Scotty,
My wife and I recently had our vw passat break down on us. Since we were in a pinch we bought a 2012 Chevy Cruze auto transmission because it was cheap and I didn’t do my research first. The car has 105,000 miles on it. We just need it to last us about a year or so until we can save enough money to buy a nice Toyota. Any tips to making this thing last us another 15-20k miles or so. Thanks man!
Assuming the car is not showing any signs of distress yet just keep up with regular maintenance and take it easy while driving it.
Just change the oil.
Nothing catastrophic is going to happen in 15k
If you have the 1.4 Turbo, these tend to fail suddenly and catastrophically if you don't know what to look for.
But if you monitor for signs of PCV system failure and service any fault reasonably quickly - it can be alright.
(PCV on these is a red membrane in the valve cover, inspect it and replace it asap if it shows symptoms like rough operation, mixture codes, or feeling pressure when opening the oil fill, very poor gas milage can be a symptom of a bad membrane)
Also the turbocharger on these is weak, they all are cracked, the question is if it's close to failing, and if it is dump the car.
But other then that: Change the engine oil 3k-5k miles (you should be able to do 7k), change the ATF every 30k miles at most, follow any additional maintenance requirements.
