Topic: Comparison Test: Compact Cars

[Ace]

Nice work on this comparison test.
 However I am disappointed that you chose the VW Jetta over the VW Golf, which is a better designed vehicle inside and out along with superior handling.
 In my somewhat biased opinion  , if you would have picked the VW Golf TDI version your results would have been different.

[Weels]

Excellent write up Mike.
My thoughts pretty much match the official rankings - my top 3 were the same.

The two cars that surprised me were the Cruze and Impreza.  I had the 3 picked as my favorite, but after thinking about it for a while, I would rather take the Cruze. It had my favorite interior of the group (even the fabric dash) and felt high quality.  My only wish is that the engine made a bit more power, but as said in the article, does make satisfying torque.  As Mike pointed out when we were talking after the tests, adding a bit more HP, you essentially have a Verano.
We have an Elantra in our garage at home, I would have this Cruze any day, all day over that Elantra, but it's not my car...

I was in the group that really liked the Impreza - it was the most fun to drive for me & thought the CVT worked very well.  I am changing my opinion on CVT's - in modestly powered cars,  they work really well - case and point are the Impreza & Sentra tested here. 

And, great line about the Sentra seats (soft as grandma's favorite wingback)...     Can see why you get paid the big bucks, mate.

Lastly, many thanks to you guys for letting us tag along - I had a lot of fun & loved the opportunity to test these nine vehicles back to back.   

[tpl]

Nice work on this comparison test.
 However I am disappointed that you chose the VW Jetta over the VW Golf, which is a better designed vehicle inside and out along with superior handling.
 In my somewhat biased opinion  , if you would have picked the VW Golf TDI version your results would have been different.

Might have been:    a) not availoable  b) ended up too expensive to properly compare.

[CanuckS2K]

What members were involved in the comparo?  Whoever you are, you folks did a great job!   

[redman]

"Honda Civic is drowning in a sea of complacency and mediocrity" The writing was on the wall with this one. I would take it a step further and call it cockiness by both Honda & Toyota, but can you blame them? They built it and like sheep we (Canadians) bought it. Regardless of poor features, materials and high finance rates.
I suspect the next generation of Canadians will not shun the same brands that their parents once have. The "Pony" & "Sunfire" won't hold a negative in their decision making regarding a particular brand, as long as they continue to improve. Even some established Japanese companies namely Subaru and Nissan are realizing that constant improvement and value have their merits.

If you want an appliance buy a refrigerator or a washing machine, but if you want more I for one am happy to see that Canadians now have more choices than ever.

[Jaeger]

Major props to the pros here - that was a lot of information to compile into a readable package, and you guys nailed it.  Fast, too.  We wrapped up testing late Thursday afternoon.  Yes, just this past Thursday afternoon.

Some random thoughts on the test.

1) There isn't necessarily a correlation between how you score a vehilce and how you would personally rank them - reason being that your personal prioritization of the various criteria may differ from the weighting on the scoresheet.  I scored the Jetta better than I liked it, and liked the Elantra better than I scored it.

2) The Focus was a huge let-down for me.  I thought it might have taken my personal first place ranking, but it wasn't even close.  That herky-jerky transmission would be unacceptable on the cheapest car here, and is particularly galling on the most expensive.  Combined with the least comfortable seats, the most cramped interior, the worst rearward sightlines and some seriously counter-intuitive controls and it was a case "pick your deal-breaker".

3) Can't believe Mazda sells so many 3's when they ride so rough.  And our tester had some comparatively tall-ish 16" tires.  Can't imagine this thing on lower-profile 17's, or God-forbid, 18's.

4) Both CVT's did very well.  I fully expected to dislike them, but I have to say the execution was first rate.  In manual mode, the Imrezza executed the quickest "gear-changes" of any car in the field.

5) The Cruze delivered the best chassis and drivetrain in this test - period.  It was my personal pick for the top spot.  Now if I could just have a word with the genius who decided to carpet the dashboard....

6) I would have ranked the Civic over the Sentra, but no higher than that.

Thanks for the opporunity to participate again guys - a lotta work, but a lotta fun.

Jaeger

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Very nice test! Congratulations to all involved. 

Interesting results. The Cruze finish is certainly unexpected, but I can't argue with the reasons. It's a pretty good car all around. For those interested, a tune is available for the 1.4L that bumps it ~40hp.

For me personally, a Focus Titanium hatch with the manual would be the way to go, but that was not the car in the test.

I don't understand the beef with fuel consumption computers. I've verified a number of rentals and my own cars and they always work out almost exactly depending on the number of decimal places on the display (for a while some Ford models never showed tenths.)

[theonlydt]

Wow, I just turned on Newsworld to get the report about the obvious takeover of the Autos.ca offices since clearly there are some outside forces now in charge there. A Chevy beating a Mazda, a Hyundai, a Subaru? It must be the work of terrorists since that never happens.

Seriously, thanks for the balanced report. Glad to see the naysayers (see previous post) don't hold sway here. Obviously the sales success of the Cruze is due to some pretty solid engineering and design. It is interesting to read the comments about the automatic transmission since many criticized it heavily upon introduction. I wonder if it has been reprogrammed?

Given the well documented and appalling quality + reliability of last-gen GM products, and patchy reliability on the current generation, I think it's not exactly  "naysaying" to err on the side of caution and state that within a couple of years GM might be an option for me, I'm not able to trust them with my hard earned money today. At no point did I state that the Cruze was a bad car, nor that it'd depreciate, rust, fall apart or anything like that. I merely stated that with GM's past performance, as a personal buyer, I will wait for a year or two to see if reliability really has improved.

