SynLube™ Lube‑4‑Life®
SynLube™ Lube‑4‑Life®
It is a listing of vehicles that are available to consumers in North America
that have serious design, quality and safety flaws.
At best ownership of such vehicles will cost you thousands more than you have
expected, and quite often the shortcoming may result in a crash, or even a
fatality.
So if you are considering the purchase of "used" vehicle, you are better
off avoiding the vehicles that are listed in this section.
While some of the Original Manufacturers eventually tend to do something about
the problems to salvage their probably already damaged reputation, quite often
you have to front the repair bills, and almost never you get compensated for
the damage caused by a crash without extensive legal action which generally at
best takes several years.
The solution is rather simple:
If you own such vehicle - sell it NOW;
If you are considering the purchase of such used vehicle, well - DON'T!
Date:
Excessive Motor Oil consumption
Unknown
Cass-action lawsuit claims that HONDA manufactured 1,593,755 defective vehicles that excessively burn oil and require frequent spark plug replacements.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received some complaints from owners of below listed vehicles.
Honda has for over 6 years claimed that such oil consumption is "normal".
Recently HONDA partially agreed to reimburse vehicle owners if they fill out claim form, the issue wll be decided in March 2014 by judge in San Francisco, California.
Date:
Engine Ticking Sound from #2 Cylinder
Chrysler blames "variety of causes" which include driving style, use of low
grade fuel, etc.
Chrysler decided to "fix" all affected engines if customers complain about the
noise by replacing the head with "more robust design".
Chrysler estimates that only a "small percentage" of the Pentastar V-6 engines are affected, but industry analysts guess at minimum of 7,500 engines and perhaps more.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received some complaints from owners of below listed vehicles.
Chrysler decided to "fix" all affected engines if customers complain about the noise by replacing the head with "more robust design".
Date:
Engine Fires
GM said a fire could start in the Cruze's engine compartment if the oil is
changed improperly and either spills or drips onto the hot engine shield.
In models equipped with a manual transmission, a worn clutch could lead to
hydraulic fluid leaking from the clutch housing and dripping onto the engine
shield, creating a similar fire risk, GM said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received some complaints from owners of below listed vehicles. The complaints included 28 engine fires.
NHTSA ordered a recall of Cruzes that were made since start of production
General Motors (GM) GM said the recall covers 475,418 Cruzes
build at GM's Lordstown, Ohio, plant since September 2010, just before the
car's launch, through May 2012.
Of those, 413,418 were sold in the United States, 61,299 were sold in Canada
and 701 were exported to Israel.
The automaker said the recall is to modify an engine shield under the vehicle
to prevent liquids from being trapped in the engine compartment, where a fire
could start.
Date:
February 13, 2011
Premature Timing Chain Wear
GM said they are "monitoring" the condition, and no real cause has been
given
GM recommends that the vehicle owner's take their vehicle to the GM Dealer,
which will perform "calibration" at no charge.
The total number of U.S. vehicles involved is approximately 383,000
General Motors (GM) GM said they will send a letter to
vehicle owners with the V-6 engine that may be affected.
If the owner follows the "order" to have the vehicle serviced by GM Dealer
before February 28, 2013, then GM claims they "may" consider "adjustments" if
the timing chain demonstrates premature wear.
The automaker said that if the owner does not have the vehicle's control module
reprogrammed, that it may affect the future eligibility for the timing chain
repair!
The reprogramming of the "control module" has following results as reported by several vehicle owners that had it done:
Date:
Transmission Failure due to Coolant intermixing with ATF in the heat exchanger that is located in the vehicle's radiator.
Poor material combination selection causes loss of seal integrity and thus coolant under pressure (when vehicle is hot) can leak into the ATF and therefore cause automatic transmission problems or failure, when the vehicle is cold the ATF will leak into the coolant, and thus reducing the cooling efficiency due to oil deposits in the cooling system.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received at least 200 complaints from owners of below listed vehicles.
Owners allege they had to spend thousands of dollars to fix their trucks' transmissions because Nissan did not cover their replacement if the failure happened after 80,000 miles.
NISSAN has extended the standard 36,000 miles Mechanical Warranty to 96 months or 80,000 miles on the radiators ONLY, but has not taken any responsibility for the Transmission Failures so far.
You can read more information about the extended warranty here:
http://www.nissanassist.com/web/Radiator/index.php?menu=20
Copy from above NISSAN Web Link:
Nissan has extended the Nissan New Vehicle Limited Warranty for the Radiator
Assembly for certain MY 2005-2010 Frontier, Pathfinder, and Xterra vehicles to
96 months/80,000 miles (whichever occurs first). All other warranty terms,
limitations and conditions otherwise apply
Please note that this is not a safety recall, and there are no safety issues
relating to your Radiator Assembly.
Date:
Failure of Power Steering Assist.
Poor material combination selection and inadequate brush spring tension causes loss of contacts on DC Motor that provides the "assist". The problem may be intermittent (assist may fail randomly) or permanent (no assist at all).
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received some complaints from owners of below listed vehicles. However Internet search listed at least 1,000 such complaints from various owners.
Owners allege they had to spend thousand to twelve hundred dollars to fix their power steering as no spare parts are available and the entire steering column needs to be replaces as an assembly with labor costs alone being in $300 to $500 range.
GM/STAURN has "secret" service bulletin that extended the standard 36,000 miles Mechanical Warranty to 10 years or 100,000 miles on the vehicles with defective power steering units that fail "completely" complaints of "random" assist are not taken seriously if the repairing dealer can not verify the problem.
Date:
Failure of Power Steering Assist.
Poor material combination selection and inadequate brush spring tension causes loss of contacts on DC Motor that provides the "assist". The problem may be intermittent (assist may fail randomly) or permanent (no assist at all).
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has received some complaints from over 1,100 owners of below listed vehicles. The complaints included 14 crashes and one injury.
NHTSA opened an investigation January. 27, 2010 into approximately 905,000 Cobalt models in the United States after receiving complaints of loss of power steering assist
General Motors (GM) will conduct a safety recall of 1.3 million compact cars to replace a motor in the power steering system. This was in March 2, 2010 announcement & press release from GM.
