VF Holden Commodore Issues and Faults

[diysv6]

I've had a 2014 build MY15 VF Calais Sportwagon since June 15. It was a Holden executive car first registered Jan 15, resold at 4K, so essentially new.

I found the original Climate control just woeful. It took 10 minutes to show the correct outside temp in the morning and it would blow either full hot or full cold and not very consistently. At the 15k service they did an engineering update and the CC is now more livable but nothing like how I would consider a good CC to act. It is still inferior to the VS Berlina or Vectra climate controls I've previously owned. I'll be interested to see if they update it again if there is a Jan 16 software update. The automatic fan speed seems to be a joke, since you set that speed through a menu option :hmmm: . Whatever happened to blow fast when you get into a hot car and drop back the fan speed after it has cooled somewhat?

I have been driving a bit on dirt roads and have found there is a real dust leakage issue. I have tried closing the flow through and various combinations of climate control settings, all to no avail. I can't track down the cause, but think it must be the seal around the tailgate door, even with the soft close function thingy, supposedly closing things tight. Most dust seems to settle on the cargo space blind. Perhaps it is coming in through the rear air exit vents? I'd also be a lot happier if the climate control settings would stay on screen all the time rather than disappearing a few seconds after you change a setting. It is difficult to see at a quick glance to the console in daylight if the air is on recirc or not.

Just rotated the tyres. The rears are just about worn to the marker nibs at 21K of mostly highway driving. The Vectra did 75K on it's original Polish made Turanzas. I figure I'll be lucky to get 30K on these Thai Turanzas.

This might be too left field.

My VZ sedan has "one way" flap valves built into each of the boot's side wells, concealed by the rear bumper. These valves allow the decompression of the cabin/boot spaces when you close the doors. If one of them was leaking/open the dust could present itself somewhere under the internal trim and perhaps where your dust is showing at present. I believe the sedan and wagons in the VF have the same pressure reduction devices.

 

[Snicko1]

The air con is pretty crap, my ba ford turbo i had over 10 years ago was always great - 21.5 or 19 degrees was the way to go! With the VF find it hard to get a consistent climate

 

[Snicko1]

Well my battery died on 11/1

Drove it on the 19th and all was fine, opened the car at 6:30am on the 11th via remote to throw my laptop bag in and all was well. Went to remote start the car at 7am and it wouldn't start - it had 8Volts.
Tried to jump start the car and even with 5 mins charge the VF did not have enough power to start.

Grabbed a new bosch battery from IBD (Gave me a VE v6 wagon battery thinking they were the same, turns out VF calais uses the same as a VE V8 which is slightly larger). Tried to open the boot not enough power, the car was dead with 4 Volts. Hooked the jump start car back up hoping it would give enough power for me to open teh tailgate and get to the battery. After 20 mins it still was only at 4Volts.
The battery had suffered a major failure, and being a wagon there is no emergency tailgate release like in the sedans.

So i had to open the car manually, reach in and open the rear door, fold rear seats down, crawl into cargo compartment and disconnect the dead battery that wouldn't even charge, hook up a new battery via jumper leads to give the car power so i could open the tailgate, and then replace the battery.

Bit of a bitch, but if you had a major cell failure on a battery like i did and you have a solid cargo barrier installed you would be in serious trouble as you couldn't get to the battery.

 

[Jarp]

Just gave the VF2 a wash and wax and must say I really noticed the flimsiness of the panels. Particularly the front and rear quarter panels. The VE was far solider. Drives so much better though.

 

[rossymond]

Could of just unhooked the battery and ran the car directly from the jump pack? This might have given you power to release the doors

 

[Snicko1]

Thats what i did do, but to get to the battery you still have to do the same, crawl in thru the rear seats in to the tailgate

 

[POB]

Hey all. New to this forum.

Had my 2013 VF SS for a 10 months now.

Chasing to see if anyone has had these same issues, as my car went into a dealer today (thurs 4pm they called) and I won't be getting it back for a few days apparently (maybe has to do with parts ordering as they said Monday or Tuesday at the earliest) and Holden said the vehicle was NOT SAFE TO CONTINUE DRIVING. So I thought I'd put this out there and see what comes back as I've searched the forums and can't find anything that quite matches up. The main issue has been going on for a week or two so far, I initially thought it was just me being picky about the feeling and responsiveness after I hadn't driven it for a few weeks (working away on FIFO).

1- can't get car to find, or to go into auto park mode.

2- squeaks in the drivers seat (simple lube fix).
And the big one's

3-A. steering has a groan noise coming from up top just behind the steering wheel when turning especially when moving the wheel in like a parking lot.

3-B. Steering goes from hard to turn to very easy to turn and vice versa, or steering can "jump" (imagine hand on wheel at 2 o'clock position rounding a roundabout, then it jumping so very quickly to about the 6 o'clock position) this even happens on slight sweeping bends and can be made worse and give you a fright if you go over a join in the road surface, or clip an "in road" cats eye reflector (the ones in the middle of the road); I always drive to anticipate other road users I shouldn't have to drive like I'm having to anticipate an error like this!

I cannot think of any reason why it would be doing these things; apart from a major issue with the electric steering motors or rack?

Anyone have any thoughts? I will post a detailed report from Holden once I get it back from them; because I'm going to grill the service department over this one for anyone else out there with an issue like this.

Thanks

 

[Sir Les]

The steering problem sounds as though the electric motor which provides steering assistance is cutting in and out. There is a recognised Holden fix for this, which consists of coating the motor's electrical connectors with special electrical grease to ensure good contact. All VF's require this fix, which should have been carried out at a recent service. You can check with the dealer whether your car has had the fix applied (it should have been recorded).

The problem with auto park mode MAY be connected with the above, or may be something entirely different. The electronics/computer modules on modern cars are so complicated these days that sometimes I think they are too clever for their own good!

 

[POB]

The steering problem sounds as though the electric motor which provides steering assistance is cutting in and out. There is a recognised Holden fix for this, which consists of coating the motor's electrical connectors with special electrical grease to ensure good contact. All VF's require this fix, which should have been carried out at a recent service. You can check with the dealer whether your car has had the fix applied (it should have been recorded).

The problem with auto park mode MAY be connected with the above, or may be something entirely different. The electronics/computer modules on modern cars are so complicated these days that sometimes I think they are too clever for their own good!

It's had all its services as scheduled SirLes; and I've asked about ensuring recalls have been completed each time it went in. For them to say unsafe for the road suggests a bigger issue. But I will advise once I get it back and thankyou for your input mate. Your right about the gizmos they put in these days though too! First world problems eh?

 

[revster]

The part that worries me is you have a 2 year old car that has had all its services and recalls etc and the dealer says it is unsafe to drive? Seems like others outside the forum would be interested too.

Bob