# Chevy Cruze Lemon



## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

I disagree with your use of the adjective lemon.


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## Patman (May 7, 2011)

Who are you asking, GM customer service or the forum? How many miles and what year is this car? Less than 100,000 should be covered under power train warranty.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

It sounds to me like even though your service department has gotten GM engineers to assist that the tech is unable to properly troubleshoot. The GM engineers aren't physically located at the dealership so they are limited to the information the tech gives them.


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## boneheaddoctor (Dec 10, 2014)

Lemon laws typically specify the same problem reoccurring 3 or more times (and I believe in a specified time frame)


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## brian v (Dec 25, 2011)

Yep ya Got a lemon for a dealer and a lemon of a cruzen .. Now if I could only squeeze 1 for me Tea and get a slice for me beer ..............


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Look into the lemon laws in your state. Some are 3 or more occurrences for the same problem and you can look into lemon law buyback arbitration.

The last 2 issues sound like they were caused by a hastily-put-back-together engine by the dealership, and I'm not sure that's a car I'd want to keep either.


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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

Tomko said:


> I disagree with your use of the adjective lemon.


 In South Florida many people call Limes Lemons and will argue with you they come from the same tree. I doubt that 3 GM corporate engineers become involved with a basic repair, possibly 3 technicians at the local repair facility? Since these are separate issues why would GM "swap out" a Car? As far as cost goes, if its under Warranty who cares what the charges are? Lemon Laws vary from State to State and generally only involve certain safety related issues which require repeated attempts. Even then time limits apply to these laws.


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## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

I concur.


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## ChevyGuy (Dec 13, 2014)

Maybe time to find another dealer. I agree you probably had a real problem the first time and the other two times is likely caused by the technician working on the first one.


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

Car is back in the shop with the original issue. (code p0299) we will see maybe a new turbo this time? Car is still under warranty 2012 with 56k miles. This is my first American car, I'm not super impressed at all. I understand what you guys are saying, it has a warranty no big deal. It is a big deal when you have a baby in the car, and it won't start. Reliability is the name of the game in the car industry. I've had less problems with my 02 Bmw 530i (177kmiles), and 2012 VW Jetta GLI (77kmiles). I just want a car that I feel safe taking my family in, so the car is gone once the warranty is done. 

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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

mattng06 said:


> Car is back in the shop with the original issue. (code p0299) we will see maybe a new turbo this time? Car is still under warranty 2012 with 56k miles. This is my first American car, I'm not super impressed at all.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Please don't confuse a New Car Limited Bumper to Bumper warranty with what you have now, a measly Powertrain Warranty. Even though the Turbo, if that's the true problem should be covered, there are 1000's of parts that are no longer covered. You had the chance like I did & did to purchase supplemental coverage through the GMPP, GMEPP, Fidelity, or any of the other companies that sell Extended Service Contracts or Mechanical Breakdown Insurance. Also I have a problem with your original post about the 40 "Man" hours spent on your CRUZE, do you really believe that, I don't. At an average Shop Labor rate of $105 an hour, if in fact happened costs $4500 alone. Most shops would require a Labor authorization before even touching your vehicle, whether they find your problem or not!


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## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

mattng06 said:


> Car is back in the shop with the original issue. (code p0299) we will see maybe a new turbo this time? Car is still under warranty 2012 with 56k miles. This is my first American car, I'm not super impressed at all. I understand what you guys are saying, it has a warranty no big deal. It is a big deal when you have a baby in the car, and it won't start. Reliability is the name of the game in the car industry. I've had less problems with my 02 Bmw 530i (177kmiles), and 2012 VW Jetta GLI (77kmiles). I just want a car that I feel safe taking my family in, so the car is gone once the warranty is done.


If reliability is an important factor for you than I suggest that you stay away from VW products or any vehicle that's 13 years old.


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Do NOT, and I mean do NOT, take your car back to the same dealership for the P0299 code. I think part of your repeated failures has been poor tech work at that dealership.


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

Eddy Cruze said:


> Please don't confuse a New Car Limited Bumper to Bumper warranty with what you have now, a measly Powertrain Warranty. Even though the Turbo, if that's the true problem should be covered, there are 1000's of parts that are no longer covered. You had the chance like I did & did to purchase supplemental coverage through the GMPP, GMEPP, Fidelity, or any of the other companies that sell Extended Service Contracts or Mechanical Breakdown Insurance. Also I have a problem with your original post about the 40 "Man" hours spent on your CRUZE, do you really believe that, I don't. At an average Shop Labor rate of $105 an hour, if in fact happened costs $4500 alone. Most shops would require a Labor authorization before even touching your vehicle, whether they find your problem or not!


