[SubuS]

500 km ownership review:

Rides done:

- Multiple city rides
- One 350km highway ride on ECR. (One more coming up in a couple of weeks.)

Likes:

1. Car handling. The tyre upgrade immensely helps – I pulled a bunch of turns in ECR at around 130-140 (had to keep <3k rpm as advised) and the car didn’t even slightly move out.
2. Braking – exemplary. People who ride ECR in the night might know about the stupid road blocks that have no reflectors that are setup in the middle of high speed zones. I had to face one at about 11 pm – and man did the car stop. ABS kicked in flawlessly and the vehicle didn’t even squeal. I totally advice a wheel upgrade for the same as well.
3. Driving Seat – no fatigue whatsoever felt till now. Usual suspects for me are lower back / knee cap due to my height. These parts are very happy now I do get a slight ache in my shoulder (due to the chimp syndrome) though because I keep the steering at the top most position, I should probably find a better angle for the same.
4. OEM Audio – this is pretty decent actually, makes me rethink the ICE upgrade I was planning. May be I will just buy a hand held GPS and be done with it for now. I think there is an upgrade here with 6 speakers (instead of 4 in the test car) and they really work. When I play my “Aayirathil oruvan” CD, I am totally able to hear the mild tabla that goes around me in the car. The bass is deep (not super deep), mids are clear. So do an upgrade here ONLY if you are an audiophile. If you are like me (who likes good audio but not a fanatic. FWIW – I use a Denon 2310 setup home theater / PXC-450 clenches / AxPro clenches for PC/PS3 games – so that says something about my audio preferences).
5. Boot space – appears shallow, but takes a lot of stuff indeed.
6. Head lights – OEM lights are pretty good. Change only if you want white color.
7. Performance - Even with my restrictions around <3k rpm etc., I was able to easily smoke most of the cars on the highway. I can't do much but shudder when I think about what starscream will unleash when I am out of run-in period / do the tuning or remap.

Dislikes

1. Space in the vehicle. Only when you try to travel with 4 people you realize this. The person behind me had to travel “run-over frog on a highway” style throughout the trip.
2. Horn – you have to find a way to replace these. The OEM has a slot for the same – meaning you have to cut wires ( and void warranty in theory) to replace these. Also there is no real location to put in a Horn chooser/switcher. We really need some eardrum busters for some of the idiots we see on the roads.
3. Clearance – This is a huge gripe. For a person coming in from a jeep, driving a sedan in bad roads is already taxing because of the clearance. Also the 225/45/17 is a DOWNGRADE in terms of clearance (1.8 cm loss) – so do that ONLY if you are sure about your patience levels. Already I have run into a couple of bumps and I hate the grating sound.
a. Fwiw, it is making me into a good driver – so no issues till now
b. NOTE: It’s not a Honda kind of grating where your car’s mid-section gets hurt. The front overhang is the culprit here – so I advise 245/45/17 or 225/50/17 for a real upgrade.
4. Cleaning the car – man, white attracts so many spots. I have a lot of trees around my house, meaning birds consider my car as a public restroom. If you are very finicky, then cleaning the car is a real ordeal. Get a car cover!

But again, the dislikes are not big enough for me to hate the car – so we are cool.

Quick questions:

In TN, we get those potholes in roads that come out of nowhere. So what is the ideal way to tackle these?

1. Jam the brakes. What do you do in the nights?
2. Take the middle of the pot hole – to avoid sidewall cuts. (but a bigger bump)
3. Take a risk and go close to the edge of the pot hole – low profile tyres have good enough side walls to withstand these!

Cleaning the car:

I am planning on a monthly trip to professional cleaners. So alternate days I will be cleaning the car with water + plain cloth / just plain cloth. Is this good enough?
- As soon as I get my car cover, I will reduce the frequency I suppose.
- Any other advice here?

Thanks, Subu

[mobike008]

Nice Feedback. Looks like we all are on same page. Some thoughts from my side

1. Tyre upgrade indeed makes a whole world of difference in terms of bad road handling as well as increasing the silence in cabin

2. My car parking at home is a haven for bird drops and there is nothing that I can do. But, I have a friendly watchman who puts the cover and removes the car the minute I park for both my cars. And, he does a pretty good job of cleaning. I specifically mention him to use clean cloth for body and dirty one for the tyres with me replacing the cloth every month.

3. Considering my upgrade was stock size, i have absolutely 0 issues with ground clearance as i take speeds breakers with elan and good speed and yet to hit a breaker. However, the front hang is the main culprit and quite susceptible to hits. A moron at carnation managed to slightly scrape the front hang when he took it up the incline for cleaning the underbody on Sunday.

