The Chevrolet Cruze is tearing up the sales charts for General Motors, proving that a good-looking and competitive small car from the company really can succeed.
After years of broken promises with models like the Cobalt, we’re glad to see a competitive model in the small car class. One thing GM can’t afford to do though is rest on its laurels; the competition isn’t standing still and therefore, continual improvement is needed.
The efficiency-focused Cruze Eco posts a segment-leading 42 MPG figure on the highway, and 28 in the city. For 2012, the standard car gets some extra efficiency thanks to tweaks by GM’s engineers.
The change was spotted in GM’s 2012 ordering guide by enthusiast website Cheers & Gears. Cruze variants powered by the 1.4-liter turbocharged Ecotec four now achieve 38 mpg on the highway when mated with a six-speed automatic transmission.
The 38 mpg figure is up by two over the 2011 model’s 36 mpg. In addition, Chevrolet has added increased availability of the manual transmission. Before only available on just the 1LS, it can also be ordered with the higher-end 1LT and 2LT models,
Website Green Car Reports says that the engineers squeezed out the additional mileage by lowering the final-drive ratio from 3.53 from 3.87.
Hopefully, official specifications will come later that show what the drive ratio changes do to the car’s 0-60 time. We doubt most customers in the segment will care. For now, it is good to see GM being conscientious of the current fuel price situation with continued tweaks to the Cruze.
