While Buick made headlines last year for being the first American brand to place in the top three of Consumer Reports’ annual reliability ratings, Chevrolet is earning a headline of its own.
Consumer Reports has bestowed the 2017 Chevrolet Cruze as the number one compact car on sale today, upsetting longtime first place finishers from Toyota, Honda and others. CR praised the 2017 Cruze in both sedan and hatchback forms for smooth operation and fuel economy, outdoing the Honda Civic, Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla and more.
However, not one, but two Chevrolet made their way to the top spot. The 2017 Chevrolet Impala was also awarded the number spot in the best large sedan category for the third year in a row.
With Chevrolet’s two top spots, in marks the first time in CR’s 25-year history that Chevrolet has swept two categories.
Comments
I have driven the Chevy Impala in 2013 as a rental while visiting my family and they loves it! My niene who has an Infinity actually fell asleep at the front passenger seat, then later described the impala as the smootest car she has ever taken a ride in.
Glad to see GM get some bromides. The Cruze is significantly lighter than the prior model, with advanced power plants that few companies can compete with. If well executed assembly quality then they deserve recognition for that. I with they had designed in even more rear seat leg and head room, but that’s a small problem because people rarely have to haul around four or more people.
The only significant problem I have with this car, and it is a big one for me, is the interior dashboard because that is something that you have to look at constantly.
In the case of the Cruze it is far too busy and far too disorganized with too many lines going in too many different directions, and it all looks like it was crammed into place in a disorganized fashion. If you don’t get what I’m saying compare the interior to the VW Jetta, VW Golf, or the pristine interior of the Hyundai Elantra (which Hyundai appears to have lifted from the Spanish SEAT Leon which is owned by VW). Lots of people like it. So, good for them. I’m not sure I could commit to sitting in a chair where I am forced to look at that menagerie of cluster for two to four or more years which buying or leasing implies. I sure wish they could clean that up so I could consider buying one of these.
I have a 2013 Chevy Cruze, i love it its been close to 2 years now, thinking of upgrading if i can get the same note or lower, i havent even used all the feautures on it yet like pictures facebook etc. I would love to upgrade to a chevy Truck or camero sports car.
If Opel is sold, building small cars will become a bit more difficult for GM. Right now the GM tech centers are working in perfect tandem, and change isn’t always good.
I agree. Selling Opel is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They almost made this same mistake back in 2009. Fortunately GM got some smart custodianship at the last minute and pulled out.
Having lived extensively in East Asia for a long time, let me tell you how the East Asians play this game. The most important thing is not ROI, it is market share. Yes they must make a profit to survive, but beyond that they are shooting for market share. This is especially true with Japanese companies because they have lifetime employment schemes, and the only way to guarantee that scheme is to have ever growing (or at least never shrinking) market share. Market share is a source of strength, especially when times are tough.
So if GM sells Opel to PSA (Peugeot) they are really selling some of their market share in Europe to Peugeot. How are they expecting to get that market share back? The importance of and the difficulty in gaining more is why stock markets place great value on companies with large market share.
In the mean time, with Opel, GM has proven that it can finally develop good small cars. Now take a look at Fiat-Chrysler. They haven’t produced a succesful car, let alone a small car, since they came out with the 300 a jillion years ago. The 200 is a failure. The Dodge Dart is a failure. They are a car company that can’t successfully develop and make cars, only SUVs. This was Ford in the 1990s. When the contraction came it was only a miracle that they managed to mortgage the company for all it was worth just before the contraction that saved them. The next time there’s a strong market contraction Fiat-Chrysler will be reduced to a boutique manufacturer of cars, right before it goes out of business. Is that GM’s model? Is that what they want to become? Because in selling Opel that’s what they are broadcasting their business model to be. The successful recovery of the American car industry from the Great Recession was just a delay. They are still planning for failure – it just took a little longer than they intended. Way to go GM.