2014 2.0L Turbo Diesel Cruze is here!
 

...from the GM website news release this morning:

General Motors | Featured News | GM.com

...and, it's been de-tuned, from 160HP down to 148HP, due to stricter EPA requirements (ugh) !!!

Some quotes...

Finally something to compete with VW. This may be my next vehicle in 6 years.

Will the car still run properly if the urea tank is empty?

A very complicated pice of machinery. Oilcooler for the turbo oil, intercooler, ERG system, Urea injection, ordinary turbo, direct injection etc....

A lot of hi-tec parts. Nice milage, but it comes at a price of a highly complicated engine.
Can't help thinking a lot of stuff that can fail?

I noticed that too. Where is the manual? That would be (and has been for a VW) a deal-breaker for me.

What's all the hype? My old Saturn gets better than 42 mpg on gasoline.

But the Cruze Eco gets 40 mpg for thousands less. Not to mention the difference in fuel prices.

Nope, assuming the auto industry has the same EPA rules as the heavy truck industry. If a heavy truck runs out of DEF (diesel exhaust fluid, aka "Ad Blue") the truck derates to 5 mph. You do NOT want to run out of DEF.

So let me get this straight:

$5000 more than the ECO
$1600 more than a Jetta TDI
No manual transmission option
300LB heavier than the ECO
Same fuel economy as the ECO
Burns expensive diesel fuel

Who is going to buy this?

On the one hand I'm glad to see another diesel small car. On the other hand I'm very disappointed at the specifications... A VW is an already proven platform and would be a better choice as it is now... plus you can get a real transmission (manual) with a VW.

I would bet that the diesel isn't going to be an "option" per say... but more likely an high end trim package which pretty much makes means manual won't be an option.

EPA numbers on the Cruze Eco with an automatic is 39mpg, not 40mpg, of course the EPA numbers on the manual 6 speed are 42mpg, but comparing a diesel with an automatic to a gasoline vehicle with a manual transmission is not fair when there is a gasoline version with an automatic.

Still, I agree that it can and should do better and I'd like to see what it does with a 6 speed manual transmission.

I don't understand how 42 mpg highway is pathetic.
EPA rates a 2006 Jetta TDI at 38 mpg for the automatic (the manual is 37). The Cruze is 4 mpg higher while meeting much more stringent emissions.
2006 Jetta TDI owners are averaging 41.1 mpg.
Compare Side-by-Side
I suspect that people will average higher than 42 mpg with the Cruze diesel as well.

I don't understand how this car could ever make financial sense. The $5000 premium over gasoline Cruze models not including how the dealers will also either mark-up or not give any discounts or incentives on this car make it really unappealing. I bet you could expect to pay full sticker price ($25,000) for this while a gasoline Cruze eco could be had for probably $18,000 or less. That's a lot of gas.

And that doesn't even include the price differential on diesel in the US which wipes out most of the savings for a Jetta TDi when you really look at the numbers.

Say fuel price is 3.50 for gas and diesel.

Cruze TD auto 42 mpg makes 8.3333 cents/mile
Cruze eco auto 39 mpg makes 8.9744 cents/mile

$5000/(0.089744-0.08333 $/mi)=780,000 Miles to recoup

But wait, isn't diesel over $4/gal in most places.

That changes it to
Cruze TD auto 42 mpg makes 9.5238 cents/mile
Cruze eco auto 39 mpg makes 8.9744 cents/mile

Making it impossible to recoup the cost. In fact it costs $82.41 extra to drive over the course of a year (15,000 miles).

If you want a diesel this is a cool car, but not as cool as a Jetta TDi in my opinion, unless you're a GM man/woman. If you want to save money, get a gasoline cruze eco.

But hey, maybe gas will get super expensive again.

--Just saw a post above. I will be really interested in seeing real world results. Fuelly has a good sample of Cruze and hopefully the diesels will pop up in there and impress.

I had to chuckle at this quote:

Um, that's not saying much!

Actually counting the vehicles they sell over seas it is.... If you are just looking at GM America then yeah... there aren't many or any GM diesel passenger cars to compare.

GM is finally throwing us a bone in the states... although it's a dry bone with no meat left... Details aren't really there and the facts are still pretty vague... If it can run on B100 or is able to be converted to run on waste oil without voiding the warranty somehow... the cost of recovery would be a heck of a lot better. I don't know all the details but I have read that VW doesn't want you to run anything more than B5 in their newer TDI engines.

