Holden Cruze Problems

The symptoms are exactly as reported by other Cruze owners and the first step is to get it to an authorised Holden dealer to have the diagnosis confirmed and reported to Holden. At the same time you should contact Holden customer service at Fishermans Bend and report the problem with full vehicle details.

Go back to the dealership you bought it from and ask them to repair it, and seeing that it is a common problem with that model suggest they approach Holden to cover the costs of the repairs. It’s hard to say what your chances are because you bought it secondhand, but you did buy from a Holden dealer, which makes me a little more optimistic about your chances.

Perhaps another victim of a low-cost battery. Holden's Sean Poppitt says: "It's unfortunate Mr Garrett has experienced an issue. We've escalated this to our customer experience team and will do everything we can to assist."

The towing capacity for an unbraked trailer is 750kg and 1200kg for a braked trailer.

Firstly I'm surprised an auction house gave you a warranty, it's usually a case of buyer beware. The transmission problem is well known; that you had the secondhand transmission fail doesn't surprise me. Go back to the seller's warranty document and thoroughly read it to understand what it entitles you to claim. Holden won't help, given that the car is well out of the new car warranty and the transmission that was fitted was a secondhand one. You need to go back to the seller and try to negotiate a resolution with them.

The car with the lower kilometres can be an attractive proposition, but it's a Cruze and should be avoided as they have a terrible history of unreliability. The Yaris is smaller and it has done more kilometres, but it would seem to be a much better bet.

Yes, I believe you can, and should approach Holden with a request to contribute to the cost of replacing the transmission, perhaps even to cover the whole cost of the job. It is a flaw with the transmission, as we have seen with so many others with that model Cruze. Go directly to Holden’s customer service people and lodge a claim. But you will have trouble with getting money from Holden if your mechanic has done any work on the car.

The most common transmission problem that affects the Cruze relates to the automatic transmission, not the manual. As yours is a manual it isn’t affected by these issues. I would suggest you have a mechanic check your car to diagnose the problem for you before you go any further with a claim against Holden. If the noise you are hearing happens while you have the clutch pedal depressed in the process of changing gears it could be a worn clutch throw-out bearing, but if it is a crunching noise when selecting gears it could be either the clutch isn’t fully disengaging, or it could a synchromesh problem.

I would like to think you have a good chance of having the transmission replaced out of goodwill. The car is only just out of warranty, the failure is a well known one, I can’t think of any reason Holden should object to doing the repairs at its own expense.

Take it back to the Holden dealer who replaced the first water pump and ask for an explanation. You're right, three water pumps in 30,000 km is unacceptable. You would have to ask if there was a problem with the Cruze water pump, not something we have heard about, or did the dealer mechanic do something wrong when fitting the pump.