I bought this car used and don't plan on keeping it more then three years, so decided not to spend $2000+ on an extended warranty. Maybe not 40 man hours, but the car was there for a week and had 3 gm engineers trying to solve the problem with their mechanic. I'll be sure to check how many hours were spent on it once the paperwork comes through. In the last 3 weeks it has received all new Pistons, Ecu, and cam sensor. They have put quite a few dollars with parts and labor into this car.



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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

Tomko said:


> If reliability is an important factor for you than I suggest that you stay away from VW products or any vehicle that's 13 years old.


Knock on wood, but they have never left me stranded like this Cruze.... 


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

obermd said:


> Do NOT, and I mean do NOT, take your car back to the same dealership for the P0299 code. I think part of your repeated failures has been poor tech work at that dealership.


To late..... If it's not fixed this time, I'll bring it another dealership. 


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

The reason I said to change dealerships is my Montana had a problem that eventually ended up with GM (Pontiac) engineers getting involved. Even after the engineers figured it out the tech at that dealership still screwed up the repair. I took it to another dealership the next time it failed and they fixed it on the first try - never had that failure again.


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## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

obermd said:


> Do NOT, and I mean do NOT, take your car back to the same dealership for the P0299 code. I think part of your repeated failures has been poor tech work at that dealership.


 A dirty little secret I found out about G.M. Warranty work, actually 2 of them. #1) Instead of the $105 or so they see per hour with a cash pay customer the shop only sees about 33% of that from G.M. & #2) Warranty work that needs to be redone at the same shop is not paid again from G.M. unless its a part failure. Perhaps Chevy Manager if he is still with us could let us know the true bottom line?


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

Got the call today, I'm getting a new turbo. In three weeks time this car has got new Pistons, ECU, cam sensor, turbo, and all the various bits that go with it. 


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

Eddy Cruze said:


> A dirty little secret I found out about G.M. Warranty work, actually 2 of them. #1) Instead of the $105 or so they see per hour with a cash pay customer the shop only sees about 33% of that from G.M. & #2) Warranty work that needs to be redone at the same shop is not paid again from G.M. unless its a part failure. Perhaps Chevy Manager if he is still with us could let us know the true bottom line?


its not a secret and its not a gm thing

warranty work pays less than non warranty work, thats how service depts work.


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

Knock on wood, but maybe the new turbo and boost sensor did the trick. 140 miles driven and no check engine light!! Only had to have to car in the shop for a little over 3 weeks... Pistons, ecu, cam sensor, boost sensor, and turbo all replaced. 


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Not sure who my service manager was talking on the phone to, but apparently not very bright people stating the problem with my brake pedal going clear to the floor was caused by the vacuum switch, vacuum motor, or brake booster. Nothing to do with working the parking brake that would no longer close the gap in the rear calipers as I pointed out, just look at that large gap?

Had to go to a different dealer with some brains.

*P0299* 

The ECM detects that the actual boost pressure is less than the desired boost pressure for greater than 2.5 s. So is the problem the sensor? Weak tubo, dirty air filter, plugged cat, poor connection, fault in that code stored in flashram?

Seeing the code ain't enough, also takes some brains to learn the real problem. Connectors can only be pulled straight out, anyone with an ounce of brains knows this with the minimum amount of training. If you wiggle them out, spreads the female contacts, so never get a good connection again. But also takes a lot more effort to pull them straight out.

Ha, thought I wanted to be an automotive mechanic, but working in particular on warranty repairs, was pushed like crazy from the service manager. And could not be conscientious to do a good job. So quit to get a better job. Another thing you don't see is old mechanics, mostly old young guys, the stress of this job is too much with many health hazards involved.


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## RIXSTER (Apr 13, 2015)

The bright side is you have a bunch of new parts on your car.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Use to say no such thing as a lemon, two examples, picked up a really nice 41 Chevy for 25 bucks with vacuum assisted shift, for a buck fifty got a lever from Warshaski and got rid of all that vacuum crap. Another one was a 52 Dodge that looked like brand new for a hundred bucks with that tip-toe shift. Knew it was using a brass synchro that would grind up for really rough shifts, replaced that for a buck with an all steel one.

After my accident, loving wife divorced me because she didn't think I could support her life style anymore and got the good family car. Without doing much homework, purchased an 89 Lincoln Continental, I wasn't in the best of shape, but got it running. And every week was some kind of new and different problem with this thing. So got convinced there is a such a thing as a lemon. Not just one problem but hundreds of them.

