Holden tops list of new car ‘lemons’

[Express]

It's bit short on any meaningful detail but it was reported in today’s Daily Telegraph so I’ve posted it up.

Holden tops list of new car ‘lemons’


PAUL GOVER
Chief reporter, Carsguide
News Corp Australia Network



Holden has topped the list of complaints, with 68 per cent of owners reporting a problem.


MORE than two-thirds of the new cars sold in Australia cause problems for their owners inside five years.

High-tech electronic systems including Bluetooth are the biggest culprit, sparking 21 per cent of complaints, but engine problems also account for 15 per cent and the long list of dramas runs from interior blemishes and faulty batteries through to odometer fraud.

The shocking results are revealed in a comprehensive survey of 15 leading car brands by CHOICE, which is agitating for more protection for new-car buyers.

“While the majority of these issues were minor, 14 per cent of new-car owners faced major problems that either caused the car to stop working or seriously impaired the operation of the car,” says Alan Kirkland, the CEO of CHOICE.

Holden tops the list of complaints, with 68 per cent of owners reporting a problem, ahead of Ford and Audi.



Ford came second in the list of problematic vehicles.


Even Toyota, recognised as the quality standard in Australia, had problems in 50 per cent of cars and Mazda, which did best in the CHOICE survey, only rated 44 per cent.

The results are better than similar surveys in the US, where the J.D. Power organisation routinely tracks customer complaint rates beyond 80 per cent, but still a worry for the Australian consumer body.

CHOICE is also concerned by the number of owners who are required to sign confidentiality agreements to get their cars repaired.

“This research shows that car companies are trying to cover up the scale of problems with new cars by forcing consumers to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to get problems fixed,” says Kirkland.



Audi drivers have also been hit with problems.


“This practice is totally unacceptable when cars are such a significant purchase and problems may relate to vehicle safety.

But the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, which represents car companies, disputes the claims.

“New-car buyers in Australia are protected by some of the longest warranties in the world and competition in the market means that FCAI members have an imperative to give support,” says FCAI chief executive, Tony Weber.

“This is inconsistent with what we saw last year in a consumer survey in Queensland. They had very few people come forward. This sort of analysis is useless unless the undermining research is able to determine the cause.”

But CHOICE says 15 per cent of people with problems were unable to resolve them, a number which is slightly higher for women.

“While some companies are doing the right thing, others are treating consumers’ statutory rights to replacements, refunds or repairs as an optional extra,” says Kirkland.


Brand — percentage with problems:

Holden — 68%

Ford — 65%

Audi — 62%

Hyundai, Jeep, Nissan, Volkswagen — 61%

BMW — 57%

Mitsubishi — 55%

Kia — 54%

Subaru — 53%

Suzuki — 51%

Toyota — 50%

Honda — 49%

Mazda 44 %


Problem areas:

In-car technology (Bluetooth connectivity) — 21%

Battery/electrical — 20%

Car interior — 20%

Engine — 15%

Tyres/wheels/suspension — 14%

Brakes — 11%

Bodywork/exteriors — 11%

Gears — 9%

Clutch — 6%

Exhaust — 4%

Odometer fraud — 2%


Originally published as New car buyers being sold ‘lemons’

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/tec...0450c078aa05da

[BFGasUte]

Hello,

It would be a nice change if the " lets keep it secret " fixes were made illegal, so people could come forward with real facts. People with a dud Car want it fixed, and this is how the makers get around it. Maybe there is some merit in the US Lemon laws.

[Franco Cozzo]

$50 on Holden Captiva causing most of those problems for Holden, they are the biggest piece of crap getting around on our roads.

[Falcman0o7]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

$50 on Holden Captiva causing most of those problems for Holden, they are the biggest piece of crap getting around on our roads.

And the cruze. Have a look here at the daewoo holdens ratings by actual owners..

http://www.productreview.com.au/p/20...captiva-7.html

http://www.productreview.com.au/p/20...-ii-cruze.html

http://www.productreview.com.au/p/ho...1-present.html

The holden badge and advertising sold them!

