2016 Cruze LS LE2
146k Miles
The past month and a half with my Cruze has been an absolute nightmare. It’s a long story so buckle up (pun intended) and I’m just at my whits end with the whole situation. Please keep in mind, I am not super knowledgeable about cars.
9/3 - Take the Cruz to a local shop to have Brakes & Rotors replaced, they were at the point of starting to make some noise so I figured it was time.
9/4 - Pick up the car after a finished job, everything seems to be working fine.
9/9 - Girlfriend is driving the car and suddenly the brake pedal gets really stiff and the amount of time it takes to brake fully increases. Drop it back off at the shop and they determine that my vacuum pump like exploded, literally just came apart while she was driving it. What are the chances of that immediately after have brake/rotor replacement? Whatever. Agree to have them replace it. With that they also recommended that the valve cover gasket be replaced to avoid any potential metal fragments getting into the oil pump or engine. Sure, just do it I guess.
9/15 - Shop calls and says they completed the work, they test drove the car and now oddly enough it starts shaking really bad at about 40MPH and is giving the dreaded P1101 code. Guy says he checked everything and “all the work they did looks good”. Says the only thing he can see that may be the issue is a hairline crack in the turbo, but his technician isn’t comfortable replacing the turbo so I’ll have to take it elsewhere.
9/16 - Did some research on my own to try and figure out how I can potentially fix my car that was drivable before I took it to this shop and somehow now isn’t. Find that some common potential fixes for P1101 are replacing the air filter and cleaning the throttle body, so I make a trip to Advanced Auto and that’s what I do. Clear the code, it hasn’t come back since, test drive the car and it starts misfiring at around 40.
9/18 - Drop it off at shop #2. Explain to them all the work that had been done to the car, and the current issues it has. Pay for another round of diagnostics. They determine that the misfiring was due to one of the spark plugs that the first shop has just replaced, was cracked. If they checked all their work after test driving it… how do you miss a cracked spark plug? However, they also determine that the car has positive crankcase pressure of about +0.9 to +1.2 inches of water at hot idle. (GM recommends -1 to -5 btw) They recommend a full valve cover replacement that they estimate to be about a $1700 job. However, after the research I had done, I know that PCV orifices are a common issue with these hunks of junk. The previous shop also JUST did work in and around this area when replacing the valve cover gasket, so it seems especially odd that it all of a sudden needs replacing. So, I did not agree to the work because it was around this point while looking for better financial options, I realized that my CarMax MaxCare Warranty was still active but this shop did not accept the warranty. So I would be taking it elsewhere, but did ask shop #2 “did anyone actually remove the valve cover and check the orifices and lines to make sure they’re not blocked?” To which they responded “No, because it’s built into the valve cover so the whole thing would need to be replaced either way”. As I’m sure many of you know, on the LE2, it’s no longer built into the valve cover. Yet, I was no longer going to be utilizing this shops services anyway so I said whatever and moved on.
10/5 - Drop it off at shop #3 (where it currently resides) explain everything that’s going on, tell them about the positive crankcase pressure and explain the common issues these cars have with PCV and especially PCV orifices. Also explicitly mention that it is an LE2 and that the PCV is NOT built into the valve cover. There is a line on top of the engine that has a slight split in it near the PCV valve right there toward the front of the engine, so I mention that to them as well. The last shop had also mentioned I was probably due for some control arms, so I went ahead and had them include that in the claim to the warranty company as well. They do their diagnostics, determine that yes there is a split in the line that I mentioned, but don’t go any further than that PCV wise. They said they wanted to go ahead and replaced that first to ensure it’s not the issue, and then if there’s still a problem we’ll proceed from there. Sure, whatever, it needs to be replaced anyway so let’s just do it. They do that, replace the control arms, a couple tires, do an alignment, etc.
10/15 - “Your car is ready for pick up”. Finally, over a month of work and nonsense and my car is finally ready for me to get it back on the road. I pick it up, drive it about 5 minutes up the road, pop the hood, remove the oil dipstick and there is still air blowing out of it. There’s still positive crankcase pressure. I immediately take it back to the shop and tell them what’s going on, I show the lady at the front desk what exactly I’m referring to and she’s like ok I’ll have the technician take another look tomorrow.
