I can't believe I'm writing this for a Chevy. A car manufacturer that my family has put their faith into for decades.

Unfortunately, this Cruze has given me issues since I bought it for myself, this May 2018. I had heard of some transmission issues, like the gear grinding issue when going from 1st to 2nd...but I never thought it'd be me who became a victim. Seeing that we have never had issues with our long list of other Chevy's in the family. I looked for this exact car throughout dealerships all over SoCal. Penske Chevrolet of Cerritos was the only one who had it for the right price. I was excited...

I had a Check Engine Light come on the way home from buying my brand spanking new dream of a car. It came on after one of the "grinding" sounds I spoke about earlier. The next morning, the light came off and I went about my next 4k miles. Another CEL ensued, with the same result as before...it went away. 7500 miles in, I got my first oil change. The service department from the same dealership didn't note that they had looked into any transmission issues, so I figured everything was fine.

Here is where it gets real. 8.5k miles in...another CEL....this time, I scheduled an appt with service and explained the issue to them myself. They told me that they were going to put in a new "injector". Being the mechanical novice that I am, it sounded legit, so I told them to go ahead and do whatever they had to do to get me back on the road.

And VOILA! It was fixed...or so I thought. The transmission seemed to be doing less of the grinding sound, no more CEL's...at least for another 3kmiles...then it all happened again. This time, the transmission was completely slipping and not giving the drivetrain the power that the engine was supposedly putting out via the RPM's. Geico towed the car out to the service department and I am supposed to be getting an update call tomorrow morning.

All in all, I am disappointed. I am not, by any means, ready to give up on this car just yet. It has so much potential...they just seem to have stuck a mediocre transmission into it, and hoped nobody would bitch and moan. Well, here is my B&M.

There is a work-around available for the grinding sound that I found online. It is a manual transmission shift lever cable adjustment for the Chevy Sonic which uses the same transmission and is known to have a similar problem. I am hoping the service department will help shed some light on how to get this done within warranty.

This is my daughter's vehicle and we have been back to dealership and they have not been able to recreate what she tells them has happened. The car suddenly seems to suddenly shift backwards. Service people have been nice, but tell us that if they can't recreate it they cannot fix it which we understand. One Service person suggested that they could do an in depth work up on transmission which could take up to two weeks and she would have to pay for a rental for that whole time since they did not have a loaner. One sales manger insinuated that she was making it up. So, we did not have a very satisfactory experience with the dealership overall, but the final people (original salesperson and sales manager) we dealt with tried to make things work for her with the lease, but were unable to make it work financially. We are just wondering if there are other 2018 Chevy Cruze owners who have experienced similar slippage when they are stopped or driving. Daughter is now nervous about driving lest something happen on a busy road when someone is behind her. Would appreciate hearing from anyone else who has had a similar experience with a 2018 Chevy Cruze. Thanks!