10 days ago Jo's Holden Barina became undrivable as we headed home on a beautiful Sunday evening after meeting friends for coffee and then walking around Evan's Bay, seeing Orca and generally enjoying ourselves in a relaxing way.
Half way home the clutch started getting sticky and not disengaging properly. Then it wouldn't disengage at all. Stopped on the side of the road in Houghton Bay unable to drive - no cell reception - so walked around the bay a bit and I managed to make a call to the AA, and to our friends we had been meeting with who were not far away. Friends turned up in a few minutes and took Jo home to pick up our other car. An hour or so later the man from the AA turned up, did an investigation and said that he couldn't fix it. We'd need to get towed to a garage. Three hours after coming to a stop we made it home.
Two day later the garage said we needed a new clutch master cylinder - price $400 - which seems outrageous but so did the possible cost of repairing the old one once they factored in unknown costs of sending it out to be machined or whatever else it might need, plus their costs to disassemble, reassemble etc. So overnight the new cylinder came down. Then we hear it will need a new hydraulic hose plus clips at $200. I assume all these prices exclude GST so really the cylinder is $460 and the hose $230.
A day later we hear that now there is a leak from the slave cylinder and that the gearbox would have to come out to investigate! I checked with the AA help line to see if that made sense - and it did to them.....
The slave cylinder is inside the bell-housing. Talk about designed for maintenance (not). Add on the cost of the new slave cylinder and 5+ hours to remove, replace, reinstall and there is no change out of $1200 (presumably +GST as
we haven't got the car back yet).
Called last evening to find out what was taking so long to find that the replacement "new" slave cylinder was
faulty. Another day or so we'll find out what the total damage is but I am expecting it to be $2000+
Not at all impressed with the Holden Barina -
it should never have been allowed to leave the factory.
At 28000km it had a new top end on the motor as one cylinder was badly worn and it was going through oil at a great rate - warranty repair fortunately.
At 32000km it the clutch started slipping - I reckon they got oil or something on it while doing the motor but it was repaired under warranty again.
At 45000km we had a service check just before the warranty expired and found a stuffed wheel bearing - repaired under warranty.
The car has now done 78000km and the clutch hydraulics are totally stuffed.
Of the 10+ cars I have owned and I don't know how many thousand KM of driving over 40 years, I have
never had problems with hydraulics before even in old cars. I have never had engines wear out in under 200000km, let alone 28000, I have replaced clutches - with something well over 100000kms on the clock - not 32000. Wheel bearings do wear out - but not at 45000km.
Modern cars are reputably a lot more reliable than older ones. They are plainly not designed to be serviced. This Holden Barina, (designed and/or manufactured in Europe by Opel I believe), is one that
would not have had acceptable reliability 40 years ago, let alone in the 21st century.
Holden may have upped their game with newer models. They are designed and manufactured by
Daewoo in Korea. Would I go to Daewoo to improve my product's image? Maybe that is all Holden can manage.