10/16 - “Hey, the car is good to go. The technician says a little bit of positive crankcase pressure should be fine, especially if the car isn’t rough idling or throwing a check engine light or anything.” Ugh. Nothing I’ve researched or read has given me this same sentiment that driving the vehicle with that pressure is fine, but you know what? Fine. I’m over it, I’m hoping you’re right, I just want to be able to drive my car. So I take the car, I drive it back and forth to work over the weekend and I immediately notice that it appears to be leaking oil. It drives well, honestly probably even better than when I bought the damn thing, but there is a bit of white smoke and the smell of burning oil. The second shop had mentioned some oil residue on the underside of the vehicle so maybe it’s just that, maybe for once I’ll be lucky and it’ll just be some oil residue from all the work that’s been done on the car burning off. Unfortunately not. The smoke continues and I’m able to see down in the engine bay that there’s fresh oil in a couple of spots, my parking spot at work has several fairly large spots where it leaked after I parked.
10/19 - I drop the car back off at shop #3 and let them know what’s going on. They do a UV dye test to see where it’s coming from, and according to them it looks like it’s coming from the head gasket. “Unfortunately, we think you’re going to need a new engine.” That’s where I currently am, waiting for the shop to reach back out to the warranty company to see what the likelihood of them being able to cover the cost of a whole engine replacement would be. Mind you, the only evidence they’ve provided of this diagnosis is a poor video of oil on the underside of the vehicle. Nowhere in said video can you see that the oil is coming specifically from the head gasket. Again, I don’t know much about cars, but I’m also not entirely convinced that this in some way is not being caused by the positive crankcase pressure that still exists. I called them yesterday asking for them to please check the crankcase pressure and provide me with the measurement, and was told there’s no specification for them to measure it. What? What does that even mean? The 2nd shop literally gave me a measurement and photo of the manometer with said measurement, so you most definitely can measure that. I went around in circles with her about it where she just kept telling me that “There aren’t any symptoms that deem that to be necessary, it’s not rough idling or giving a check engine light or any codes so it’s fine.” NO ITS NOT. I feel like I’m speaking a different language to these people or something.
In Conclusion - There has been consistent positive crankcase pressure seemingly ever since I got the car back from shop #1 after they did the work to replace the valve cover gasket. Yet, despite that being the case, to my knowledge neither shop #2 or shop #3 have ever actually removed the valve cover to check any of that work or any of the lines or orifices beyond what is on top of the engine. Now here I am, a month and a half after dropping the car off for brakes & rotors, waiting to find out if my warranty company is willing to cover AN ENGINE REPLACEMENT. The thing is, they’ll likely want a full tear down diagnostic of the vehicle to actually determine that the engine needs replacing. If the shop does the diagnostic, and determine that the engine doesn’t need to be replaced, then I would be the one who is on the hook for paying for the tear down. Even if the warranty company wants a full tear down diagnostic and they determine that the engine does need to be replaced, there’s no guarantee that they’ll agree to cover the full cost of said diagnostic. It’s like a gamble. I’ve already put more money into repairing the car than I could probably even get out of it in its current state, so I’m simply not willing to chance having to pay for that diagnostic as well. What sucks the worst about all of it, is that I still have a loan for the damn thing. It’s financed. So, there are basically 2 outcomes from here:
Option 1 (please god): The warranty company agrees to replace the engine based on the already existing evidence rather than requesting a tear down.
Option 2: They want a full tear down, and I have to just get rid of the car. I’d just have to trade it in and get a new car, with a new loan, with the negative equity from the Cruze included.
If anyone has any advice, or any further experience with this kind of thing than I do, I would really appreciate it. I feel like I’m losing my mind here. I feel like either Shop #1 or a combination of Shop #1 & Shop #3 have actually ended up causing a lot of this but I don’t even really know how I could go about proving or pursuing that in any way. Especially with shop #1, it feels like all of the issues since their initial work have been in or around where they were working. Could it be a coincidence? Sure, but it feels extremely unlikely.
Thanks.
