Premature engine failure - current model Holden Colorado?

Rosss
Did all the replacement seals come from a dealership? ie, "genuine"

Holden or rather GM is renown for using sus rubber sealing things and source the cheapest. They hope it staggers through warranty.

Not a good situation. Possibly a reasonable vehicle sentenced to death by the bean counters who won't authorize the procurement of decent seals.

Cheers
Ross M

Yeh Mate, all genuine ,talked to one of the young mechanics that works there that I have known for a number of years, he said common problem, that's why they have the seals on the shelf.

Are these engines made by either Fiat or VM (Italy??) or was that an earlier incarnation?

When we were considering this style of vehicle we were told that the 2.8 diesel was a product of one of these manufacturers.

Cheers
Pop

Rosss
That is exactly what I mean. They are known to fail but the company does nothing to rectify the situation. The dealers have stocks of them on the shelf, they are all nice and new and clean and round but they are just crap quality.
So each seal which craps itself is therefore replaced with another crap seal which will also crap itself.
if anyone went down to the local bearing place and bought a suitable seal the vehicle would then have no problem.

Why do Toyota seals last for hundreds of thousands of Km's?
Even Peter Brock replaced all oil seals in the things he raced because of reliability issues.

A company attitude causes the failures.

I would have thought fixing the problem amounted to doing something about it. How would u have any bloody idea they were putting crap seals back in...

Sounds to me you need a bex and a good lie down.

whats a bex?

Bex
Old headache remedy

John & Regina
Why do they keep failing then, when other makes of vehicle DON"T have the failures.
If the engine parts are the same engineering concept as others then that just leaves the seal. ARF ARF.
If not it is the engine design, cos other companies can make and engine which doesn't leak. After Decades of engine technology GM make an engine which leaks. That is GM progress for you.

GM = Greed + Money

GM and GMH engines. Marking their territory with oil trails from leaking crap seals since 1908.

Still marking their territory with leaking crap seals in 2013.

Good to see they haven't let their reputation down.

(P.S. - the 2.5L and 2.8L engines in the Colorado are VM design engines, built under licence from VM, in GM's Rayong factory in Thailand, using 55% local components. No indication of where the other 45% is sourced from, no doubt from other GM factories worldwide.)

GM is just like Ford and 100 other manufacturers - they buy a design off an independent manufacturer - then see how cheaply they can produce it, by cutting corners in the design and construction of many parts and components.
Every $1.00 they save on each engine translates to $100,000 pure bottom-line profit, on an annual production of say, 100,000 engines.

Ron N
I totally agree, but it does seem there are some people continue to defend the car makers, possibly they haven't had any real contact with motor car makers.
They may be a shareholder and that shortcut $1 saved on each vehicle item means bigger dividends for them.
While people continue with the head in the sand not much is going to change, not even the oil trails in the sand.

I was told about it from a friend. I haven't seen it myself. Thus it is "alleged" to me.

Probably not alleged to the driver though, as I'm told he is now driving an old crappy Ute till the Colorado is fixed! ;)

A low pressure shutdown system could cost as much as $10.
You wouldn't make a very good bean counter in a car company, would you? [;-)

Besides, when engines blow up because they ran out of oil - you can blame the owner for not checking the oil, or finding out where that oil was leaking from, can't you?

Then you can sell the owner a new engine. It's a good system, it works just fine. Can't have cars out there, that don't consume lots of expensive parts.

we had a falcon work ute engine died at about 70,000 a rodeo same about 70,000 and toyota hilux over 230,000 no probs we now have diesel tritons lets see how long they last, all previous utes were petrols and they copped a flogging day in and day out and the tojo was by far the best of the lot, the tritond have more fancy stuff than the old luxes did but i doubt they will last as long as the old luxes did.

Not sure why your Falcon Ute failed at so low KM's; I had an AU Ute with 242K on it when I sold it & I had absolutely flogged it day in, day out - towing lopped trees in a trailer up the hill from Tea Tree Gully to Chain of Ponds to dump at a mates property for firewood. It missed a few services here & there along the way too! ;) It was thirsty, but VERY, VERY reliable! I've seen it around recently, a young tradie drives it. I miss it!

Main reason I asked was that I thought that all diesels had a low oil pressure cut out in them and I often wondered why petrols don't have this as well. Years ago I had a 1980 2h diesel cruiser which shut down when it ran low on oil because I didn't remove the old o-ring on the oil filter lucky they had a cut out system built in. Come to think of it a company I worked for a couple of yrs ago had to replace the motor in a V8 diesel cruiser ute because it ran out of oil.

andrew t
I bet the shockers on the Triton will vapourize ie no shock absorber action much at all after about 10,000km. Crash as a result of worn shocks has happened before with them. I've picked up a few crashed for no reason, just lost control.

Batt's comment is a good point, but some Toyota's have Low pressure cut out but that costs money and as Ron said, if the Colorado engine doesn't give trouble then they can't sell a new vehicle or engine or repair parts. It is all worked out in the scale of business.

We are beginning to see the claim of it having a DURAMAX engine being shot to ribbons as it is totally unrelated to the Duramax.

BATTS,
The low oil cut off on your 2H wasnt primarily to shut the motor down if it had no oil pressure
It was to stop the engine running backwards.
With the inline pump it was possible (I had it happen) but the engine produces no oil pressure so shuts down.
Its a safety thing not a save the engine thing.
When the 2h was superceeded by the 1hz with its rotary fuel pump the low oil pressure shut off wasnt included because they won't provide fuel for running backwards

"Ross M posted:
andrew t
I bet the shockers on the Triton will vapourize ie no shock absorber action much at all after about 10,000km. Crash as a result of worn shocks has happened before with them. I've picked up a few crashed for no reason, just lost control."

Interesting comment, I towed for over 10 years and could count on one hand the Tritons towed & none that could blame shocks.
I have(had) 2, an ML and now have a MN both cars on original shocks. ML now done 150K odd and the MN 75K with no issues

Not sure, but it appears the leaks have started already.

My Commodore dumped all its ATF fluid and I didn't notice until it went bang. Somebody following me (Covered in ATF fluid said it all happened in about 2km @110kmh.

Obviously you didn't read the post very well, no friends involved in my situation.

Its not speculation, it happened - the engine failed!

The poor guy is now driving around in a crappy old Ute waiting for his pride & joy to be fixed.

Competitor???

I lop trees for a living! I have no interest in car sales whatsoever. Nor do I have any brand loyalty (to anything, cars or otherwise!)

Rosss, what year model is yours?