Holden Cruze Engine Problems

Like a lot of relatively modern engine designs, the Cruze uses a spark plug centrally located in the cylinder head. That means that it’s between the two camshafts in the Holden’s case, and that means the spark plug lead needs to effectively pass through the rocker cover to attach to the spark plug. In turn, that means that the spark plug sits at the bottom of a tube that forms an oil-tight chamber between the inside of the tube (where the plug lives) and the inside of the rocker cover (which has oil flinging around inside of it when the engine is running).

The problems start when the seal at the bottom of that tube fails and allows oil to seep into the tube from the rocker cover. That’s when you’ll see the oil you described. The fix is to remove the rocker cover and replace either the whole gasket, or the O-ring seal (depending on the design). If it’s the latter, don’t just replace the one that’s leaking now, replace all of them as the rest won’t be far behind the one that’s already leaking. O-rings and gasket start to become hard and brittle as they age, and that’s when leaks will occur. This is not a huge job to fix, but left unchecked, it can allow the engine to begin to misfire.

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.

Leaking water pumps are not unknown; most are changed every time the timing belt is changed because they’re leaking.

It’s an annoyance rather than a safety issue per se, one that’s related to the car’s computer system. By stopping and restating you are rebooting the computer, same as your computer when it shuts down for some unknown reason. The difficulty for those trying to find the problem is that it happens sporadically, and not necessarily when they are working on the car.

It’s probably an issue with the computer, but it could a wiring issue, a sensor problem. Have a mechanic check it.

If you missed the recommended service interval by 15,000 km – that’s like missing a whole service – then I don’t think you have any grounds on which to make a claim. The only thing you can do is to repair the engine.

I would question the dealer’s competence and seek a second opinion from another mechanic. I suspect they misdiagnosed the problem in the first instance, and think that perhaps it wasn’t a faulty injector. If you go ahead and give them the approval to pull the engine apart you will be liable for the costs, and you will be liable for any costs for repairs that come out of that.

I’d say you have a turbo problem. Get it to a dealer and have it checked out. Wit the problem you describe you should be able to clearly show the dealer what you are concerned about.

The problem could well be a radiator problem, one not related to the incident with the kangaroo. It’s not uncommon for the transmission oil cooler in the radiator to fail. To try and determine the cause have the appraised by an independent assessor.

It's probably easier to eliminate those that don't stack up, those being the VW Golf, Holden Cruze and Ford Focus.

All have transmission questions over them.

The best options would be the Mazda 3 and the Hyundai i30.