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| 2014cruze.com |
Chevrolet
has announced that the new-for-2014 Cruze diesel will get an EPA-estimated 46
mpg on the highway and 27 mpg in the city. With its 2.0-liter turbo-diesel
making 148 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque matched with a six-speed
automatic transmission, the diesel joins the base 1.8-liter four and the
optional 1.4-liter turbo four already available in the Cruze powertrain lineup.
The addition of the diesel is the news; how its fuel economy stacks up against
its siblings and the competition, however, is another matter.
Getting 46
mpg on the highway is a laudable achievement for the diesel; the
automatic-equipped Cruze Eco gets 39 mpg and the Eco with the six-speed manual
gets 42 mpg. Drill a little deeper, though, and the comparisons become less
favorable: the diesel improves on the automatic Eco’s city rating of 26 by only
1 mpg, while the manual betters the diesel’s city rating by 1 mpg.
Then there
is the matter of dollars and cents. At $25,695, the Cruze diesel is $4010 more
than the Cruze Eco with an automatic and $5205 more than the manual. And with
diesel fuel currently costing about 40 cents more per gallon than regular
unleaded, it’s going to take owners a whole lot of highway driving to recoup
the extra cost of the diesel-engine option.
Chevy wants
you to pay no attention to that Cruze Eco behind the curtain, and would instead
like you to consider the Volkswagen Jetta TDI as the bow-tie diesel’s real
competition. The Jetta costs about $700 less than the compression-ignition
Cruze, but the Chevy comes with more standard features, including MyLink
infotainment, larger 17-inch aluminum wheels, leather seats, and a two-year
maintenance plan. Chevrolet also offers a powertrain warranty that is the same
in years (five) but better in miles (100,000 versus the VW’s 60,000). On the
fuel-economy front, the Jetta gets ratings of 30/42; that puts the Cruze up by
4 mpg on the highway but down 3 mpg in the city.
The Cruze
diesel will go on sale this spring in “high-indexing diesel cities” such as
Baltimore and Milwaukee. Later this fall, it will be available nationwide and
in Canada. While we’re always glad to see a new choice in the world of
compression ignition, we’re still not sure how Chevy’s new diesel is going to
find its place in the market. With diesel sales up in 2012 by more than 25
percent according to some estimates, Chevy is hoping the Cruze can get in on
some of that oil-burning action.