CarComplaints.com Notes: Buying the first model year of any vehicle is rarely a good idea. You become a guinea pig for the automaker and they are really not nice to guinea pigs.
The 2008 Enclave has a wide enough range of problems to issue a warning. There's transmission failure under 90k miles, new power steering units costing over $1,300, and enough engine complaints to NHTSA to scare anyone away.
10.0
really awful- Typical Repair Cost:
- No data
- Average Mileage:
- 96,150 miles
- Total Complaints:
- 1 complaints
Most Common Solutions:
- replace subframe and control arm (1 reports)
steering problem
Helpful websites
- No one has added a helpful site for this 2008 Enclave problem yet. Be the first!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
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I am a busy working mom who drives my six and seven years old kids everywhere with this Enclave. For a while I have started noticing my car pulling to the left whenever I put the brake on. Long story short, my husband brought the car into the GM auto shop in Cortland to have it fixed. After the mechanic told my husband they have fixed the problem and they explicitly said it is NOT a safety issue.
Trusting the official GM mechanic's words, we embarked on a long road trip to Toronto to visit celebrate my Dad's 70th birthday. As we were driving on high way my husband and I could definitely feel the car really shifting to the left whenever we put the brake on. After arriving to my parents' I mentioned it to my father and he suggested me to get the car checked by the mechanic he knows.
Tony, the mechanic found out that the front subframe right rear bracket where lower control arm mounts has been cracked. He said the problem is really serious he cannot fix this in his shop. Thus, I had to bring this car to The 427 Collision center where I would be able to diagnose the problem more thorough.
The mechanic from The 427 Collision center asked me if the car has been in a serious accident or if I bought a used car which was asked by Tony, the previous mechanic who discovered the problem at first, as well. This car was never in an accident, not even a minor one and I bought a brand new car seven years ago to celebrate my first born, thinking I will need a lot of room to go places with my new baby.
Both mechanics who found out about this severely cracked subframe said we were very close to losing the complete control of this vehicle. Moreover, they said wear and tear cannot do this level of damage to the subframe which basically holds the car together, especially to seven years old car when it has not been in an accident.
The realization of how close my whole family were to be in a fatal accident along with my kids did enrage me. I have decided to contact GM to file a complaint and the response was it "could" have been damaged by pot holes. I was advised to contact insurance company.
If pot holes can create this level of severe damage to a car, then I am left with no choice but to migrate to another city to live or do not ever buy a GM car.
My Dad's 70th birthday celebration could have turned into a morbid funeral service because of GM's defective wear and tear subframe.
- vetogm, Ithaca, NY, US