[RANGEREST]

I'm really quite surprised at the high average of just under 53% over all brands, I'd also hazard a guess lots of the problems are inept users, eg bluetooth connectivity.
And odometer fraud on new cars what the?

[Express]

Owners of 'lemon' cars are struggling to use their consumer rights to end nightmare

14 March, 2016
Esther Han
Consumer Affairs Editor


See link below article for video


CHOICE Magazine's CEO Alan Kirkland says consumers should not be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement when making warranty claims against car dealers


Two-thirds of new car buyers have experienced problems with their vehicles in the first five years of use, with some struggling to use their legal rights to a repair, refund or replacement.

A Choice survey found while most affected owners were able to get their car fixed, an "alarming" 15 per cent were unable to resolve the problem, despite warranties, insurance and consumer guarantees to repair, refund or exchange if a product is not of an acceptable quality.

Further, when owners were forced to pay for repairs, it cost them $1295 in direct fees and lost wages, and 31 hours.



Nearly 70 per cent of Holden owners said they experienced problems with their new car within five years. Photo: Supplied


"While some companies are doing the right thing, others are treating consumers' statutory rights as an optional extra," said Choice's chief executive, Alan Kirkland.

"The research findings convey the very real sense that car companies are off-loading sub-standard new cars on consumers and then using lawyers to fight consumers, forcing them to pay more to have their new cars fixed."

Choice also found 16 per cent of new car owners with problems were forced to sign a confidentiality agreement in order to obtain a remedy, banning them from telling anyone about their experience.



If a problem with a new car is a major one, customers can pursue a refund or replacement. Photo: Jay Cronan


Mr Kirkland accused car companies of attempting to cover up the scale of problems with new cars.

"It's astonishing. The problem is an owner might start thinking it's isolated and not rife across the industry," he said.

"This information should be in the public domain, available to consumers and regulators, and it's time this power imbalance was addressed."

When it came to complaints, the findings showed Holden was the worst performing car company, with 68 per cent of Holden owners experiencing problems with their new car, followed by Ford and Audi.

No car brand had an problem car rate of less than 44 per cent.

Greg Patten, chief executive of Motor Traders Association of NSW, which represents dealers, said the industry took warranty complaints very seriously and fixing problems properly and quickly was their "lifeblood".

He said in cases where there were confidentiality agreements, the consumer most likely had exhausted all options with manufacturers, fair trading agencies, lawyers, and were willing to sign an agreement.

"It would be worrying if consumers are immediately going to the dealer or manufacturer and signing a confidentiality agreement to get a warranty problem fixed, because that would mean all the advertising done about consumer rights has completely missed its mark."

While acknowledging the poor results, a Holden spokesman said it had improved customer service by proactively calling customers with multiple warranty cases, by being "very active" on social media, and by educating dealers.

"This is clearly an industry-wide area that requires attention and is often driven by the increasing complexity of modern vehicles and vehicle interaction with mobile devices," said Holden's Sean Poppitt.

"Non-disclosure agreements are certainly not standard practise for Holden for any warranty or product issue. In some individual cases where issues are raised outside of warranty, resolution agreements are documented for clarity."

Choice's research comes ahead of the review of the ACL this year, but a group of aggrieved car owners, LemonLaws4Aus, says existing laws are inadequate and national "lemon" laws should be introduced.

The proposed lemon laws, in general, imposes limits on the number to times a supplier can attempt to repair a defect in a vehicle before the buyer can ask for a refund or replacement.

The Consumer Action Law Centre supports the call for lemon laws, saying it has seen a large number of lemon car owners fail to achieve a satisfactory remedy despite the ACL.

In a submission to the Queensland government's inquiry into lemon cars and laws, it proposed a definition of "lemon" as a car that "has been repaired at least three times by the manufacturer or importer and the vehicle still has a defect or if the vehicle is out of service for 20 or more days in total due to a defect".

