Please ignore the idle clatter. After years of living under a dark cloud in the United States, 2015 was shaping up to be the year affordable diesel-powered passenger vehicles would make a serious mark. But while VW was busy cleaning up its mess and Mazda continues to fiddle with its entry, the Chevrolet Cruze diesel hit the streets running clean.

Let’s get this out of the way up front: If you are standing next to the diesel Equinox when it fires up from a cold slumber, there’s no mistaking that a compression-ignition engine is under the hood. The cabin is substantially louder at idle—we measured 43 decibels in the diesel versus 39 in an Equinox 1.5T—but that additional hum isn’t obnoxious or off-putting.

And as the engine warms to operating temperature, even its outside bark grows subdued, and the masses will be none the wiser to the absence of spark plugs under the hood. While a 137-hp turbo-diesel engine may not immediately conjure the promise of performance, it does provide enough motivation for just about any type of situation you’re likely to encounter while behind the wheel of a compact SUV.

Given the Chevy’s entertaining performance when booted around town, we were surprised by the less than impressive hard numbers: 9.4 seconds from zero to 60 mph and a quarter-mile time of 17.2 seconds with a trap speed of 80 mph. Braking numbers are similarly underwhelming. With a 182-foot stop from 70 mph, the diesel Equinox takes a full 15 feet longer than the 2.0-liter Equinox’s 167 feet and 21 feet more than the pretty impressive 161-foot braking distance posted by the 1.5-liter Equinox.

Repeated stops revealed a firm, fade-free pedal at least, and the newly refined suspension keeps the 3769-pound car from nosediving or heading for the ditch. It’s that same suspension tuning that enables the diesel Equinox to negotiate broken pavement without sending shock waves through the cabin yet still remain reasonably level during mildly aggressive directional changes as well as on long, sweeping freeway ramps. The compromise is effective and, combined with direct steering response, results in a vehicle more entertaining to drive than its middling 0.77 g of lateral grip would indicate.

Indeed, the 0.85- and 0.86-g lateral-acceleration marks posted by the Equinox’s 2.0- and 1.5-liter gasoline brethren suggest the untapped potential of the chassis. In cases like this, where similar vehicles post disparate braking and grip numbers, tire selection usually is the culprit. Our diesel Equinox wore 225/65R-17 Bridgestone Dueler H/L 422 all-seasons, while the 1.5-liter and 2.0-liter models were shod with 235/50R-19 Hankook Ventus S1 Noble2 all-season rubber.

As is the case for most non-pickup-truck buyers, the decision of whether to go diesel ultimately comes down to dollars and cents. Chevy does a nice job of minimizing the guesswork by limiting the diesel model to the top two trims. 33,385, our 3LT AWD model included remote start, cloth seating, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, dual-zone automatic climate control, and aluminum wheels.

2245 package bundles the features most buyers require. But for serious dieselheads, purchase price is only the second or third most important number. It’s fuel efficiency that impresses this thrifty bunch, the allure of extracting every possible mile from each gallon of dino juice far outweighing the ante. In that metric it delivers in spades.

EPA rated at an already impressive 38 mpg on the highway, our Equinox returned a solid 43 mpg in our 75-mph highway cruise test. That’s a full 15 mpg better than the 1.5-liter Equinox AWD posted in the same test. Combined with its 15.6-gallon fuel capacity, the only thing standing between you and 670 miles of highway travel is a catheter. In addition, our observed 34-mpg combined figure not only beats the EPA’s estimate by 2 mpg but also puts a 13-mpg smackdown on the 1.5-liter Equinox’s observed 21 mpg.

The 2.0-liter Equinox fared no better, managing just 22 mpg in our hands. At this point, convention dictates that we point out that the cost of diesel fuel traditionally is 10 to 20 percent above that of bottom-shelf regular. But that argument is somewhat negated in this instance by the Equinox diesel’s dramatically superior fuel economy and the fact that the 2.0-liter model requires pricey premium fuel.