Holden Cruze Engine Problems

Take it back to the Holden dealer who replaced the first water pump and ask for an explanation. You're right, three water pumps in 30,000 km is unacceptable. You would have to ask if there was a problem with the Cruze water pump, not something we have heard about, or did the dealer mechanic do something wrong when fitting the pump.

Perhaps another victim of a low-cost battery. Holden's Sean Poppitt says: "It's unfortunate Mr Garrett has experienced an issue. We've escalated this to our customer experience team and will do everything we can to assist."

It depends on the car, but some get better fuel mileage on the higher octane rating if they are set-up to take advantage of it. The best way to determine if it is better is to run it on each fuel and actually measure the consumption.

Sometimes new engines use oil because the rings are not properly bedded in, but yours is two years old and that shouldn't be a problem. What's normal? My car, I won't say the brand, doesn't use any oil between oil changes. If I saw it was using, even a small amount, I would suspect something is wrong. Other brands use oil as a matter of course. I wouldn't like to see any more than 250 ml used per 1000 km. If it does take it to your dealer and check it; if it doesn't keep a close eye on it.

I wouldn't recommend you take it anywhere but the dealer. It's still under warranty and the dealer and Holden are the ones to fix it. I would take it back and tell them you believe it to be dangerous to drive and refuse to take it away until it's fixed.

It was common practice to idle early turbo engines for one to two minutes before switching off to help protect the bearings in the turbo. It was done to ensure the turbo was not spinning at high speed and was not too hot when the oil pressure and flow was shut off. As you say some people even fitted aftermarket "turbo timers" to delay shutdown for a period after the ignition was turned off. Early turbochargers weren’t as robust or reliable as today’s are and some manufacturers recommended a short idle before shutting the engine down, particularly immediately after operating the engine at high load. Turbochargers and turbocharged engines, such as the 2.0-litre diesel and 1.4-litre petrol engines in the Cruze, have come a long way since those early days, so you don’t have to let them idle for a period before turning them off.