Fahrvergnügen with 2017 Cruze Diesel stickshift

I'm back into a stickshift diesel thanks to GM, after 4 pre-2007 VW TDIs, 2 stick 2 slushbox. I've put 9900 miles on it in the 3 months since I bought it, including through 10F blizzard conditions trapped for hours on I-90 in Fort Erie, PA.
OTD cost was $17260 due to a 25% off MSRP deal, 20% from GM and 5% since I took Ally financing. It includes leather package, heated steering wheel - and the $260 or whatever-extra paint job.

The Cruze stickshift diesel brings back plenty of good memories of my 2006 TDI jetta but seems to get significantly better mpg than did the 06 jetta and even better than my 2001 jetta tdi wagon . Torque and 49 mpg on winter fuel including massive idling. It got 62 mpg on the 150 mile drive back from dealership. As others have said "the mpg is real"! And of course, the awesome stickshift TORQUE.
Only annoyance so far is that on a long road trip, I had to fill DEF during a blizzard after it warned me "less than 300 miles" before speed would be limited. An earlier warning would have been nice.

The heated steering wheel is very nice. But the cruze diesel warms up faster than my gas cars due to apparently awesome engineering. It throws significant heat within a couple of minutes no matter if the temp is -16F or 0F or 32F. The designers have taken steps to ensure fast warmup and continuous heat at idle - mission accomplished!

I recall that my 2006 jetta diesel often took a full half hour of highway driving to warm up, unless you blocked the radiator manually. The cruze has movable baffles that do this automatically. Nice.

The only defect in the vehicle since delivery is that the top two elements in rear window heater do not heat up. I don't plan to make a warranty claim for that - i'd rather just keep it with the factory window seal as it is.

best regards to all...

Thanks for posting!

I found the diesel Cruze, in hatch and manual form, was my favorite new car at the show this year. And I am generally no fan of GM.

Enjoy rowing your own gears, supposedly for 2019 they are all cursed with a slushbox.

The only complaint I had with the one I sat in was the rear headroom to get in and out was darn near impossible for any full sized human without some major awkward bending and perhaps a head smacking. Reminds me of the CC (only with the CC it is all four doors!).

The front seat was no problem, and once seated it was quite comfortable even for a fat guy like me. Shifter was a little rubbery, but not bad. I still think Volkswagen perfected the feel of cable shifted manual transmissions.

Not thrilled with the single roller chain on the tail end of the engine, but hopefully it holds up. I like the car, I kind of want to drive one.

Its too bad VW never took a chance with 1.6L TDIs in this market. I can understand why they didn't, but as the Cruze demonstrates, the 1.6 is a nice match for this size class and maximizes the whole point of these engines: fuel efficiency. 1.4L and 1.5L turbo gas engines certainly seem to have achieved legitimacy these days.

The Cruze TD is very impressive although I wish they had gone with a more subtle revision of the previous iteration, which was a very clean design; conservative, but tasteful in the VW vein.

Interesting data point on the Chevy Cruze website: In the trim level descriptions, the standard front passenger seat is described as 2-way adjustable, with an available 4-way adjustable. Is that an error or is the base seat truly only fore and aft adjustable without even a recline feature? Or are no Cruzes produced with the base seat?

Chris Bell said:

..... 1.4L and 1.5L turbo gas engines certainly seem to have achieved legitimacy these days.
...

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Except the GM 1.4L keeps blowing up. We've had a half dozen of them through our shop already this year, and February isn't even over.

The 2016 cruze LS base seat was a "no go" exclusion for my better-half.
IIRC, the 2016 cruze LS base seat had manual forward & backwards & and recline - and no height adjustment.

eli said:

The only defect in the vehicle since delivery is that the top two elements in rear window heater do not heat up. I don't plan to make a warranty claim for that - i'd rather just keep it with the factory window seal as it is.

best regards to all...

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Odds are you have a bad grid line or two - there is conductive repair paint which works quite well, and does not require replacing the window.

That should be all you need to get the two lines heating again.

That's a super good out-the-door price! Congratulations.

oilhammer said:

Not thrilled with the single roller chain on the tail end of the engine, but hopefully it holds up.

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Oilhammer: Would you please explain what this means? Thanks!

BrentRN said:

Oilhammer: Would you please explain what this means? Thanks!

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Single roller (simplex) instead of a double roller (duplex) or even better, a multi-link style chain. Single roller is like a bicycle chain. Bigger obviously, but the same troublesome type VAG has employed on many of their engines like the VR6s.

Do not really mind it on the back of the engine but if it needs to be serviced that means the engine or trans or both have to come out. Labor intensive. A TDI's timing belt can be easily changed in a couple hours with the engine in the car. A VR6's chain requires the subframe be removed, the transmission be removed, the clutch and flywheel be removed, the oil pan removed, the intake manifold removed, the valve cover removed, then the chain covers removed. A 14 hour job. And that is in a FWD Golf or Jetta. On a T'reg? It is 26 hours. A chain job on a ~150k mile VR6 T'reg will pretty much total the car once you add in the cost of the parts, and all the other stuff that will need to be done.

I drove one of these last fall and was impressed with it. Only things that caught my attention compared to my '15 GSW were the shorter gearing, which is part of how they get the 1.6L to do its job acceptably well, and I have trouble liking GM's interior designs. If I hadn't been able to buy a leftover '15 TDI I'd have given the Cruze serious consideration.

Cruze

What the heck is Favnerhugen? Quarterback for the Packers?
I'd consider the Cruze if I could get the equipment optioned the way I want it. Too many packages of things I don't want to get the one item I won't go without. It's the way cars are sold these days.

Oberkanone said:

What the heck is Favnerhugen? Quarterback for the Packers?

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That's where VW management hid the Dieselgate cheat software code!

Oberkanone said:

What the heck is Favnerhugen? Quarterback for the Packers?
I'd consider the Cruze if I could get the equipment optioned the way I want it. Too many packages of things I don't want to get the one item I won't go without. It's the way cars are sold these days.

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The OP misspelled it in the thread title. I just corrected it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrvergnügen

Fahrvergnügen (German pronunciation: [ˈfaːɐ̯fɛɐ̯ˌɡnyːɡn̩]) (About this sound listen (help·info)) was an advertising slogan used by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen in a 1990 U.S. ad campaign that included a stick figure driving a Volkswagen car.[1]

"Fahrvergnügen" means "driving enjoyment" in English (from fahren, "to drive," and Vergnügen, "enjoyment"). The term itself is not standard German but a neologism (compound noun) created especially for this advertising campaign. One of the tag lines incorporating the word was: "Fahrvergnügen: It's what makes a car a Volkswagen".

My 1991 Jetta came standard with it. Even listed that way in the sales brochure (which I also still have).

Anyone who says the Germans have no sense of humor clearly do not get the chuckle in inclusion of something strictly defined as "driving enjoyment" in a 52hp sedan.

Still, I'd rather have that car than anything else that was available (often for less money) that same year.

eli said:

The only defect in the vehicle since delivery is that the top two elements in rear window heater do not heat up. I don't plan to make a warranty claim for that - i'd rather just keep it with the factory window seal as it is.

best regards to all...

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You may want to check with the manual or dealer - they may be related to some kind of antenna and be normal for this car. I have the same on one of my cars and cleverly it is labeled as antenna, not window heater....

TM