Kizashi Club

A little background on our Kizashi.

Bought brand new in June of 2010. Its my wife's daily driver and it has 55,000km on it. It is absolutely babied, driven mostly on the highway, and we have never missed a service interval, all done at the dealership we bought it from. (Haber Suzuki in Winnipeg, MB)

Here is a chronological order of the things that have gone wrong with the car and have been replaced by the dealer.

Subwoofer - Died 3 days after buying the car, replaced by dealer without a fuss.

Stereo Head Unit - Would randomly change volume on its own, replaced by dealer without a problem.

Steering Wheel - Leather on the steering wheel cracked all the way around from being in the cold. Replaced by dealer, no issues really.

CVT Transmission and TCM - Transmission started spiking the rpm while travelling at highway speeds, with enough force to shake the entire car, fuel economy went into the toilet. Had to prove to dealer it was happening by recording the events with a camera and logging it. Dealership still had to prove it was happening on their own, put about 100km on the car trying to make it happen.

CVT Transmission - Second Transmission started doing the exact same thing as the first one within a month of being replaced. Again had to prove it to the dealership with video evidence. Took a little more effort to get it changed this time. But it was done.


So here is where I am at today. On Saturday both the second replacement CVT Transmission and the replacement steering wheel did the exact same thing as the originals. I am so fed up with the car my wife absolutely loves constantly having these issues. The service manager has taken our side with all these issues, but when we started to complain a little bit the dealership management really had nothing to offer us. Not even a real apology.

We don't want this car anymore, we don't trust it. Its still on warranty now for the drive train, but if this was happening off warranty it would be costing us an absolute fortune. Invoice on the CVT transmission is $7500 according to the service department.

What can I ask of Suzuki at this point? They have currently replaced more value in parts than what we originally paid for the car! Are there any consumer laws to protect us?

Try here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law

Sorry to hear you're having so many problems. I've been there in the past with two new vehicles and it's frustrating and stressful when so much money is involved. Note down the full history and who you've spoken to with dates etc. Here the first step would be to write to the dealer principal (ie. whomever owns the dealership) and voice your dissatisfaction, then Suzuki Canada if that doesn't work.

A relation is experiencing something very similar at the moment with a Mazda BT50 - it's about to have it's second auto transmission fitted at around 48000km. It's out of warranty- and there of course have been issues with getting it fixed under warranty- but they're doing it. The last trans lasted under 8000km!? They've admitted the original rebuilt trans had been fitted with the same faulty parts that caused the original failure....

Hope it works out for you. My gut feeling is something external to the trans is causing yours to fail.

Laws are usually dependent by state in the US. I'm not sure about the Canada. You will probably have to talk to a lawyer.

It has been multiple issues I'm not sure there is a lot they will do. In the US they usually have to fail at fixing a problem multiple times.

You might be up to three strikes on the CVT so maybe they will have to do something.

Sorry I'm not really providing anything useful.

I live in Edmonton AB. The winter here should be as cold as yours if not more. I have never had any issue with the steering wheel. Do you mind taking a pic of the steering wheel?? It shouldn't be cracking due to low temp cus my is fine (knock on wood).

First I would recommend you taking this matter to suzuki canada head office. Go to suzuki.ca and then click contact us at the very bottom. Make sure you get a respond from customer relations.

At the same time, go to OCA website (office of consumer affairs). I think suzuki is under CAMVAP (Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan) regulations. Here is the link and follow the directions:

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/oca-bc.nsf ... 02324.html

If you want to go further, bring this matter to media's attention!

Good luck and keep us posted!!

Every time I read this kinda crap I feel blessed by my trouble-free '11......

U should feel blessed. My AWD SLS prolly isnt as good a ride as yours.

Northernstar wrote:I live in Edmonton AB. The winter here should be as cold as yours if not more. I have never had any issue with the steering wheel. Do you mind taking a pic of the steering wheel?? It shouldn't be cracking due to low temp cus my is fine (knock on wood).

First I would recommend you taking this matter to suzuki canada head office. Go to suzuki.ca and then click contact us at the very bottom. Make sure you get a respond from customer relations.

At the same time, go to OCA website (office of consumer affairs). I think suzuki is under CAMVAP (Canadian Motor Vehicle Arbitration Plan) regulations. Here is the link and follow the directions:

http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/oca-bc.nsf ... 02324.html

If you want to go further, bring this matter to media's attention!

Good luck and keep us posted!!

Thank you very much for you response, this is exactly what I am looking for.

I spoke to the service manager on Monday and I didn't get a very good response. It sounds like they want to blame us for abusing the car somehow. I tried to explain that my wife drives very cautiously, and she operates the car 90% of the time, and then they even tried to turn that around on me and say that "maybe it needs to be driven harder".

He asked me to email proof of the RPM spiking. I sent him 1 minute long video showing the rpms spiking constantly, road conditions, and current km on the vehicle. Its being sent to Suzuki and I guess they will make the decision from there. I've had to go through this same process with the first two transmissions.

All they keep telling me is that I am the only Kizashi owner in the world to be having these problems.

As for the steering wheel, I will try and take a picture, they look like stretch marks where the leather has split. They close up when it gets warmer out, but you can still feel them. The first time it split really bad right at the top, this time around it split at the bottom. I think this is a known problem b/c Suzuki replaced it without too much hassle, and the second wheel we got was made of a different material than the first one.

Ok, so I have to give the dealership (Regent Suzuki) some early credit right now.

They called me up on Thursday and arranged for me to have a courtesy car and they are taking our car until they can replace the transmission again.

They informed me that our car isn't the only car with this problem anymore, and that there are 3 reported cases in Canada. He didn't have access to worldwide numbers of CVT transmission failures.

At the rental car place (Suzuki pays for rental cars as courtesy cars) the guy there asked me what our car was in for this time (he recognized me as being a repeat customer) and I told him. He said that they have had similar issues with cars with CVT transmissions in their rental fleet.

They have also agreed to at least try and have the steering wheel replaced under warranty again for the split leather. I wasn't able to take a picture of it with my camera phone that could show the slits, but its one of those things that you can feel more than you can really see. It looks like zipper tracks.