Holden Viva Problems

Holden has assured me that there is no problem with the Viva gearbox, so although I can understand you might have lost confidence in the car, I can only suggest at this stage to keep driving it. If you are concerned about the dealer having changed the gearbox then press him to produce the documentation showing that it has been done. It must be there, and there is no reason you shouldn't see it.

HOLDEN claims 7.4 litres for 100km for the Viva with the manual gearbox. The auto will be a couple of tenths of a litre higher. That fuel consumption figure is a combined city/highway figure that comes from its testing and isn't necessarily what you would get in the real world. It's main purpose is to allow you to compare make to make, or old model to new model, to see where it sits in the car population. That said, you should get something close to the published figure and yours does seem to be higher than it should be. You should also see a significant difference between the fuel consumption you get in town and what you get on the highway -- the latter typically about 2 litres/100km lower. I would expect an engine to be run-in and achieving optimum fuel consumption within 2000km at most. I would suggest you have your dealer do a thorough check of the engine and systems. If that fails to find a fault, and your car continues to return high fuel consumption, go straight to Holden's customer assistance people and demand action.

In a word, yes. If you believe you have exhausted all avenues with the dealer and Holden then legal action is all that remains. Have a solicitor send Holden a letter setting out your case and your preferred outcome.

No, it won’t be, as long as they do the service as per the Holden service schedule.

THE jury is out on the Viva. It simply hasn't been around long enough to enable a judgment.