# Bought a Cruze, please rate it's life expectancy



## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

By life expectancy I actually mean chance of trouble-free ride. It's a 2013 1.8L 5spd manual, no LCD panel, pretty basic trim with 10k miles on it. I've driven Japanese cars so far and taken them to road trips to Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans, never even worrying about a car dying on me. After reading this forum, I'm not exactly regretting that I bought Cruze because first I have 3 years warranty left and secondly I do not necessarily have to take this car out of the country, but just out of curiosity I'd like to know if the horrific "car has been to the shop 5 times this year" are just lemon cases or is this more like an everyday reality for those cars. I mean, really, I'm not a car person at all and not interested in those arguments, but I have absolutely always driven Mazdas, Hondas and Toyotas purely on routine maintenance. Didn't even suspect that this would not be the case with any make, except maybe few exceptions like French bullshit etc.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

What country are you in? This car is built in about 10 different places so we can't really answer that question right off the bat. Some of those places been building them since 09 so a 13 would be well into QC specs possibly compared to here in the states.


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## Aussie (Sep 16, 2012)

I have a 2012 Holden Cruze CDX diesel bought new and would happily drive a long distance in it. Have had one small transmission oil leak, fixed under warranty. Just today I got a recall letter for the surge tank, but mine has used no fluid in 3 years. I will have it replaced as the problem will be avoided from happening this way.


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

Merc6 said:


> What country are you in? This car is built in about 10 different places so we can't really answer that question right off the bat. Some of those places been building them since 09 so a 13 would be well into QC specs possibly compared to here in the states.


Estonia. Type says KL1J, the country from where it's imported is not in the register, so I guess it must have been manufactured in the EU, but interestingly the 11th digit of VIN is "K", which some sites say means "plant location = Korea".


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## Aussie (Sep 16, 2012)

I may be wrong, but often the letter at the beginning of the vin lets people in the car industry know what year the car was built.


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## ChevyGuy (Dec 13, 2014)

jkristjan said:


> Estonia. Type says KL1J,


If the first two letters are KL, then that's South Korea. The majority of the users here are driving cars built in the US, so their experience may not apply to your car. I'm not aware of any major engineering failures, mostly glitches in details.




Aussie said:


> I may be wrong, but often the letter at the beginning of the vin lets people in the car industry know what year the car was built.


10th digit for North America cars. There doesn't seem to be a universal code for other areas, unless a particular manufacturer decided to use that in their part of the code.

Source


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

Thanks for the info, mine is South Korean then. But regardless of the assembly factory, they do get components from same lines, right? A faulty water pump or drive axle would kill both an US-made and Korean-made car, am I not right?


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

They last a lot longer if you don't drive them in road salt. If you live in Arizona, keep it in the shade.

The largest single throwaway part is the entire unibody, try to avoid hitting trees or another vehicle.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

jkristjan said:


> Thanks for the info, mine is South Korean then. But regardless of the assembly factory, they do get components from same lines, right? A faulty water pump or drive axle would kill both an US-made and Korean-made car, am I not right?


Some parts are the same but some are regional as well. One part I can think of off the top of my head is the rear shocks are marked Daewoo even for the US built Cruze. The black pieces behind the headlights that run next to the air and fuse box on the fenders I believe are also marked Korean. Some of the screws I had the fortune(they literally are a small fortune) to replace are made in Germany.


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

NickD said:


> They last a lot longer if you don't drive them in road salt. If you live in Arizona, keep it in the shade.
> 
> The largest single throwaway part is the entire unibody, try to avoid hitting trees or another vehicle.


There is *a lot *of road salt here in Estonia, because we have Finnish winter plus USSR-era customs of road maintenance ( = just cover it with a cushion of salt so it will either melt the ice or act as sand to avoid skidding). But I'm not concerned with long-term survivability of the unibody, all I want is to put 3 years and around 100k miles behind me while not swapping pumps, bearings, seals, sensors, shocks, wiring, switches, knobs... all those things that I never have even known about while driving my previous cars. Anyway, we'll see, if it starts falling apart, I have to change it for a Corolla before it's market value drops too much.


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## Merc6 (Jun 8, 2013)

jkristjan said:


> There is *a lot *of road salt here in Estonia, because we have Finnish winter plus USSR-era customs of road maintenance ( = just cover it with a cushion of salt so it will either melt the ice or act as sand to avoid skidding). But I'm not concerned with long-term survivability of the unibody, all I want is to put 3 years and around 100k miles behind me while not swapping pumps, bearings, seals, sensors, shocks, wiring, switches, knobs... all those things that I never have even known about while driving my previous cars. Anyway, we'll see, if it starts falling apart, I have to change it for a Corolla before it's market value drops too much.


