Advice/Help Needed: Suzuki Vitara Brezza recurring issue

[TheJudge]

A car bought brand new and only driven 17 800km with things breaking is not your problem, take it to dealership and say you want something else and you're sick of the car and you won't take it back home.

They will jump. I did this when I bought a problem Nissan last year, and battled for more than 2 months with multiple visits to the dealership and sat with 3 different loan cars. Only after I did the above did they REALLY do something about it.

Ps . Don't buy Nissans

Our 2013 1.6 Qashqai ran flawlessly except for a strange need to chew lightbulbs (a friend had the same model and it did the same). This year arrived (now on 174k km) and I've dropped about R40k into it including an R10k fuel pump and sender unit. Gonna be dumping it soon. Apparently the X-Trail has two fuel pump (high and low pressure) and each one costs R11k...

 

[SteveIndeed]

The shit with Suzukis always seems to happen to the Indian-built ones (the rusty Swift saga involved an Indian-built car), never the Japanese-built ones. The Indian-built ones are so different to the Japanese-origin ones that they even have a different name: Maruti Suzuki. Even the sheet metal used to make the Indian-origin cars is of poorer quality, to the extent that they have far worse results in crash tests. The metal on the Indian cars actually deforms more easily that on the Japanese cars. My little Swift Sport is ten-years-old this year and 108,000km down but not once has it set a foot wrong. It was built in Japan.

The Vitara Brezza is built in India by Maruti Suzuki... You won't find Indian-built Suzukis on sale in the UK.

@thecurto, also, be prepared for a long fight. Suzuki SA is notorious for washing their hands of issues like these.

 

[thecurto]

Thanks all. Some very useful advice gleaned from this thread. My plan of action:

1. GET ANGRY!!!. I have probably been too civil up till now so I'm happy to play hard ball.
2. Try another dealership. I've been working through Suzuki Cape Town in the City Centre but I live closer to Suzuki Claremont now.
3. Demand that the belt/pulley and corresponding parts are replaced along with the water pump this time. If not, I will refuse to take the car back and demand a replacement vehicle.
4. Demand a detailed diagnostics report with exactly what was changed/replaced and ask to inspect the faulty parts that were removed (if they allow that).
5. If step 3 and 4 fail, escalate to head office.
6. If step 5 fails, go public.

 

[TheJudge]

Thanks all. Some very useful advice gleamed from this thread. My plan of action:

1. GET ANGRY!!!. I have probably been too civil up till now so I'm happy to play hard ball.
2. Try another dealership. I've been working through Suzuki Cape Town in the City Centre but I live closer to Suzuki Claremont now.
3. Demand that the belt/pulley and corresponding parts are replaced along with the water pump this time. If not, I will refuse to take the car back and demand a replacement vehicle.
4. Demand a detailed diagnostics report with exactly what was changed/replaced and ask to inspect the faulty parts that were removed (if they allow that).
5. If step 3 and 4 fail, escalate to head office.
6. If step 5 fails, go public.

Look up reviews for the Claremont Dealership too, seems a lot of high ratings on Google but of course go through the 1 star ones and see if any ring alarm bells for you. I only had dealings with Mekor Ford and that was many years back. The Suzuki Claremont one is small by the look of it, I drive past it every day.

 

[Confucius]

Every time something fails on my German POS, it is the cost of half a Japanese POS to repair.

That’s cos you go buy the high performance German POS.

Japanese ones should be half the price, look at how small they are built… well except those sumo wrestlers.

 

[BlueCrayon]

Our 2013 1.6 Qashqai ran flawlessly except for a strange need to chew lightbulbs (a friend had the same model and it did the same). This year arrived (now on 174k km) and I've dropped about R40k into it including an R10k fuel pump and sender unit. Gonna be dumping it soon. Apparently the X-Trail has two fuel pump (high and low pressure) and each one costs R11k...

