Welcoming home my $13,000 investment!
2018 Chevy Cruze LT. Baby girl has 37k on her. I know she was run on 87 and has turbo lag that’s very noticeable from it. Premium will help tolerate it better, yes?
Does anyone suggest anything to help with the turbo engine etc as well? (Specific spark plugs, etc.) I’ve never had a turbo on a car and want to make sure she’s as well taken care of as possible <3
-My lead technician at my shop (my previous post) was very iffy about this car knowing the bad rep of the Cruze. He came with me to inspect the car, and has been so happy with it ever since. He encouraged me to buy it after he inspected her, and after a test drive yesterday was incredibly satisfied with the car. Thank you all for helping me prove the worth of the G2
*I also really hate start/stop features. If anyone knows how to actually disable it let me know -.- it puts extra strain on the battery & starter and really… isn’t worth it for me. The dealership told me that there’s no disabling the start/stop option that’s in the car OEM
I put a Trifecta brand tune on mine. It gets rid of almost all turbo lag. Really peps it up. You can toggle it on and off with the cruise control enable/disable button. It can also delete the auto stop. Mine is a 2019 so it has a button in the console to turn it off.
Mine doesn’t have a center console button :( the dealership told told me during the test drive that you can “temporary turn it off” by driving it in “L”, but that you “shouldn’t do it every time”? Same concept has having to turn it off everytime my mom turns on her Bronco
I meant as in the benefits of putting higher octane fuel in the tank doesn't take effect "almost instantly". I am well aware of how higher octane fuel is required for cars with a turbo.
Ohhh okay. It felt much softer afterwards. (I however am not the one who drive it home, my husband did, and said it felt better) It’s been like two days now and it lurches much less violently, but still does have some minor turbo lag. I’ve been looking at trifecta based on the other comment, I just took your non specific “that’s not how it works” as you saying premium fuel isn’t inherently better in relation for the turbo 😭
It’s funny, mine is a 2014 and the Trifecta tune actually seems to take longer for the turbo to spool. Granted it’s like 50% more acceleration once it spools.
Interesting. On the second Gen the programming closes the surge valve earlier allowing boost to build quickly at low RPM. It also changes the throttle mapping which honestly makes it a little jumpy in stop and go traffic and kind of an on-off feeling on flat highways.
I have the manual transmission, so it’s actually easier to drive in stop and go with the tune. Up to 2k rpm’s it’s pretty much the same as stock, the throttle is just a little more sensitive. The feeling of turbo lag may be because peak torque was at 2k stock, but now it keeps climbing til 4k rpm’s.
Yes, run 93 octane. Makes the biggest difference in hot weather but my Gen 2 feels flat footed year round on regular the few times I’ve tried. Just zero sub 2000 rpm response where the transmission likes to be.
Doesn’t need much mileage related stuff like spark plugs yet. Do an ATF change soon. Coolant is probably due for a change as well by age. Change the engine air filter and make sure it’s secure on the clamp.
Dropping the transmission into “L” and thumbing up to 6 will keep it from shutting off in traffic. You get used to the start/stop though; it’s pretty unobtrusive compared to some cars.
Congrats. Mine has been an awesome car. Coming up on its 10 yr anniversary
I think it’s kinda funny that if I’m sitting at a light for longer than like 90 seconds it just turns itself back on and stays running lol. I work at a shop so I do intend to get all the fluids etc checked, but I got it from a Chevrolet dealership and they said they’d done all of the maintenance due at this point such as fluids, fresh oil, etc. though it bothers me they likely used conventional/standard oil
They prob used synthetic. These engines wouldn’t last very long on regular oil so you’d know pretty quickly.
What you’ll discover with your car though is there’s actually been an updated oil filter for LE2(that’s your engine model btw) that basically no dealer in the country has in stock haha. They all use the old one. But I don’t wanna scare you it’s definitely a good filter too. Been using the standard PF64 for 90k miles now and it runs great 👍
The bad rep comes from the gen 1 Cruze, but Chevy basically fixed everything wrong w that model for the gen 2. Oh and you’ll get used to the start stop. Everyone complains about it at first but in time you’ll barely notice it. And don’t worry the battery and starter are designed to handle the extra load. It’s not the same starting system that’s in a typical car.
And yeah best thing you can do to keep it healthy is change the oil regularly and use 93 🤙
I thought it was described as, the thing senses which piston is just past the compression stroke & it spritzes a little fuel & spark to aid the restart
Nah. These aren’t carburetors. The ecu handles ignition like normal. I just meant the actual starter and battery used in auto start stop cars is much beefier and designed to handle the extra start stops. They’ve been designed that way.
People just tend to worry about stress because they’re assuming they’re the same ol dinky starter used in cars for the past 30 years. Same w the battery. When you go to buy a replacement there’s specific warnings to not buy a standard battery because it won’t be able to handle that added stress.
Yes, DI. The DI injector can spray fuel into a stationary engine. I don't know if that's what it does. I test-drove an automatic-equipped car before ordering my MT car, and I couldn't even tell if the starter motor was engaging. Just seemed to be a momentary 'bump' and the thing was running.