4. I am very unhappy about the horn and want to get it replaced soon. Still figuring out how to

5. A piece of advice for brake usage. Be gentle with braking and it may just last you till 20,000 kms considering the horrific costs of changing pads (14K)

6. Also when you use a car cover. Ensure the inside out is never put back outside in (ever).

[nik_kapur]

I like the idea on the mods. I felt the sound system was adequate during a LTZ test drive last year.
By the way, im looking forward to seeing some images of the new interior color theme and the bluetooth phone display on the screen.

[SubuS]

@mobike - RE: Braking. I would rather live eh But the 14k number is an interesting pointer though. I am planning on perf mods soon - and I might upgrade to ceramic brake pads and the special brake rotors once I reach real bhps. But i suppose I will have to find out all the costs there:(

@nik - I will try to get more pictures. I take the car out only over weekends - so getting a picture is a hard job :(

[VW2010]

@Subus

I just envy you man. My wife wont let me buy a bosch pressure washer. The only mod i did to my car was to get 3D mats.

Your wife just approves you to do so many things to this car. I am just jealous

This car may finally turn into a Ford Mustand after all your mods. I am sure it has the potential

[dot]

Originally Posted by SubuS

I can't do much but shudder when I think about what starscream will unleash when I am out of run-in period / do the tuning or remap.

Eagerly waiting for that experience! I hope you get to do a remap and tell us about it.

[anb]

Originally Posted by SubuS

@drchernish: No rear ac vents.

I read some where that 2011 cruze has rear ac ducts under the front seats and its works only when air is given to the foot wells. Can you confirm it?

[SubuS]

@VW: Nazar mat laga naa - Actually Cruze was her choice I wanted a jeep - so the condition was that we get a cruze with my signature on it - compromises! (What I have learnt in marriage is that you always propose a preposterous option first before the actual thing you want. Stick to the former long enough - your wife is gonna find your actual requirement a normal thing - Now I am gonna hope she doesn't ever read team bhp.

@dot - that would take some time though!
@anb - no rear ac ducts - but me thinks if you blow air into the foot wells, it is bound to come out on the rear side ...


Repeating my missed questions:

In TN, we get those potholes in roads that come out of nowhere. So what is the ideal way to tackle these?

1. Jam the brakes. What do you do in the nights?
2. Take the middle of the pot hole – to avoid sidewall cuts. (but a bigger bump)
3. Take a risk and go close to the edge of the pot hole – low profile tyres have good enough side walls to withstand these!

Cleaning the car:

I am planning on a monthly trip to professional cleaners. So alternate days I will be cleaning the car with water + plain cloth / just plain cloth. Is this good enough?
- As soon as I get my car cover, I will reduce the frequency I suppose.
- Any other advice here?

Thanks, Subu

[np23]

Originally Posted by anb

I read some where that 2011 cruze has rear ac ducts under the front seats and its works only when air is given to the foot wells. Can you confirm it?

All cruze's till date .i.e. from the launch in 2009 october have ac ducts under the front seats and work when you chose the footwell aiflow,no model of the cruze has rear ac vents like in the Laura.

[ashish22]

np23 is spot on and i can confirm the same for my cruze.
SubuS, man looks like you have planned something serious for your cruze in terms of power. I'll be very eager to see till what level you will take your car. No doubts you'll have many followers after that (including me) in converting cruze into an insanely fast car.

[VW2010]

cruze has rear ac vents like in the Laura.

Or the Vento or the Jetta.

The only issue i have is the controls for the rear vents are in the front. The future should pave wave of seperate compressor for rear vents and seperate controls.

[MDe]

Though the Cruze website mentions rear AC vents, they are not present in the car.

@Subus: You have one hell of a ride. It looks awesome with the mods that you have gone in for. Again, as everyone said, hats off to the courage of going with the mods on a brand new car.

Looking forward to all the interesting mods that you have planned. Cheers!

[SubuS]

Thanks mate - I am planning on a 700 km drive over this weekend. Right after that would be first service and probably some changes - Will write more about it then!

[VW2010]

Thanks mate - I am planning on a 700 km drive over this weekend

Have fun. Just go through some common break in procedure for the diesel engine and rev it once a while to the red

[SubuS]

I thought you should never rev a diesel to red - max torque gets over by about 3500-4k rpm. So there is no use.

The car does about 140-150 under 3k rpm. That is probably where I will keep it through this ride - next one is the ride @above 180!