If you can't see my statement for what it was, then quite frankly you need to pull your head out of your arse and stop tonguing your colon.

[Weels]

2) The Focus was a huge let-down for me. 

Ditto - main reason for me was the sluggish engine - in 0-60 kph driving, this Focus was a dog..  It felt more like 60HP not 160.
You really have to hammer this thing to get it to move, which was the curious thing - the harder you thrash it the happier it seemed to be. 

[Arthur Dent]

Nice article. Great to see the more interesting cars finishing better.

[hemusbull]

Yeah, measuring of fuel consumption must be done from independent lab. What we read here isn't professional aproach to this metrology issue. Otherwise the article is one of few very rare compare publications in mass Canadian press. My respect to the team!

[normancw]

Major props to the pros here - that was a lot of information to compile into a readable package, and you guys nailed it.  Fast, too.  We wrapped up testing late Thursday afternoon.  Yes, just this past Thursday afternoon.

Some random thoughts on the test.

1) There isn't necessarily a correlation between how you score a vehilce and how you would personally rank them - reason being that your personal prioritization of the various criteria may differ from the weighting on the scoresheet.  I scored the Jetta better than I liked it, and liked the Elantra better than I scored it.

2) The Focus was a huge let-down for me.  I thought it might have taken my personal first place ranking, but it wasn't even close.  That herky-jerky transmission would be unacceptable on the cheapest car here, and is particularly galling on the most expensive.  Combined with the least comfortable seats, the most cramped interior, the worst rearward sightlines and some seriously counter-intuitive controls and it was a case "pick your deal-breaker".

3) Can't believe Mazda sells so many 3's when they ride so rough.  And our tester had some comparatively tall-ish 16" tires.  Can't imagine this thing on lower-profile 17's, or God-forbid, 18's.

4) Both CVT's did very well.  I fully expected to dislike them, but I have to say the execution was first rate.  In manual mode, the Imrezza executed the quickest "gear-changes" of any car in the field.

5) The Cruze delivered the best chassis and drivetrain in this test - period.  It was my personal pick for the top spot.  Now if I could just have a word with the genius who decided to carpet the dashboard....

6) I would have ranked the Civic over the Sentra, but no higher than that.

Thanks for the opporunity to participate again guys - a lotta work, but a lotta fun.

Jaeger

Great article and thanks Jaeger for the additional comments.   Your point about scoring and liking is very insightful.  It would be great to see this in all reviews with multiple participants.  I would be interested in hearing impression from the other participants.

[opg210]

Great review! I like how you piece together the varying opinions.

A few surprises for me, of course the GM winning was one of them. But it's a great looking car and I think based on a Euro platform (?) which helps a lot I'm sure. I was still mad at GM for killing Saab but I guess might have to let bygones be bygones and focus on the cars...

Also was surprised to hear that the Focus had terrible seats. I was hoping they'd at least stolen something of value from Volvo (seat technology/design) but maybe not.

Hopefully Honda and Toyota pay attention to these reviews. Reputations for great reliability are one thing, but they seem to have forgotten the other aspects that got them to the top in the first place.

Bring on the Dart, I am really looking forward to that review.

[Weels]

  I would be interested in hearing impression from the other participants.

Mine are up there on this page

[whaddaiknow]

Very nice test! Congratulations to all involved. 

Interesting results. The Cruze finish is certainly unexpected, but I can't argue with the reasons. It's a pretty good car all around. For those interested, a tune is available for the 1.4L that bumps it ~40hp.

Give credit where credit is due. While unexpected, the Cruze took the well deserved 1st spot as it seems from the article. There is still a lot of debate over its long term viability, but time will tell. It's good to see GM starting to crank out well designed cars. While I would still steer clear of any GM product (save for Vette and CTS), I am glad to see GM stirring the pot in a major way.

Ford's failure to deliver now raises a big question mark for the next Fusion. Too bad as Ford's been making some fine cars lately.

While Corolla is no surprise, was Civic really THAT bad? Worse than the Sentra? I would have to drive both to see for myself.

Overall, thanks to the testers and authors for an interesting and entertaining read.

[Weels]

What members were involved in the comparo?  Whoever you are, you folks did a great job!   

Jaeger
Brigitte
Weexy

..and the Autos.ca gents.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

The Cruze is another car that gets hammered for overall reliability by CR, but when you look at the complete chart, it doesn't make sense.

[CanuckS2K]

The Cruze is another car that gets hammered for overall reliability by CR, but when you look at the complete chart, it doesn't make sense.

That doesn't make one ounce of sense!   

[CanuckS2K]

What members were involved in the comparo?  Whoever you are, you folks did a great job!   

Jaeger
Brigitte
Weexy

..and the Autos.ca gents.

Good stuff, you folks did a bang up job!  Applaud awarded to all of you.   

[brighter_hell]

The Cruze is a great car - excellent drivetrain, technology, and interior styling. The small turbo excels where most cars in this class don't - low end torque. Good for GM. Too bad the exterior is bland city.

I just can't warm up to the looks of the Elantra. Too "swooshy" - Hyundai styling has always seemed awkward to me, like they're trying too hard. But I see a lot of them on the roads so I guess a lot of people disagree. The stainless steel fridge analogy is a good one, but so is Jeremy Clarkson's: an accountant in a clown suit. Yes I know that was about the Veloster but I think it can apply to Hyundai in general.

The more reviews of the Focus I read, the more glad I am that I drive a manual. Lose the auto and it's a winner - great ride, handling and build quality, precise steering, competent power, and the best looks of the bunch. I do admit the rear visibility isn't the greatest, but where is the seat comfort criticism coming from? They feel fine to me.