Not sure of where you are but the value drops fast in the states. I can't really speak on reliability as every car I touch breaks. For my 13 I been though

3 axles
2 coil packs
1 trans
1 trans fill plug
1 engine oil drain plug
3 sets of wheels
2 horns
1 LCA
1 Brake Booster Pump
1 Trunk Button
1 water pump
1 battery cable


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

> 3 axles
> 2 coil packs
> 1 trans
> 1 trans fill plug
> ...


remind me not to loan you my car lol


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## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

GM typically works to a design life of 148,000 miles or 238,000 km. 

The vehicle will do this if the service schedule is followed scrupulously. 

If you garage your car, drive in airid conditions, etc. you can get to a much higher mileage. 

Estonai eh. Welcome NATO brother. Some of the most beautiful women in the world come from Estonia.


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## money_man (Feb 25, 2014)

Pics!!


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

> Pics!!


of the girls or the car?


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## Aussie (Sep 16, 2012)

pandrad61 said:


> of the girls or the car?


I have seen the car, or one like it.


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

Tomko said:


> Some of the most beautiful women in the world come from Estonia.


Well, it's a transit zone, they arrived here from Russian in turn. Not kidding, that's true, tourists always speak about beautiful women on the streets of Tallinn but as soon as you investigate further, they'll reveal that the names of those girls were Natasha, Marina, Anja...  So the myth of Estonian women is a pretty good trick of a multinational country. Native Estonians look and feel similar to Finns actually and now go Google what an average Finnish woman looks like.

EDIT: Oh here's a pic for you:

http://www.icenews.is/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/finn-president.jpg


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## Aussie (Sep 16, 2012)

We have to put up with these in Sydney.

View attachment 163186


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## pandrad61 (Jul 8, 2015)

im now vacationing in Sydney lol.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

You should be able to easily get 3 years and 100K miles out of a Cruze, regardless of where it's built, so long as it's not a first production year model, which yours isn't.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Aussie said:


> We have to put up with these in Sydney.
> 
> View attachment 163186


One's overdressed.


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## ChevyGuy (Dec 13, 2014)

pandrad61 said:


> remind me not to loan you my car lol


Granted, I bought my '13 when it was 18 months old in December, but so far I've just had one emissions recall.


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

Merc6 said:


> 3 axles
> 2 coil packs
> 1 trans
> 1 trans fill plug
> ...


Which of those (if any) needed a tow truck? For me, **** divides in two - **** you can drive back home and have fixed and **** you need a hotel and a flight home for. Very important difference.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Looking at Merc6's list:

The axles are probably the worst known issue with the 2013 Cruze. Put your car's VIN into https://recalls.gm.com/#/ to see if your car is impacted by this worldwide recall. The water pump and battery cable are known problems with the US/Canada Cruze. We also had a recall on the 1.4T automatics for the brake booster pump. Probably not an issue for you. Our trunk buttons aren't sealed very well and corrode as a result - don't know if this is a problem elsewhere. I have had an engine oil drain plug replaced. These are very soft metal and would be a tow truck issue except they are damaged during oil changes. Easy to replace when damaged. Not sure about the trans fill plug, coil packs, wheels, horns, or LCA. I do know the coil pack rubber boots on our 1.4T engines are prone to tearing when removing the coil packs to check/replace the spark plugs.


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## jkristjan (Sep 6, 2015)

obermd said:


> Looking at Merc6's list:
> ... Put your car's VIN into https://recalls.gm.com/#/ to see if your car is impacted by this worldwide recall. ...


Just because it came up: my car is listed there and shows status INCOMPLETE, but I took it up with the dealer and he said they had it checked on the same day (day before I went to pick it up). But it still shows INCOMPLETE 3 days later. Should I kick their ass and demand that they get either status updated or check again?


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

jkristjan said:


> Just because it came up: my car is listed there and shows status INCOMPLETE, but I took it up with the dealer and he said they had it checked on the same day (day before I went to pick it up). But it still shows INCOMPLETE 3 days later. Should I kick their ass and demand that they get either status updated or check again?


Print out the page and shove it up their ass.  Actually just print out the page and take it in. There is a possibility it was done but not properly recorded, but of all the issues Merc6 listed this is the only one I believe can leave you stranded waiting for a tow truck. Also, not all Cruze have this problem, but they all need to be looked at. There were two different drive shaft suppliers and one was good with the other bad. The only way to verify which one you have is to put the car up on a lift and look.


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## grs1961 (Oct 23, 2012)

jkristjan said:


> Thanks for the info, mine is South Korean then. But regardless of the assembly factory, they do get components from same lines, right? A faulty water pump or drive axle would kill both an US-made and Korean-made car, am I not right?


Short answer - no.

There are some pieces that are shared, however the fragile bits on the US-built Cruze are specific to it, not Cruzen built in Korea (or Australia).

The US-built Cruze has been "improved" by having local engineering input into it. In other words they took a fairly good stable design (Daewoo Premiere Lacetti) that had been looked over and enhanced for GM by some competent engineers (Opel) and was being produced in Korea for shipment all over the world (for values of "world" that do *not* include North America), and expletived it to ****. 

My 2009-build Korean diesel is at 97,000km and feels ready to do another 90,000 without a problem.


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