Mr Patten said existing laws adequately protected consumers.

"A new motor vehicle is a complex piece of machinery with tens of thousands of moving parts, some may fail, but there's a whole system to provide service and repair under warranty," he said.

"Where a vehicle has repetitive problems, which is a small number overall, it would be unusual the current laws don't adequately cover any situation that arises."

But Mr Kirkland said warranties sometimes confused consumers, making them think after it had expired that they can't pursue repairs and other remedies.

In his priorities speech for 2016, Rod Sims, chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, urged car companies to invest in after-sales car care, following its investigation of Fiat Chrysler, owner of Jeep.

"The consumer guarantees ... are not limited by a manufacturer's warranty and blanket refusals to consider warranty claims after the expiry of a manufacturer's warranty or solely through the strict conditions of those warranties will be of concern to us."

The Choice report also said some consumers found it difficult to convince dealers to acknowledge there was a problem with their new cars. Others reported that dealers appeared to deliberately avoid acknowledging problems existed until after dealer warranty periods expired.

The Australian Automotive Dealer Association was unable to provide a response, but pointed to its submission to the Queensland government's inquiry, which said the case was yet to be made for national lemon laws.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/retai...11-gngmhs.html

[Yellow_Festiva]

Impressed with Mazda actually.

[poppa smurf]

Hah! 3% complaint difference between Ford and Holden.......shows each is as bad as each other.

[290GTP]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

Hah! 3% complaint difference between Ford and Holden.......shows each is as bad as each other.

No. It shows that Holden is 3% worse.

[BFGasUte]

Hello,

Expensive cars have expensive service. The owners expect this and will pay for it mostly. This means better staff with better training that can spend more time to get it right first time. If you needed a Brain operation, would you just look for the cheapest price ? Cars are very complicated these days, so there is a lot more that can go wrong. Going back 40 years, the radio was the only electronic device. ( apart from the alternator diodes ) There are so many extra things in Cars now that were not even an option decades ago, so now we have to live with it. A Dealer wont acknowledge a problem is there, so he doesn't have to fix it. I had a fleet Holden with a sticky throttle. It would idle at highway speed. Never replaced anything but said it was fixed 3 times. That was the better dealer. I had to shake the wheel once to show loose bearings, their service department couldn't find a fault. Ford arnt perfect either, but with fleet Cars Holden is the worst I have dealt with.

[malazn mafia]

HOLDEN: Holes, Oil Leaks, Dents, Excessive Noise.

[Qwerty321]

Ironic how everyone here bags on Jeeps for being lemons and it turns out our Ford's are worse

Personally I'm not surprised with the high numbers for all brands. People take any chance to claim warranty (It's free! Why wouldn't you?). Most of the claims will just be rediculous things like a cupholder not clicking easily, or radio getting slight interference or something. Mind you dealers abuse the warranty too, they'll replace things that don't necessarily need replacing and send the bill to Ford, Chrysler etc. etc. They get to charge labour and the customer walks away happy.

[poppa smurf]

Hmmm! Ford worse than jeep in the lemon stakes........didn't pick that one up.....quick Mods, delete this thread and nothing more will be mentioned.

[mik]

The non disclosure for doing warranty repairs is absolute bull**** , the company`s involved should be named and shamed , that is disgraceful behavior.

[deluxe_]

Ford brand isn't perfect by any means but I strongly believe there are other brands that top the charts in customer dissatisfaction.

Who conducts these surveys and how they conduct it should be point allot of people miss asking the question. How the information was gathered and by what means still remains ambiguous at large.

[Grunter]

Originally Posted by deluxe_

Ford brand isn't perfect by any means but I strongly believe there are other brands that top the charts in customer dissatisfaction.

Who conducts these surveys and how they conduct it should be point allot of people miss asking the question. How the information was gathered and by what means still remains ambiguous at large.

