irene91744

I purchased a new 2011 Cruze in June of 2011. I have had some issues with it:


Transmission: The transmission is choppy and erratic. When I am stopped or nearly stopped and accelerate to go again, the transmission just revs as if it is in neutral. This is not safe - make me a prime candidate for a rear-end collision. When traveling at cruising speed of 50-60mph, it is choppy and shifting when you would not expect it to shift. When coming to a fast stop, it clunks and then lunges - so firm pressure on the brake pedal is necessary not to hit the car in front of me. I have had the car into the Chevy dealership 3 times now and am told that since the Chevy mechanic cannot duplicate the problems and there are no lights on there is nothing that can be done.

Antifreeze Odor: One evening this winter the heater did not work. After about an hour of the car being turned off, the heater then would not shut off - it got overly hot and nothing I did would turn off the heater. The next morning the antifreeze odor began. Again, 3 times back to the Chevy dealer - same answer - cannot duplicate problem - heater gauge ok, no leaks, no trouble lights. Last week and the time before we were given a GM bulletin that the engineers are working on the issue. Baiscally - we were told - nothing wrong - live with it.

I have been driving since 1960 - and for the past 15-20 years have owned Hondas. NEVER have I had any trouble with them - oil changes and general maintenance. I thought I would go "American" and boy did I get a surprise.

Hate to say this, but I've been reading up on the Lemon Laws in our state. I am very upset about having to drive a car I am paying hard earned money for that is not operating properly and I'm being told there is nothing wrong.

Chevrolet Customer Service

irene91744,

I'm sorry that you are experiencing these issues with your Cruze vehicle. I have sent you a PM regarding these issues.

Louis
GM Customer Service

Nurseman

OK how many of these coolant issues are coming from 2012's I have a feeling it is rolling in to the 12's starting to get the smell

Nurseman

Irene
I would see if Gm would replace the car with another of the same. If not go to Lemon Law - Pennsylvania Lemon Law, New Jersey Lemon Law, Massachusetts, Delaware, Ohio . It is a pain in the but to deal with the lemon law. But tell gm your tired of breathing the toxic air. Coolant kills dogs and cats that drink it from leaks. You are injesting it also just in a different way so GM Needs to choose there battles

msajay86

I just got my 2011 Chevy Cruze 2 days ago and I already noticed and is having problems. whenever I attempt to drive it always stalls. It's like there's a delayed takeoff or something.. i only have 30, 000 miles on my car.. this is ridiculous. I thought i was getting a great car. This is my first Chevy and I have a very bad first impression. I upgrade it from a 1996 Ford explore and I didn't have half of these problems. I'm making an appointment next week with Chevy and I hope they can go ahead and fix the issue. And my dad noticed and antifreeze smell. When he look under the hood the other day. I am seriously pissed off

tech2

When you take your car in to the dealer; test drive with the actual mechanic or shop foreman. When the problem occurs during the test drive point it out to them. Vague descriptions make it hard to identify what the problem is, when it occurs and how to duplicate it for diagnosis purposes. You may describe a book to the service writer but the tech may only see a one sentence description.

Don't tell them what you think the problem is, rather describe the symptoms.
Warranty diagnosis pays 0.3 of and hour...thats 18 minutes to diagnose the problem.

Chevrolet Customer Service

msajay86,

I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with you Cruze vehicle. Please keep us posted of the results of your dealer visit.

If you need additional assistance, please feel free to contact me privately.

Louis
GM Customer Service

fastdriver

The 2011 Chevy Cruze is notorious for the erratic transmission shifting and lack of response at times when stepping on the gas. The best advice I have for those of you who have this problem is to report it to the NHTSA site that I will list below. I have been the route with the dealer for over a year complaining to them about the problem and them telling me there were NO new updates from GM. I did have a new TCM put in in August 2012 with 10,196 miles on my car, but that did NOTHING to improve the shifting. I have also been in contact with GM "customer service" AND GM Corporate for the past 6 months and well over 40 recorded phone calls from them. ALL talk! They were going to install a data recorder on my car. That was like a 2 month ordeal because the dealer kept telling me that they were waiting for GM to update the data recorder for my Cruze. November 7th was the date I was supposed to get this installed. I get to the dealer and he tells me that GM has not sent the update yet. They had OVER a month to do that!

So, I came home and decided that it was time to call GM Corporate directly instead of dealing with "customer service"! So, from November 7, 2012 until January 15, 2013, the ONLY thing that was accomplished, besides my blood pressure rising EVERYTIME my Called ID said GM, was to have an engineer come down to look at my Cruze. That was Jan. 15th. On Jan. 21st, the dealer finally called me and said......................are you ready....................because I am SURE those of you with the same problem KNOW what I am going to say............."car operating as designed"! LOL......My problem is erratic and most noticeable in stop and go driving that I do the most. This engineer drove my car a total of 13 miles! I told them, when I dropped the car off, to keep it as long as they wanted! WHY they had it for 5 days is beyond me. You see, there is NO fix for the problems we are having with the shifting and lack of acceleration at times. Putting in a new transmission will NOT solve the problem. My dealer told me they already did that with someone else's Cruze. A 2012 transmission cannot be put in a 2011 model according to the guy from GM Corporate. So, as far as GM is concerned- CASE CLOSED! As far as I am concerned, the battle continues as I move on to the next step.

THIS forum seems VERY dead. May I suggest you go to Chevy Cruze Forum : Chevrolet Cruze Forums where the action is constant and ongoing. You can read more about my soap opera story in any transmission topic there. Some of the tranny topics you have to search for. The following is what I copied from my post at cruzetalk because it seems as if this may be our ONLY hope of getting our cars recalled!


For those of you who are still experiencing problems with your Cruze transmission and lack of acceleration at times and can't get anywhere with their dealer OR the new and improved GM "customer service", my only suggestion is to file a complaint with the NHTSA at this address-

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/

It is an Adobe .pdf form that you download and fill out right on your computer and then upload to NHTSA. It is VERY easy and does not take hours to do. I learned that you cannot be wordy because they restrict how much you can write and you cannot include people's names because they will delete them. When I called them, they told me that while they cannot solve individual problems, they will look for recurring issues and if they feel there is a pattern, they CAN initiate a RECALL of our cars. You KNOW that GM is not going to recall them! I feel sorry for those of you who purchased your cars outright. Many of you already traded them in, at a loss, and purchased something else. I'm "lucky" because my car is a lease and on February 14, 2014, it goes back to its maker- GM! The loss of value is on THEM and not me! I don't think they will be able to sell this car to anyone. That said, my cars are kept in pristine condition with low miles, so someone seeing it might jump at it and not pay attention to how it drives and get hoodwinked into buying it. Hopefully not. I only have 13,200 miles in 2 years. Good luck.

Nurseman

I Have got rid of my cruze I have never had a new car leave me on the side of the road in less than a year or 12,000 mile how ever i did replace it with a Chevrolet Equinox im hoping for better I have a feeling the the cruze will be one of the biggest mistakes GM has made I'm giving Gm one more chance and im off to ford I had a 2001 taurus with 245,000 miles way more reliable than my cruze was coolent leaks trans computer interior falling apart this is not good and i see im one of hundreds with these issues my cousin has a 2011 cruze and It is a nightmare

fastdriver

For those of you who are still experiencing the coolant/antifreeze smell with their Cruze and are getting nowhere with their dealer, might want to watch this video and maybe contact this reporter! He might be able to get things rolling for you. Too many dealers are not dealing with this issue head on and GM isn't being much help to people with major smells! Hope this helps!

Drivers report nauseating stench in Chevy Cruze | www.wsbtv.com