CarComplaints.com Notes: In many ways, the 2012 Cruze continues the legacy of its predecessor. It's a legacy of sluggish transmissions and coolant leaks, but it's still a legacy.
On the flip-side, there's more concerns about brake problems.
However, there were far more Cruze vehicles sold for the 2012 model year so we'll give it our "Beware of this Clunker" badge rather than the "Avoid Like the Plague."
The intake manifold check valve (should have been an external PCV valve!!) fails on almost all of these cars and usually multiple times if you keep the car for a long time. This can cause a huge list of other problems. A HUGE DESIGN FLAW GM!!!!!!!!!
The faulty intake manifold check valve causes the valve cover area to get over pressurized by boost and blows the valve cover gasket, causing a massive oil leak that can leak onto the exhaust and cause a fire and a huge mess. Having to have this fixed multiple times resulted in the valve cover threads in the head to become stripped, and now the head needs to be replaced at a huge expense.
It was leaking around the valve cover and there was codes for the PCV as well and you have change the whole VALVE COVER IN ORDER TO FIX THE LEAK AND CODES FOR PCV.
This past October, I was driving down the highway and the car felt like it "missed"- lost a little power and then sort of back fired- in my rearview I saw a white puff. Yet, it kept driving about 5 minutes later...every warning light in the car lit up, looked like the space shuttle going down. I pulled into the closest thing I saw- the car would barely move, NTB. They were looking at it and oil was dripping down like the gasket was bad, but it was not acting like that was all- quickly determined this was something severe and therefore covered under power train- $99 diag. to them. Had it towed to dealer $85. After 3 days of run-a-round and providing every oil change slip and service record (60k miles)- they finally told me- turbo blew and blew the engine. The replaced the entire turbo and engine. Yet, they will not pay the tow or the $99 diag....
They mass produced these vehicles and the quality is poor and GM should be held accountable. We noticed after an oil change from the dealership that the car was leaking oil on my new driveway. The car has had many recalls and two water pumps, all covered. Takes a lot of time to get the recalls fixed, who has time to sit at the dealership once or twice a week?
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
The intake manifold check valve (should have been an external PCV valve!!) fails on almost all of these cars and usually multiple times if you keep the car for a long time. This can cause a huge list of other problems. A HUGE DESIGN FLAW GM!!!!!!!!!
- Zach N., Cadiz, US