The survey, as I understand it, is how many issues have been encountered with a new vehicle, and taken to a dealer to fix (or not). The numbers state they include issues whether resolved or not.

How manufacturers deal with the problems is where customer satisfaction would come in. As an example, Ford could have the 2nd worse amount of issues noted, but may have a higher customer satisfaction level than most others as more of the customers issues get resolved.

IMO the headlines are boarding on clickbait.

[Windsor220]

Thats the 2015 customer satisfaction for anyone interested

[Fordman1]

Wow it seems the stories about a Jeep are true.

[mike_nofx]

Originally Posted by Barraxr8

Wow it seems the stories about a Jeep are true.

Are you referring to the above table of customer satisfaction?

Between the Most and Least satisfied brand owners there is just a 5.9% difference. I feel that bar graph is a little misleading in that it goes from 700-820. If it were a 0-1000 graph the bars would be very close to each other.

[deluxe_]

It is also important to note that modern cars consist of hundreds of not thousands of components composed from mechanical, electrical, entertainment and computerized constituents. Half of these components are made by third party suppliers who have contract obligations with the manufacturer/brand. When these parts become faulty or prone to defect, the burden all falls on the manufacturer/brand and are held responsible, which is a major challenge to battle for the brand.

[Express]

Originally Posted by deluxe_

It is also important to note that modern cars consist of hundreds of not thousands of components composed from mechanical, electrical, entertainment and computerized constituents. Half of these components are made by third party suppliers who have contract obligations with the manufacturer/brand. When these parts become faulty or prone to defect, the burden all falls on the manufacturer/brand and are held responsible, which is a major challenge to battle for the brand.

And that is why it is so important for the manufacturer to have exemplary quality control systems in place to ensure contracted work meets the required standard prior to installation.

No manufacturer can afford to have their brand sullied by poor third part work.

[SYZ]

Originally Posted by deluxe_

It is also important to that modern cars consist of hundreds of not thousands of components composed from mechanical, electrical, entertainment and computerized constituents. Half of these components are made by third party suppliers who have contract obligations with the manufacturer/brand. When these parts become faulty or prone to defect, the burden all falls on the manufacturer/brand and are held responsible, which is a major challenge to battle for the brand.

I'm sorry, but I can't really agree with this assertion. When a consumer buys a motor vehicle, they're buying a complete, finished product from Ford or Volkswagen or Mazda etc. They're not buying a (warrantied) gearbox from BorgWarner, brakes from Brembo, lights from Hella, seats from SAAS, or audio from Alpine. It's totally immaterial from where Ford or GM source their sub-unit parts—it's Ford or GM who provide, honour and service their warranties.

You seem to be—at the least—suggesting that a faulty Ford transmission (for example) is not Ford's fault, but that of BorgWarner, and because of this Ford can't realistically be held morally responsible.

—Or am I maybe misinterpreting your comment?

[Express]

Originally Posted by SYZ

I'm sorry, but I can't really agree with this assertion. When a consumer buys a motor vehicle, they're buying a complete, finished product from Ford or Volkswagen or Mazda etc. They're not buying a (warrantied) gearbox from BorgWarner, brakes from Brembo, lights from Hella, seats from SAAS, or audio from Alpine. It's totally immaterial from where Ford or GM source their sub-unit parts—it's Ford or GM who provide, honour and service their warranties.

You seem to be—at the least—suggesting that a faulty Ford transmission (for example) is not Ford's fault, but that of BorgWarner, and because of this Ford can't realistically be held morally responsible.

—Or am I maybe misinterpreting your comment?

I didn’t read it your way.

I interpreted SYZ's post to simply mean third part suppliers can affect a brand.

I didn’t see it as excuse for the manufacturer not to be totally accountable.

What you say is 100% correct, the customer isn’t interested in excuses or where the failure occurred as to them it is the manufacturer’s problem and that is how it should be.

