The Cruze turbo runs like garbage in hot weather unless you run high octane. It can get horrible hesitation and totally lack acceleration. In my area, the difference in cost of the high octane considerably outweighs the small uptick in mileage, so your cost per mile goes up when you run high octane.
The manual transmissions have issues where the bearings in the transmission whine. I had mine replaced under warranty, but it took some doing, because dealers often claim "I can't hear it."
The back seat is tiny. The trunk is decently sized, though.
They are on the lower end of the spectrum as far as reliability goes. They have problems with the cooling systems and some other areas.
On the good side, they drive really well. The Cruze is a huge step up over past GM small cars when it comes to driving dynamics. They have a pretty good manual transmission, too.
They depreciate like crazy, which is good if you're buying used. I got a CPO used one with 40k miles for about half the original MSRP.
So whether it's a good vehicle for you depends on what you want. I was willing to trade some reliability for good driving dynamics and a whole lot of value.
