Kizashi Club

Stranger: Hey, I like your car, what is it?
Me: Kizashi
Stranger: Gesundheit! Now, what kind of car is it?

Stranger: What is that? [reading badge] A Kizooshi...?

Me: Close enough.

"You ain't got enough money."

"hey is that one of those new Buicks?"

"No, it's a Suzuki"

"It has four wheels....."

"you can count, congratulations" **facepalm**

I had someone give me the "why did you buy a suzuki?" comment. He said i should have bought a chevy cruze instead. I laughed and said that if he would sit inside the car he would definitly think differently. Some people are brand loyalist..oh well.

Knightstruth wrote:I had someone give me the "why did you buy a suzuki?" comment. He said i should have bought a chevy cruze instead. I laughed and said that if he would sit inside the car he would definitly think differently. Some people are brand loyalist..oh well.

A Chevy Cruze is inferior to a Kizashi. The Cruze is actually related to the junky "Suzuki" cars that were the Reno, Verona, and Forenza. They were Daewoos built in South Korea that were rebadged as Suzuki by GM who had controlling stake of Suzuki in the US market back then. Daewoo is a subsidiary of GM.

Daewoo is still a subsidiary of GM and is actually the ones who designed the Cruze, Sonic, and Spark in addition to the former Aveo. The Cruze and Sonic are built in the US, but are originally Daewoo designs. The Spark is even made in South Korea.
The Cruze is really a new Daewoo and merely a new version of the bland cars that were once badged as Suzuki. Had GM still had Suzuki then the Chevrolet Cruze could have easily been a Suzuki Cruze in the US market. Because GM went nearly bankrupt, they shed their foreign brands like Suzuki and Saab and killed off some domestic ones like Pontiac and Saturn. The result was that Chevy was going to get the new cheap Asian car which would also allow GM to save costs on developing their own American-designed compact (which GM never did well with anyway; i.e. the Cavalier and Cobalt).

However, I believe Daewoos have improved vastly and the Cruze does not qualify as junk, but it's not at the Kizashi level. I consider the Cruze a lower-grade competitor to the Mazda3 and the Kizashi is a league up from the Mazda3. The real Chevy to compare to the Kizashi is the Malibu and the Malibu is trailing in the midsize segment as one of the least competitive models.

The Cruze also suffered some serious reliability problems in its first few years on the market which took years to get worked out. The Kizashi was rather solid from the get go.

Basically, anyone who compares the Cruze to the Kizashi does not know what they are talking about. They probably have never sat in a Kizashi let alone drive one. Had they, they would have experienced the difference in the refinement and quality level of the vehicles.

We get a locally built version of the Cruze. The latest update is supposed to be a huge leap forward in handling and driving, complete with a new 1.6l turbo engine (with 132kW and 230Nm.) http://www.holden.com.au/cars/cruze Holden usually does a good job with the local suspension tuning and often their research flows into other markets.

We recently got "blessed" with the local release of the Malibu too. I can't see it selling well here....

Woman working at petrol (gas) station..."wow, I love the exhaust pipes! How big is the V8 in it?"

The Cruze is a huge step up but I still believe it is far from the Kizashi. The suspension is medieval so it doesn't handle well, low levels of grip, sketchy quality, bland rear design, not as refined, not as reliable, not as comfortable, not as fun to drive and I believe it's even a little smaller on the inside.

Over here, it's sold as a "small" car, it's certainly more medium sized from what I've seen. The Australian production versions should be a cut above the overseas versions for handling.

See here for the SRi http://www.caradvice.com.au/218722/2013 ... ri-review/ and "pov pack" http://www.caradvice.com.au/218684/2013 ... ze-review/

I'd certainly have looked over the SRi if it was out when I was shopping. Watch some of the videos here: http://www.holden.com.au/cars/cruze#/bu ... _exciting/