[NickD]

As far as I am concerned, the ABS brakes on my 2012 2LT really suck, clunk like crazy if mother nature doesn't put an even coat of ice under both wheels at a stop sign. To get around this, downshift, and very slowly press on the pedal than quickly ease off so the darn front end doesn't rattle apart.


Not the first car with ABS, over 30 years worth, others would just buzz, mostly felt on the pedal, my dealer says, dey all do dis. Tend to agree with them, with mandatory ABS, sure cheapened them up. But not a problem at all on dry surfaces. You do not specify the conditions of your road, suppose to guess? Are you ABS being activated?


With front end clunks, extremely difficult to determine what and where behind the wheel, get a trusted driver and with run along side, not on a busy highway or road, and really helps to determine the source of the noise, can actually see the wheel move forwards and backwards with defective ball joints. Can also be defective control arm bushings. Really not very much to the Cruze's front suspension. With the 04 Cavalier, was defective upper strut bearings, but once in my hand, were really sloppy.

Another was a broken upper spring coil, really not enough to lower the vehicle. Troubleshooting should easy unless you have an idiot working on your car. Sure ran into a bunch of morons, idiots would be a compliment with defective rear disc calipers. Like ain't getting any codes, your calipers are fine kind of absolute idiotic statements. Other problems are loose tie rod ends, but can feel the slop in the steering, broken stabilizer links, eyes work for these.

Bushings should be sprayed with silicone, dey don't do dis with an oil change and advertised grease job, last much longer.

Typical brake problems are a low pedal or shimmy when coming to a stop. Cruze used these crazy pad cradles with steel clips, where rust builds up underneath binding the pads, can't release and warp the rotors.

May have to give you the same advice a GM rep gave me on this board, find another dealer, with me the third one was okay. But no problem after my warranty runs out, will do it myself.

My Chevy dealer wanted $$$$ for upper strut bearings, cost me 40 bucks and about two hours of slow easy work. And I am slow!

 

[NickD]

Five easy to remove bolts removes the struts from these things. With that spring pressure relieved, can really rattle things around to find the problem.

I drill holes in the bottom of my ball joints using a spur drill so chips don't get up into the grease. Then add a self tapping zerk fitting to give it a shot of grease every once in awhile. They last a lot longer this way. Same for the tie rod ends.

 

[NickD]

Nothing like going to a wheel alignment shop and being told all four of your ball joints are bad. Well I didn't go, my kid did, called me to come over. We just replaced all four ball joints! Hand me that quote for 800 bucks. The guy tore it up.

Not only this son, but two other sons and three daughters when off to college. Just told them to come home, but dad, they told me my car would fall apart and I will get killed! You won't get killed, know your cars. On one car, they loosened the wheel bearing saying the joints were bad, the crooks.

Makes a guy paranoid when you run into things like this over and over again. Another daughter came home with an outrageous quote with a check engine light on. Know exactly what the problem is and will be a five minute job for me. Ha, one way to get a daughter home for Thanksgiving. She was also made afraid to drive it, positivity no problems driving it home.

 

[NickD]

To put it bluntly, the brakes on these cars are complete and utter ****.

Somebody didn't do their homework in copying this 80's cradle with metal clips so they didn't have to machine the pad contact points. Even CR cut Toyota down on these kind of brakes. But not nearly the problem if you live in a salt free road area. Salt gets trapped between this cradle and metal clips, expands with rust and locks the pads. Back then, GM had far superior brakes.

With drums, got rid of that heavy U shaped single spring and went back to those tiny little coil springs like used on a 41 Chevy. But wasn't much of a problem even back then, no such thing as road salt. Insufficient force to activate the self adjust feature.

So if you are wondering why we are having problems, there is a reason, as stated above.

Another big fat lie is that ABS does not interfere with normal braking. If a solenoid cheap made in China transistor shorts out, or using hygroscopic brake fluid that corrodes a valve where either can cause that valve to close. You get no brakes period to that particular wheel.

How does it feel to live in an era loaded with BS?

One key reason they put a label on an electronic module, DO NOT OPEN, NO USER REPLACEABLE PARTS INSIDE. Is that they don't want you to see the cheap crap inside you are paying a fortune for. But getting around this by feeling up that cavity with epoxy.

Same thing with an ABS module, no replaceable parts available, no instructions on how to repair it, just pay $$$$ for a new one. Problem can be as simple as a cheapass made in China spring that broke, preventing a valve from opening.

This is telling it the way it is!!! And I dare anyone to contradict this! Tees me off.

 

[NickD]

A long list of parts? Did that include a new console lid?