I wonder if it wouldn't be better to use the Isuzu-designed 1.7L turbodiesel made at a former Isuzu factory (currently fully-owned by GM) in Biesko-Biala (Poland), also available for the Euro-spec Cruze (rated there at 130hp/221lb.ft.) altough it's currently bolted only to a manual transmission. If GM could at least get rid of the SCR it would be more competitive against the VW Jetta and the Mazda3 which is quoted to receive either the current 2.2L SkyActiv-D with lower ratings or the upcoming 1.6L SkyActiv-D.

The SCR makes the engine more fuel efficient compared to periodically dumping fuel into the exhaust to regenerate the DPF. Thats why the US market Passat TDI with SCR is more fuel efficient than the Jetta TDI without.

DEF can be purchesed at any truck stop or Walmart for cheap. Its a non issue.

It's likely more efficient because of SCR. The other option (that VW uses) is to burn extra fuel in the exhaust periodically to clear out the filters.

Too bady the diesel doesn't come in 6mt.

Something else that needs to be noted as well is the fact that City fuel economy may be significantly different than the gasser.

It also may respond more favorably to certain driving techniques (as compared to the gasser)

Ah well.

But the DPF is still there, alongside the SCR.

Yes and the SRC is there to clean out the DPF so you don't have dump extra fuel into the exhaust to burn out the soot.
http://www.spatcodef.com/assets/Uplo...nology-pic.jpg

Jetta without SCR
Fuel Economy of the 2013 Volkswagen Jetta

Passat with SCR. Bigger car, same engine, same transmission.
Fuel Economy of the 2013 Volkswagen Passat

The good parts:
-The diesel is a willing engine, and Chevrolet's European diesels are based on sturdier stuff than the Japanese. Typically Korean cars (let's be honest... can't get much more Korean than the Cruze) have good diesels, with most fuel systems lasting into the 100,000+++ mile range with no major problems.

-The Cruze is still a good platform. Nice legroom. Incredibly refined.

The bad parts:
-Yes... the economy of the 2.0 isn't that great. I drove one and topped out at about 45 mpg on the highway. I say it's not that great because a TDCI Focus with the dual clutch can get near-50. :p

-And... ugh. That six speed automatic. It's got the same damnable transmission logic that makes driving the regular Cruze so irritating. Drove one on the racetrack last year. Had to purposely miss the apexes so I could stay on throttle, otherwise I'd be stuck hanging there waiting for the transmission to downshift. Downshifts would add an extra second or two(!) to each corner exit. And no... left-foot braking doesn't help. If you slow down and need a downshift, you're stuck.

In the real world... that transmission makes the extra power of the diesel largely irrelevant. The "135 hp" Focus is more urgent at every speed than the "160 hp" Cruze. So you're not missing much, really, in the de-tuning.

Not necessarily. SCR is for NOx emissions, DPF is for particualtes (soot). The Cruze has both devices. The SCR will use DEF and the DPF will still need periodic regens (burning extra fuel).

That being said, SCR can lead to fewer DPF regenerations indirectly. Engine-out NOx & particulates are often inversely related--more NOx = less soot, less NOx = more soot. Engines with SCR can afford to put out more engine-out NOx because the SCR will clean it up. As a result, typically there's less engine-out soot, and therefore the DPF won't require regens as frequently.

Although this wasn't done with the Cruze, I have seen some designs where manufactures have used SCR to eliminate the need for a DPF completely by running super-high engine-out NOx (& super-low engine-out PM). They let the SCR take care of the NOx and don't need a DPF. I know some European dieseln trucks met Euro 5 emissions this way. In Euro 6 the PM standard is a lot lower (pretty similar to what the US is now) so I'm not sure if there will be trucks without DPFs.

Now, as far as SCR increasing fuel efficiency, that can be partly because of the fewer DPF regens. Also, engine-out NOx and fuel efficiency are often directly related (more NOx = more efficiency). For that reason, engines with SCR can often run more efficiently than non-SCR engines--they're tuned primarily for efficiency (rather than low NOx) and the SCR cleans up the NOx after the fact. Look at the semi trucks with Navistar engines the last few years. All the other manufacturers went with SCR systems, while Navistar chose to avoid SCR and run low engine-out NOx by running lots of EGR. That decision has nearly bankrupted Navistar because their engine had awful efficiency and effentually they couldn't meet the emissions standards at all without SCR.

