Holden Cruze FR

[Soya]

Rented one recently. Here's a quick FR on it:

 

Styling:

Everything identical to the Chevy Cruze. Nice exterior & interior styling for a B&B car. Dash controls are comprehensive and display looks impressive on first impressions. Reasonable roominess both in front and back. Boot can swallow a large 29" suitcase easily wif probably room for 2 more cabin bags.

 

 

Driving Impressions:

Steering could do wif abit more feel. Quite at idling but engine is quite vocal (and not the nice type) and coarse when revved; which is something one has to do quite often since the 1.8L engine is hopelessly underpowered. I can't imagine how the SGP-spec 1.6L auto can even move....

 

Ride quality is pretty firm (almost conti-like) and NVH is reasonable. Car was shod wif standard-issue 15" Kumho Solus and as expected, handling ain't exactly the sharpest.

 

 

Built Quality:

Looks nicely put together....until you shut the doors, that is. Typical tin-can, hollow sounding doors lets it down. Otherwise the touch points on the interior seems ok.

 

 

Conclusion:

The 'New Chevy" seems to be on the right path to recovery. Makes the Aveo, Optra and whatever stuff they used to make look prehistoric. But the weakest link is still the engine. The 1.8L simply doesn't cut it in this package. Read somewhere that GM is developing a new 1.4L Turbo for it, thank goodness. Since the new Astra runs on the same platform as the Cruze, there's hope yet. At least GM Korea improved on their styling but it's still no Peter Schreyer masterpiece. Overall, nice but there are still better B&B cars out there.