I’d like your advice on a 2012 MY13 Holden Cruze SRi that my partner purchased five months ago. It had 60,000 km on it when she bought it and has since only travelled approx. 6000 km since. She purchased a 36-month warranty with the car, which as it turns out has saved her thousands in transmission repair and replacement costs already. But once that warranty runs out she’s going to be stuck with potentially huge repair bills if the current trend continues. It has been to the mechanics twice for major issues with the manual transmission for a duration so far of two months. But the car is still there, and not fixed, so that time frame will increase by at least a few more weeks. Both times the car has broken down she has been unable to actually drive it; it had to be towed to the mechanics. It was popping out of gear, then not going into gear, then not coming out of gear … all sorts of random behaviour. With such a bad track record in only a 5-month period she would like to give the car back. What options do we have? Should the dealer replace it or refund her money? Or is it up to Holden to cover this given that the Cruze has known transmission problems around the world. Or are we stuck with it and have no choice but to keep fixing it under the 36-month warranty?
The car is six years old, and was bought used, so you are unlikely to get any sympathy at Holden. You need to negotiate with the dealer who sold it to you, but I doubt that you will get any support there either. Your choices are to persist with it and hope that it doesn’t have any more gearbox issues, or unload it.