—Or am I maybe misinterpreting his comment?

[nstg8a]

I'm not surprised at all, each new model seems to have more dodgy plastics, and ever cheaper feeling components, with any attention focussing on those parts that are obvious.

My au fairlane felt better screwed together than either of my fg's, hell even my old ef ghia felt like it was better built.
Whilst I'd like a fgx, and I'm hoping to grab one near the end of the year, start of next year the build quality of modern cars does worry me.

The cost of repairs can mount up quickly.
I still think it's disgusting that manufacturers have continually avoided proper fixes for things like heat exchanger failures, diff bush failures, excessive bush wear etc etc.
Look how long it took ford to actually issue a recall for the territory ball joints.

[Peterwl]

While it is great to see this information in print in Australia pertaining to the manufacturer, the providers of this information are reluctant to specify models that are mostly effected.

As an example, Holden.

Are the vast majority of lemons Captiva and Cruze and the Commodore with very little ?

Is the Ford figure just for the FGX Falcon and very few issues with Focus, Territory etc ?

On the other end of the scale, Mazda at 44%. Do they have a model that is responsible for a large share of these problems ?

While these figures are guide to buying a more reliable car, they do not point the finger at the manufacturers that do not honor warranty or worse, force you into a confidentiality agreement to have you warranted vehicle made right.

The worst two manufacturers in this survey, Holden and Ford may have very reliable models that are clouded and hidden in the statistics of these figures.

[Franco Cozzo]

I've had 5 or so Captivas in my workshop recently, some odd failures in there such as an dash cluster packing it in, some of the 4 cylinder ones have crapped out the camshaft position sensors etc.

Just recently one came in for a AC compressor failure, on a car thats 4 years old.

[Syndrome]

A mate of mine 15 years ago purchased a brand new VX Berlina sedan with the GenIII V8. 40,000km later and the engine had to be rebuilt due to piston slap. He vowed never to buy another Australian made car.

Several years later he purchased a brand new diesel powered VW Jetta. Had to get the engine in that changed as well due to high oil consumption.

Happens to all brands. Just some people are more unlucky than others.

[olfella]

I had a problem with a Ford BF I bought. I ended up at consumer affairs to sort out as the dealer kept saying it was Fords problem, while I (and Fair Trading supported me) said, no I bought the car from you so you fix it. If you need to go to Ford then you go - not me. This is also supported in the article where they report, "The Choice report also said some consumers found it difficult to convince dealers to acknowledge there was a problem with their new cars. Others reported that dealers appeared to deliberately avoid acknowledging problems existed until after dealer warranty periods expired".
So, while the manufacturers cop a caning, it should be the dealers that are made more accountable.

[Windsor220]

Originally Posted by Peterwl

While it is great to see this information in print in Australia pertaining to the manufacturer, the providers of this information are reluctant to specify models that are mostly effected.

As an example, Holden.

Are the vast majority of lemons Captiva and Cruze and the Commodore with very little ?

Is the Ford figure just for the FGX Falcon and very few issues with Focus, Territory etc ?

On the other end of the scale, Mazda at 44%. Do they have a model that is responsible for a large share of these problems ?

While these figures are guide to buying a more reliable car, they do not point the finger at the manufacturers that do not honor warranty or worse, force you into a confidentiality agreement to have you warranted vehicle made right.

The worst two manufacturers in this survey, Holden and Ford may have very reliable models that are clouded and hidden in the statistics of these figures.

I'm wondering how many of Fords were to do with the dual clutch transmission in Focus and others

[Express]

Originally Posted by Peterwl

The worst two manufacturers in this survey, Holden and Ford may have very reliable models that are clouded and hidden in the statistics of these figures.

I don’t know how this survey works though Choice has a reputation for telling it like it is.

Traditionally it’s been the JD Power surveys that the manufacturer’s take notice of, so it will be interesting to see how far Choice pushes this and what affect it has on the consumer mindset.