Vauxhall Cresta Hydramatic experiences
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Sir,
When trouble occurred with this unit (in under 30,000 miles) I wrote to the factory requesting information on a replacement exchange, but I was told that these were not available; however, arrangements had been made for me with one of their main dealers on South London for the overhaul and that they were capable of correcting the fault, which was simply that the bottom gear was holding to 20 m.p.h. instead of changing up at about 12 m.p.h.
After returning the car to them for the third time, after an expensive repair had been made, as completely unsatisfactory. I was informed by them that they were unable to do anything further to improve it.
The “repair” as made, now gives a great “crunch” when changing from 1st to 2nd like a bump in the back and enough to break the differential plus runaway “flaring” in 2nd going up to peak revs.
Considerable correspondence and phone calls with the Vauxhall factory over a period of two months (with the car laid up in the garage and impossible to use) culminated with a personal letter to their managing director, and this brought a letter from yet a third Public Relations Officer (it generally takes a fortnight to get a reply from this department) asking if I would get the car tested by another Vauxhall dealer, even though they had had the opinion of an R.A.C. engineer and scrutineer who advised its return to the Luton works.
When I was eventually able to get a report from a Vauxhall agent (and three Main Distributors had refused to give WRITTEN report)—a travelling works engineer gave the car a five minute check and reported his findings, and, nearly a fortnight later, another letter from Vauxhalls asking me to return the car to the original repairers who would strip it down again (at my expense only) to see if they could do anything else!
Thoroughly fed-up by this time, I phoned the London Main Distributors asking them if they would fit a new hydramatic gearbox to my car, only to be told that they could not supply it and asked me to phone the American Agents for Buicks!
As the car is still in the garage, would anyone like an expensive hen coop ?
Purley. A.D. Jaffe.