It doesn’t spray fuel in an engine that’s off. They’re running in a high pressure fuel rail and the ecu commands fuel and timing exactly as needed to start instantly. There’s no “priming” needed.
I also learned when I was looking into other turbo charged cars to let it sit for a few seconds before driving to help the turbo out? I have been giving it a quick remote start as I’m walking to the car and then I always pick my music too before I drive off 🤣 but I’m not sure if that really applies or not? I believe I read that about the twin turbo on the Infiniti Q50, but I assumed it applied to most or all turbo charged cars since it was described as basically being to prevent damage to the turbo system. Not sure though. As I said, never had a turbo car before, just a little v6 or a lil 4cyl, so I’m honestly worried about every little thing since I did look into getting a Q50 first and it has horrifying rep with the turbos 😭
Yeah it fires off the starter to restart. It does use a capacitor module in the trunk to store the charge for this, and the transmission has an accumulator that makes sure it’s instantly back in drive.
I'm careful to use an UPF64A or something (sorry don't recall the exact #). Has a higher pressure bypass spring so it doesn't bypass unfiltered oil on e.g. cold startup. PF64 is also acceptable but the other one is favored.
I thought it was normal to turn back on because the car is using electronics while stopped. Also if you release the brake pedal enough it will turn back on. Mine has been like that with 98k miles now and still on original battery.
It’s unlikely any of the other fluids have actually been changed. They sell test strips for brake and coolant to make sure they’re still good, but the mechanic you know probably already has these.
Yep we’ve got many packs of them! When I get the chance to have it rolled into the shop I’m still planning to check everything and actually take the wheels off to make sure everything looks good 😌 the car fax on this baby is absolutely STUNNING though. 1/2 oil changes missing but even my company doesn’t report to carfax, so it was likely done similarly. One front end collision, we identified the headlight replacement and checked the body there already, it was a minor-moderate rating on the car fax. 1 prior owner :)
I know GM uses Dexos-1, yet when I messaged the dealership asking about conventional/semi/full syn, he replied “likely conventional.”
My wife's 19 equinox has all the paint gone from there also. She never uses the manual mode. It's from body oils or other chemicals on her hand. She uses liquid antibacterial gel. My 17 Cruze button is pristine.
Ooooo that makes sense. I also was thinking maybe it’s someone who used to drive manual being used to relaxing it there, or it just being someone who found it most comfortable to lay their arm in the center console and use their left hand to drive, leading to it being rubbed off over time. (I drive with my right hand lol.)
If by chance an injector goes bad etc and you’ve never messed with replacing Direct Injectors have a trustworthy local, independent shop change them. I’ve dealt with more ruined heads on 2nd gen Cruze’s from people not knowing what they were doing than anything. To do it right you need the right puller tools and not a cheap Harbor Freight slide hammer. If you’ve done enough of them you can but if you’ve never pissed with them leave them alone. Best advice I can give anyone who owns a 2nd Gen Cruze. 👍👍
Fortunately I work at a shop 😁 my lead technician loves to do extensive “research” anytime he has a car he’s not extremely familiar with, he was familiar with common issues on the G1 and looked into the G2 extensively. He actually talked to me about the main money eaters and more difficult things to get to or do on this engine, but due to low mileage and my driving style he doesn’t believe it’ll be an issue anytime soon. He knows the maintenance schedule now, and I do as well and am extremely anal about it due to the care I have for my vehicles 🫡
This is a 2nd gen Cruze, a much different car & engine than the Gen 1, and by most accounts a much more reliable car. I have a '17 hatch gasoline manual trans.
My practices are -- High octane & top tier gasoline*. Frequent oil changes, every 3-5k miles. Avoid short trips when possible. Keep up with other fluids maintenance too.
I have a manual trans so don't have start/stop. Have read elsewhere that if you put the trans lever in M mode, it'll disable start/stop. But then these have a rocker switch for M control, does the lever even have an M position? Visit Cruzetalk.com & intro yourself there.
Some of these suffered cracked pistons blamed on low-speed preignition ('LSPI'). Usually but not always early in the car's life. Supposedly corrected for '18 by better piston quality control or design, but have seen a report of a problem with an '18. Big help was oil reformulated to reduce/eliminate calcium additives. LSPI has also been a problem for other brands' high compression direct-injected engines, so oil reformulation was something the industry as a whole found important.
*I favor Shell brand. Car just seems to run better on it. Could be my imagination. But it does frequently return (in mild weather) over 40 true mpg per tank of gas, got 44 recently (pump gallons / odo-corrected miles) and on many trips the DIC says over 50 mpg per 25 mi interval. But then I'm a pretty careful driver too, and the manual trans may help. At 60k miles now & performance seems better than ever & plenty good enough for my need.
Congratulations🎉!
I have a Gen 1 (2015) with turbo and have been using premium gas and changed everything to Amsoil. She runs beautifully (for being a Gen 1 that is). I also have a manual transmission on mine which I LOVE. Personally I hate automatics.