To be fair, older Nissans were solid cars. I meant to say don't buy new Nissans anymore.

 

[PandaAttack1]

That’s cos you go buy the high performance German POS.

Japanese ones should be half the price, look at how small they are built… well except those sumo wrestlers.

 

[TheJudge]

To be fair, older Nissans were solid cars. I meant to say don't buy new Nissans anymore.

So the one I got I specifically researched, the Qashqai I got was made was made in Japan. Their auto boxes have a very bad reputation for grenading after 100k (mine is manual). You're right about older Nissans though.

One thing though that took us by surprise was that my wife and I think the fit and finish on our old 2007 Trendline Polo Classic is better than the Qashqai, also less tinny sounding when you close door. Wife likes the SUV style but given how mental car prices are the only real options I've seen with six airbags and reasonable space inside are the new Urban Cruiser / Grand Vitara or Corolla Cross under R400k. Our Qashqai cost R215k in 2013, new entry level one costs R550k approx!

 

[ettiene]

Go to another Suzuki dealership and bring it in, involve the workshop manager too (don't replace anything yourself, you void the warranty).

I can't believe a water pump can fail 3 times in 20000km. Even looking on Suzuki's Hellopeter, I can only find one person complaining about replacing a water pump and that was on a 1.0 S-Presso.

Maybe there is another issue with the belt as mentioned above.

You do know what the word skelm means?
We used to service our Suzuki's skelm between the official services while they where under warrenty. Also changed a clutch skelm at like 20k km.
The dealer also screwed me on its warrenty, sold as 200k / 5 years, when it was also 100k / 3 years. After big fight I decided screw them, will service them myself. Save the cost of their services towards if something happens later down the line.

I have wasted too much time, effort and aggravation fighting with useless dealers.

 

[doodles.due]

Guys, an incredibly important thing to do now that you can use independant accredited workshops is to do your research first and find out if there are any bad reviews of the dealership with regards to its workshop-You want to use a workshop that has a very good reputation-a waterpump failing multiple times like that means the okes at the workshop don't know what they doing-if this failing waterpump was a common issue there would have been probably been a recall by now..

That's why I keep my 2006 325i BMW far away from any workshop and do the servicing myself-saves you lots of money in the long run-when you work on your own car and you do your research you would do things by the book obviously but a lot of these mechanics/technicians might take shortcuts to save time and money,if they have a fuckup on a car they work on they simply transfer those costs onto the customer...

 

[doodles.due]

You do know what the word skelm means?
We used to service our Suzuki's skelm between the official services while they where under warrenty. Also changed a clutch skelm at like 20k km.
The dealer also screwed me on its warrenty, sold as 200k / 5 years, when it was also 100k / 3 years. After big fight I decided screw them, will service them myself. Save the cost of their services towards if something happens later down the line.

I have wasted too much time, effort and aggravation fighting with useless dealers.

Yep, the motor vehicle servicing industry is dogshit,my sisters bf that is a qualified experienced technician told me a few horror stories of how these places catch on kak and get away with it-once the service plan is finished try and fix it all yourself where possible.

 

[Killer_Inc Mods]

Fun fact, I have a 2021 Suzuki Swift, bought brand new out the box. I myself am on the road a lot seeing clients, so wanted something reliable and light this time. My water pump failed at roughly 6000km's as well. But I mine is the 1.2 GLX. Smaller engine, so yeah.

The people at the Table View branch said it was a first for them, they never had this happen before. After a lengthy back and forth on the phone, they were able to get a new water pump and fit it, within 4 days from being booked in. They initially said, they didn't have stock of said water pump due to it not being something that should be breaking so quickly. Was going to take about a month for them to get stock of said part, as it had to be shipped in.... Well, I was not having it and they "found" one the next day.

Sitting at 15000 km's now and no more issues.

I was myself also googling to see if I could find similar issues and could not.

Just hope they can get it sorted out properly for you @ OP.