As far as the cost of DEF goes, I wouldn't call it "cheap". It's typically less than diesel, but still a couple bucks a gallon.

A good car with a badly-tuned engine :mad:

No, its a below average car with an awful price tag. Its $2000 more expensive than the Jetta TDI (main competitor in the US market) $5000 more expensive than the 1.4eco which gets the same fuel economy numbers,$2000 more expensive than the Prius lift back which has much lower cost per mile and it burns diesel fuel which is 20% more expensive than gasoline in most of the US. Unfortunately for diesels, in most of America hybrids and small displacement gasoline engines are cheaper to both buy and fuel. I doubt GM will offer this engine in the US 2 years from now. I think they setup this diesel to fail.

id bet that yanking all that junk would get it up to around 60+ mpg with a auto trans.
sooner or later some one will do it....

i love my old school diesels :D

60MPG in highway sound more reasonable to achieve with a manual transmission, even after all the emissions deletes.


There is no school like the old school :thumbup:

Not to mention making it reliable. Aftertreatment systems are the number one reliability issue in modern diesels. Just ask a trucker who owns a 2007+ product.

However, aftertreatment is a necessary evil. Old school diesels spew out biblical amounts of poison from their tail pipes and they stink, at least in comparison to their gasoline powered counterparts.

In the early 70's, people complained about emissions non-stop. Lots of emissions devices were removed to make cars reliable/driveable. But look at cars now: more powerful and cleaner than ever before, and nobody even thinks about emission devices anymore. Now diesels are going through the same thing as gasoline cars in the early 70's. I bet in 15 years we probably won't even think about it anymore.

Just personal preference, but with no manual, I'm not interested.

...a link to the official GM Online Ordering Guide is now available to look through and to see what the Cruze Diesel has available:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ing-24974.html

Hopefully the diesel uses the exact same xmsn configuration so a 6mt can be dropped and alternative gear ratios selected.

Does the Aisin-Warner and Hydra-Matic have the same transmission-to-engine bolt patterns?

2014 Chevrolet Cruze 2.0TD 1981 Chevrolet Chevette Diesel BASE PRICE $25,695 $6167 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, FWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan Front-engine, RWD, 4-pass, 4-door hatchback ENGINE 2.0L/148-hp (est)/258-lb-ft* (est) turbodiesel DOHC 16-valve I-4 1.8L/51-hp/72-lb-ft diesel SOHC 8-valve I-4 TRANSMISSION 6-speed automatic 5-speed manual CURB WEIGHT 3500 lb (mfr) 2238 lb WHEELBASE 105.7 in 97.3 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 181.0 x 70.7 x 58.1 in 164.9 x 61.8 x 52.9 in 0-60 MPH 8.6 sec (mfr est) 21.13 sec EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON 42 mpg (highway est) 40/55** mpg (est) ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 91 kW-hrs/100 miles (highway est) 96/70 kW-hrs/100 miles (est) CO2 EMISSIONS 0.53 lb/mile (highway est) 0.49 lb/mile (est) ON SALE IN U.S. May 2013 1981 *280-lb-ft with temporary overboost; **Pre-2008 EPA estimate, EPA rating varies by model year and transmission

Read more: How Does the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel Stack Up Against the Chevette Diesel? - WOT on Motor Trend
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I had a white 1981 Chevette with that Izusu 1.6L 51hp engine...of course, diesel was under 80¢ a gallon back then...today it's like 5X that amount!

If it makes you feel better, some of us living in Southern California are paying less for diesel than gasoline.

Which: bio-diesel or dyno-diesel (Earl Sinclair's motor mocha)?

If it makes you feel better, some of us living outside California always pay less than you do for gas or diesel :)

Ah yes, 0-60 times of 21.13 seconds--those were the good ol' days.

That being said, 40/55 mpg EPA is nothing to shake a stick at.

Yes, but that's the old-old epa rating. Fueleconomy.gov only goes back to 1984, but that year's Chevette diesel is new-epa rated 33/42. In other words, about the same as this Cruze, which is a better car in almost every way. (including that 0-60 time :eek:)