1) Trucks are treated entirely seperately to cars in the US market. They have significantly relaxed emissions, safety & fuel efficiency requirements.

2) SUV & pickups are counted as trucks, not cars...

Much of the popularity of SUVs was due to bypassing the safety & fuel efficiency requirements expected of passenger cars.

None of this helps to let in a European style diesel supermini into the US market.

Ok I think I get it now. I just gets up my nose when people dont realise the strikingly obvious fact that a car that uses almost 1000% less fuel would somehow emit more pollutants. I might have guessed there were more political reasons behind it.

@BDC, dont you think if I were going to complain about America, id chose somthing actually worth complainig about other than fuel economy? Cmon

There is always the Honda civic VX from 92 to 95. It gets 60mpg no problems

OP, All of my cars have been stick shift.

My audi was a 5 speed manual and Cruze is 6 speed manual.

The difference between a 1996 Audi A6 manual transmisson and 2012 Cruze is light years apart. I've only owned sticks, and have had 3 sedans, 1 coupe, one pickup, and one SUV. Even my trucks shifted smoother than the Cruze.

Typing on my phone, didn't mean to "submit". I mentioned my other vehicles to say that I have driven a variety of sticks and the Audi blows them all out of the water. Perhaps I'm tainted against the Cruze because I just got out of the Audi or maybe because the Cruze is my first 6-speed, or maybe because the Cruze Eco has 3 (THREE?!) overdrive gears (4, 5, &6). Or maybe a mix of all three reasons.

I don't feather the clutch much unless I'm notpaying attention to RPM's. I've matched RPM's for my shifts for a long time (a fun party trick of mine for passengers was to shift w/o using clutch in my pickup). I know it uses more gas so I'm trying tto break the habit.

All-in-all, I think it's fair to say I've got some experience with sticks and I just don't like the Cruze's.

Also, not quite 20,000 miles on Cruze, and I definately noticed the better MPG after the weather got warmer (even with a mild winter), dunno what the miles were, but all my tanks are logged if you're interested.

I have the '12 VW Passat 6M and I encountered the same problem with locating one. I ended up ordering it direct from the factory, because quite frankly, the dealers aren't discounting them much and I didn't want the silver color, which seemed to be the only color on the lot if they did have a man trans. It took about 2 months to get delivered.

I'm very happy with the car. The interior space is nice, it fits 3 6ft plus men in nicely (plus me driving), with loads of legroom in the backseat, and a decent sized trunk. Mpgs at 70 - 75 mph mostly highway has been around 40 and I'm told that will get better with time and getting me used to the shifting. For me, the big selling factor is that I enjoy driving a stick shift and I love the size of the car as well as the mpg.

Its a boring looking car IMHO, but at least its not a tiny little thing. I wish the trim lines could be selected with the stick, I would like the sunroof option and the faux wood interior trim.

I repeat, I'm very happy with the car so far. 1800 miles, 2 months. Time will tell the rest.