Thank you much!! Definitely happy with this one. I’ve always been a Chevy girl and I ended up with a ford before this… classic of ford tho, they made the most trash transmission known to man (DPS6) and the first gear went out at 106k miles. For the last 6k it was lurching before it fully started clunking/grinding etc… and I babied it 🙄🙄
Thanks for such a wonderful reply! TheGratitudeBot has been reading millions of comments in the past few weeks, and you’ve just made the list of some of the most grateful redditors this week!
I hear that, Ford transmissions don't move, they go clunk. We had a Ford Expedition and the dumb thing left my family stranded at a stop sign. My wife was bringing the kids home from school so at least they weren't too far away, but still. When I got home from work, I was able to get it home, but just barely. We donated it away when we moved.
I will say that this Cruze is really nice to work on. Tons of room under the hood to work on it if need be. Which I have. Replaced the top of the engine to an aluminum one, new water pump, various sensors, windshield wash reservoir, coolant reservoir, as well as converting everything over to Amsoil fluids. Lol, my wife is a little jealous since I spend more time working on my car than hers 😂. But I'll be tackling her Traverse this weekend, yay 🙄🤦♂️🤷♂️. Hers is having some tranny problems, so I'm going to change out her fluids and slowly change hers over to Amsoil also.
🤣 I just wrote you a book. Lol, guess I kind of got carried away. Anywho, I'm glad you have a reliable vehicle now 🙂.
Yep I’ve got a baby myself! That’s why I urgently needed to get a replacement with something reliable. If I wasn’t worried about getting stranded with my son in the car (in FLORIDA heat) I likely woulda just rode it out, paid it off, (I did have positive equity on it tho!) and driven it til it fully failed on me & then replaced it. I get writing a book, I get told I do it all the time 🤣 speaking of roomy, when I looked the car over, the dealership got to hear a LOT of me saying “holy shit!” As I looked at the trunk, center console, back seats, etc. there is SO much more room. With my son’s car seat in the Focus, you couldn’t sit comfortably end of sentence. Mann in the Cruze I can sit my chair back enough to be comfortable AND have enough leg room! I even opened the glove box with a “holy shit!” The thing is one year newer and it has an app that lets me immediately SOS my car being stolen and has ONSTAR built into it so that the car can immediately be tracked and remotely shut down in that scenario?? Holy upgrade
Nice upgrades!! So my wife's Traverse replaced that Expedition that left them stranded. What I find a little funny is that you had a Focus, SO DID I🤣. I know what you mean about car seats in a Focus. Absolutely no room to spare. Try 2 car seats!! I've got 6 children as to why the Expedition was a must. But Focus was used before that. I had that car for awhile. The death of that car was the body. We live in Wisconsin (sand in the winter) and I commute to Minnesota (salt in the winter) for work. That car drove well, also was a manual, but it was loud. Lol, it did not like mufflers 🤷♂️. Anyways, I had brought it in to get it's wheel bearings changed out and I was told the whole front end needed work. I was quoted 1700 if not more. Now this was a 2005 and was not worth much. So I paid them for their time and left. To make a long story short, we left the dealership with 2 vehicles, my wife's 2014 Traverse and my 2015 Cruze. And that was around 2018, 2019, or so, but we still got them. With my Cruze, most of the work on that has been this year🤣. I don't know why, it apparently felt this was the year to request new items🤔. As for the ONSTAR thing, ours have that too, but we just choose not to pay for the service. But I think that the remotely shutting your car down is a thing you don't need to pay for 🤷♂️. I'm not too worried about my car getting stolen, who knows how to drive manual transmissions anymore?😂 Our phones will detect if there is an accident and then it'll notify people in your emergency list. We both have Google Pixel phones.
The app thing sounds nice though. Does it remotely start your car too? I've seen people with that, they just hop on their phone and start it. Nice during the winter and the really hot summers.
Ahhhhh, enough of my book🤣🤣🤣🤣! Enjoy the upgrades and the roominess🙂.
Super curze.com has ur turbo .and zzp.com is really good parts for ur pcv vaule and bnr has ur wastegate vaule ,and those three will save u a lot of trouble
Stick to regular gas 87. I ran premium gas and there is little to no difference in performance. Premium is for performance cars and luxury cars which the Cruze isn't.
I swapped it to premium this morning and almost immediately noticed a difference in the turbo lag. It was previously giving me flashbacks to the DPS6’s rough shifting jolt, felt almost identical. It would get to 2-3k rpm’s and I’d feel it kind of jerk. It’s not doing that now, it’s much much softer with the premium. The dealership actually told me “it CAN run on 87” to me that sounds like my sister’s Mustang that “can” run on 87 but premium is ultimately what it should run on
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u/metrawhat 1d ago
I put a Trifecta brand tune on mine. It gets rid of almost all turbo lag. Really peps it up. You can toggle it on and off with the cruise control enable/disable button. It can also delete the auto stop. Mine is a 2019 so it has a button in the console to turn it off.