General Motors Lied About All US-Sold Chevrolet Cruze Sedans Being Made in America

Update: Added dealer info, sales background.

Contrary to a statement released two days ago by General Motors, it seems not all Cruze sedans sold in the United States are made in the United States.

According to TTAC alum Ed Niedermeyer, a number of 2017 Chevrolet Cruzes — even those for sale at a dealer in Lordstown, Ohio, where GM manufactures the Cruze in the United States — are Hecho en Mexico.

On Tuesday, in response to a tweet from President-elect Donald Trump criticizing General Motors importing Cruzes from Mexico, GM stated:

General Motors manufactures the Chevrolet Cruze sedan in Lordstown, Ohio. All Chevrolet Cruze sedans sold in the U.S. are built in GM’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio. GM builds the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback for global markets in Mexico, with a small number sold in the U.S.

However, after looking at VIN numbers for a number of Cruze sedans listed online at dealers throughout the United States, Niedermeyer saw many VINs beginning with the number “3.”

All Mexican-made vehicles have VIN numbers that begin with 3A through 37.

Here is GM's 2017 Model Year VIN decoder. As you can see, Hecho En Mexico VINs start with 3G1 https://t.co/hX22l531wK pic.twitter.com/hRrLThLZOU

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) January 5, 2017

Here are 5: https://t.co/I6JsyGliZghttps://t.co/XBNRqtxrYthttps://t.co/KH98YTh4Dihttps://t.co/gAb4Xh3mIUhttps://t.co/NAnxMcJd2S

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) January 5, 2017

At Greenwood Chevy in Youngstown, OH (near the Lordstown plant): https://t.co/mquuCiqn9uhttps://t.co/nI9TuS1jc6https://t.co/Tmj8IjaPct

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) January 5, 2017

Please keep in mind: all of the VINs I'm posting here are of Chevrolet Cruze SEDANS (not hatchbacks) that were made in Mexico.

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) January 5, 2017

We sent out our own Bozi Tatarevic to visit his local Chevrolet store, which lists at least two units with VINs beginning with 3G, to verify if the VINs listed online were correct.

This 2017 Chevrolet Cruze Sedan LS Automatic is located at Flow GM Auto Center in Winston-Salem, NC, and its VIN and Monroney sticker clearly indicate it was assembled in Mexico.

Bark M. was also able to locate 41 Mexican-built Chevrolet Cruzes at a single Autonation store in Miami.

General Motors clarifies statement

According to Nick Bunkley, reporter for Automotive News, on Twitter, General Motors said it imported Cruzes from Mexico for about three months in 2016 during its launch.

GM says it hasn't shipped any Cruze sedans to US since the fall. I took Tuesday statement to mean it never brought any to US, as did others.

— Nick Bunkley (@nickbunkley) January 5, 2017

Though, as Nick states, he understood the statement to mean GM imported no Cruze sedans from Mexico, as we did here at TTAC.

Not driven by demand

Mexican-built Chevrolet Cruze imports aren’t even a matter of high domestic demand for the second-generation sedan. GM has roughly 80,000 Cruzes in inventory going into December, representing about four-months supply for the compact. The Cruze accounted for only 6 percent of GM’s U.S. volume in 2016.

“Prior to the false statements General Motors made in response to Trump’s Cruze/Mexico tweets, 2016 was a particularly poor year for GM’s compact car,” stated TTAC’s sales guru Timothy Cain.

“While U.S. sales of passenger cars slid 9 percent, Cruze volume plunged 17 percent, a loss of nearly 38,000 sales for GM’s fifth-highest-volume product. Given the freshness of the Cruze’s complete redesign, this sharp downturn wasn’t merely explained by the sector’s decline. GM did, however, de-emphasize sales to daily rental companies through much of 2016, a factor that contributed to the decrease.”

General Motors did not respond when contacted.

[Images: © 2017 Bozi Tatarevic/The Truth About Cars]