The Joys of Owning a '12

Regular readers will recall that back in the fall I purchased my first new vehicle: a 2012 Chevrolet Cruze LT Turbo. This car has performed very VERY admirably, both on the highway and in the city. It gets great mileage, handles like a dream, and is actually a lot of fun to drive.

Well, last week after a trip to Oshawa, I came off the highway to find the engine smoking. Obviously, at under 12,000 kilometers, this is not an ideal situation. I thought at first it was just steam, but when I tracked it down it turns out there was some alien-blood fluorescent green goo flowing down onto the inside grille, and it was that green stuff that was burning up and smoking.

Green leaking fluids + smoking engine = trip to the dealer. So off I went. At first the lady who books the repairs was baffled. Smoking engine on a brand new '12? Green stuff? What the???

When the mechanic checked it out though, the answer was obvious to him. Freon leak. Apparently they dye freon bright green to make it obvious and distinguishable from the other vital fluids in the car. A small rock had flown up and dinged the a/c compressor, causing the leak.

Thankfully this specific repair is under warranty. But it's so new, neither my dealer nor the supplier in Mississauga have the parts for it yet. So the big joy now is waiting until the parts get shipped from the main production facility in Michigan! It will get fixed, but the fun is watching everybody at the dealership scratching their heads because the car is so new they've never had to actually do a repair on one yet.

This should be an interesting week.