have much of an mpg penalty vs. the non turbo

lol! they will LOVE this vehicle! you hit it totally on the head! I think Dan Neil nailed it on the head too. Fabulous at the time of sale. VW needs to get their $h! together under the hood. honestly, the exterior on the car = totally fine (even though its bland it looks more expensive than the bulk of the competition). the interior = good enough to sell the vehicle to most people. how it wears over time is a different story. when GM was doing bad interiors, it wasn't just crap plastic, it was everything they were doing bad. interior design, quality control, panel gaps, switches and controls, cheap gauge faces, crap seats....... just judging from the looks, most everything should be fine inside that new Jetta, the exception is the plastic probably should have been nicer and some of the touch points should be nicer. Base steering wheel should be less obviously cheap too. gauges, switches, buttons, controls, while generic and bland look decent and high enough quality. can't wait to get inside. you forgot, they own a macbook and an iphone too. cruze looks like a more upbeat car overall. seeing the jetta REALLY makes me want to see the new Focus.

In this regard I think the lacrosse shines. The front IP falls away from you and doesn't crowd, it feels open and spacious. Yet the buttons and screen are still up high for you to see. It's one of the best cabins out there for not constricting the driver.