I don't classify our Cruze as being a lemon, knew I would be having problems with those rear disc calipers, but learned how to live with these since 1978, GM never did learn how to build a good rear disc caliper. With four years and 40K miles on it now, radio started flashing on and off, but knew it was a power on problem. Led me to the ignition relay, cleaned the contacts and working fine again. If I want to dig out all my test equipment, will design a solid state relay for this, then won't be a problem anymore.


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## grs1961 (Oct 23, 2012)

NickD said:


> ... knew I would be having problems with those rear disc calipers, but learned how to live with these since 1978, GM never did learn how to build a good rear disc caliper.


Well, Daewoo certainly knows how to design and build a rear disk caliper, my Korean-built Cruze has no problems with it's brakes, and is coming up on 100,000km.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Maybe not in Melbourne, don't believe they use road salt down there. Ones on my Cruze were never plated, but found other 2012's in the lot that were. Could work that parking brake lever all day and wouldn't adjust them, suppose to have a ratcheting effect.


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

After all of the work in the shop, the Cruze made it 4k miles before going back in the shop. Camshaft/valve cover gasket pissing out oil due to pcv system failing. I'm done with this car, I've owned it for 6-7 months and it's been in the shop for over 1 month. This thing is a piece of ****, I have 8 buddies that have had zero issues with their cruzes. I guess I got lucky with the piece of **** one! 


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

mattng06 said:


> After all of the work in the shop, the Cruze made it 4k miles before going back in the shop. Camshaft/valve cover gasket pissing out oil due to pcv system failing. I'm done with this car, I've owned it for 6-7 months and it's been in the shop for over 1 month. This thing is a piece of ****, I have 8 buddies that have had zero issues with their cruzes. I guess I got lucky with the piece of **** one!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Have you contacted GM directly? This is sounding more and more like a dealership failure. You may also want to look into the lemon laws in your location - you may have a case to get the car replaced, but in any case - find another dealership.


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## mattng06 (Jun 25, 2015)

obermd said:


> Have you contacted GM directly? This is sounding more and more like a dealership failure. You may also want to look into the lemon laws in your location - you may have a case to get the car replaced, but in any case - find another dealership.


Yes I have quite a few times. All GM said is we will stand by our warranty and keep fixing it, if it falls under powertrain. My state lemon laws on used cars only pertains to emissions and state inspections. I'm pretty much screwed with this car, I'm upside down $2k on it, so I'll have to keep it for at least March of 2017 to pay that down a little more. Why March 2017 Warranty is done or at 100k. GM has put so much money into a car that's only worth $9k. I can guarantee they have put at least $5k in the last 3 months. This last visit was $830 for a new camshaft cover, water pump and seals that go with all that. 


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## obermd (Mar 3, 2012)

Just so you know, the PCV valve/camshaft cover is a known issue with the Cruze 1.4T engine.


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## NickD (Dec 10, 2011)

Little things have been showing up in my Cruze now, like dirty relay contacts in those cheap Made In China relays. Most recently that bare copper wired corroded within the confines of the crimped negative battery cable. Both practically insignificant type problems was driving both my Cruze and I crazy. 

Codes were popping all over the place, and dash lights were flashing on or off, is this a lemon?

Home is loaded with light toggle switches I paid around 29 cents each for around 30 years ago. Two key differences between this an automotive. First off, switching AC that is constantly reversing in polarity, with DC, current only flows in one direction that causes electrolysis on anything that makes contact. Guess these young kids were never taught this.

Second is the switch blade slides between to contacts for a self cleaning action, what they are doing today is no different then touching two bare ends of a wire together for conductivity. We sure knew this back then when we were designing automotive electrical systems. 

Probably worse of all, not a vehicle anymore, but a computer, not one but five of them in the Cruze, depend upon a sharp voltage rise to reset the microcontrollers, this is a word for a single chip that contains all the ingredients for a complete computer, has a microprocessor inside with the other crap needed to make it work. Also need code to operate, we use to use PROM where this was permanently burnt in, not changeable, now using what we call flashram for short. Electrically Erasable Read Only Memory.

Any electrical glitch in these things can completely wipe out the code, but don't even have to do this, just one tiny bit would change an instruction code the microcontroller won't understand causing it to crash. 

Not only the Cruze, but all newer vehicle are made this way, guess you can call all these lemons.

Automotive is the only field that I know of where the user cannot have access to so-called firmware, the stuff that you really need to make a microcontroller work.

I guess you can say, they got us where they want us. Just bend over and learn how to smile. An IC engine is an analog device, and as such could use what is called mixed signal technologically that would never crash. But can't do this, use a microcontroller that only cost 89 cents instead. Sure can't buy a replacement for 89 cents, not even for ten bucks for a good profit margin.


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