Holden Problems

If the engine is still revving up but the car isn’t moving, logic says you have a transmission (gearbox) problem. Transmission problems are very well known in the Holden Cruze, and must surely be classified as an inherent fault. Fundamentally, the automatic transmission in your car was a dud from day one, and Holden even announced an extended warranty for it as part of a special service program to replace consumer confidence in the unit. It didn’t work.

Many Cruzes exhibited the precise behaviour you experienced, and the loss of all drive as well as the check-engine light illuminating are classic indicators of a transmission that either needs new components such as sensors, a valve body or torque converter, or is totally done and needs to be completely replaced. An inspection will be able to determine this. Error code P0776 is what I’m tipping the car will offer up when it’s electronically scanned (which should be your next step).

Once Holden had fixed these transmissions, it was extending the warranty to five years from when the car first entered service or 150,000km, whichever came first. Obviously, your car is older than that, but it has covered low kilometres and since you’ve had it from new and can verify its service history with a Holden dealer, I reckon it would be worth your while to contact Holden’s customer service division and state your case. Let’s face it, less than 120,000km on a modern car before the transmission blows up is not really good enough, is it?

You may not get anywhere, but even if you can convince Holden to help with the cost of parts (labour would be nice, too) the financial picture changes dramatically. Without a bit of help from Holden, it may just be that the cost of repairs will be higher than the actual value of the car itself.

The jerk when you select reverse sometimes is definitely worth having diagnosed properly as it shouldn’t be that way. Scanning the car (which I’ll presume the dealership did to arrive at its answer) doesn’t always show up all faults, so just because the computer says there’s nothing wrong, doesn’t mean there isn’t. There are plenty of reasons for a car to jerk into a particular gear, but the good news is that the Astra uses a conventional, torque-converter automatic, not one of the vastly more troublesome double-clutch units.

Your second problem, however, may not be a problem at all. In fact, the gearbox in the Astra is smart enough to know that you’re coasting down a hill and will actually shift down a gear or two to take the strain off the brakes while still maintaining your speed. As it shifts down gears, the engine revs will rise; that’s absolutely normal and part of the way the car is designed to operate.

The only smart thing to do here is to have the car scanned at a workshop with the necessary computer gear and see what the fault codes suggest. You could try for years to second-guess what has caused this problem, and still not come up with the correct answer. The possible causes number in the hundreds, but a scan will hopefully take the guesswork out of a diagnosis.

I’ve actually experienced this on a brand-new Colorado (during an evaluation drive, no less). In this case it turned out to be a couple of loose fasteners in the front end, which were fixed quickly and permanently. In your case, though, it seems as though even with everything checked and tightened, the noise is still there.

So maybe it’s not something as obvious as a loose coupling or fitting. Maybe you’re looking at noisy shock absorbers. Sometimes these components can contribute a clunk, but it’s usually when they’re worn out, not on a six-month-old vehicle. Does the noise occur in a straight line or with some steering lock applied? Perhaps the steering lock stops are the culprits. I’d be putting the vehicle back on a hoist and checking that everything from the engine mounts to the cross-member and the steering rack to the transmission mounts are torqued to the correct values. Don’t rule out silly things like a loose tub or tray, either; sometimes a clunk in the rear of a vehicle can be transmitted down a chassis rail to sound like it’s coming from the front somewhere.

I’d check both the throttle body, which could need a clean, and the throttle-position sensor (TPS) which can fail or send incorrect information back to the computer. Both these components have a major effect on how a car idles and both can require maintenance or even replacement. Other possible causes could be worn fuel-injectors, a vacuum leak and a huge range of other possibilities. But those are the two I’d investigate first. Once I’d had the car scanned for fault codes, that is.

There are three classic causes of a sinking brake pedal. The first is a worn out brake master cylinder that is allowing brake fluid back past the actuating piston. The second is a leak somewhere in the braking system, either a caliper itself or a brake line or union and, the third is an ABS system fault where the ABS pump isn’t working properly, usually due to a low brake-fluid level.

Regardless of the cause, there’s no `acceptable tolerance’ for a brake pedal that slowly sinks towards the floor. A braking system in good working order should be able to hold the brake pedal at the same level more or less indefinitely. Any sinking is bad news and is a serious safety issue. I wouldn’t even have the car towed to a workshop; it’s simply not safe to drive.

A build up of carbon deposits (a by-product of burning petrol) is, indeed, a known fault with this engine. If it occurs, it can create the precise symptom you’re seeing (the check-engine light) but can also lead to an erratic idle and misfiring. There have also been cases where this engine has developed wear in the exhaust valve and valve-seat region, with similar end results. Unfortunately, the only fix is to remove the cylinder head and replace both the exhaust valves and their seats.

I agree that 52,000km is a depressingly low mileage for problems like these to occur, so you need to make absolutely sure it really is the cause before you start to tear into the engine. A leak-down and compression test may throw some light on things, as can an electronic scan of the car. A fault-code of P0300 is a big clue that the exhaust valves are at the centre of the problem. This model Barina was another Holden that was simply a re-badged South Korean-built Daewoo with all that implies.

My first thought is that your car’s battery is on the way out. Are there any other symptoms of this (slow cranking etc)? Essentially, a battery that isn’t fully charged or is a bit wonky can start to shed its responsibilities one by one as it wears out. In this case, you might find that maintaining the clock’s memory/time isn’t programmed into the car as a major priority, so it switches that circuit off as a means of saving every available volt and ampere for actually starting the car (which is the point at which the maximum strain is placed on a battery).

Beyond that, you could have a dodgy ignition barrel that isn’t making all the necessary contacts when you insert and turn the key each time. I’ve heard of applying a liberal coating of acetone (or a solvent such as carby cleaner or WD40 should also work) and inserting the key a few times in succession. This is sometimes enough to clean the contacts and restore full functionality.

The short answer to your question Rhonda is that the 2009 Captiva was far from a good car. It has experienced lots of reliability and durability problems and, although some will disagree, there are much better choices out there.

The Captiva has been recalled for all manner of problems including (but not limited to) steering issues, braking dramas and electrical gremlins. About the best thing about the 2009 four-cylinder petrol Captiva was that the engine didn’t have the timing chain problems of the V6 model, and the transmission wasn’t as problematic as the later Captiva. But that’s surely damning with faint praise.

The Captiva wasn’t actually a Holden at all; it was built in South Korea by Daewoo, a brand considered to be way behind the quality and engineering of its South Korean counterparts Kia and Hyundai. And it showed.

I can’t see why not, Peter. The 1996 and 1999 are more or less identical cars so there should be a high degree of interchangeability. While manual versions of the Commodore Ute form this era did, indeed, change gearbox types as the years progressed, the automatic version stuck with the same unit, so the gearbox and all its ancillary bits and pieces should be a straight swap.

And how good is a ute with a bench seat for three and a column-shift? Car makers should revisit this layout as it makes so much sense.