Holden Cruze recalled again

Holden's embattled Cruze has been recalled yet again, due to an ongoing driveshaft fracture problem that can cause the car to lose power and coast to a stop.

Just under 8000 turbo-diesel Cruze models are being recalled, all of them fitted with automatic transmissions. The majority of them were built between February 2009 and December 2010 in Korea but there are also around 550 versions that were made in Australia.

The Holden Cruze small car has been the subject of several recalls in Australia over the years, including one in 2010 for a potential fuel leak, another in 2012 for a possible fire hazard, then in 2013 for a brake issue, and the most recent in April 2014 was for the same driveshaft fracture issue that forced this latest recall, albeit for petrol models.

The car has also had its fair share of recalls overseas too, with hundreds of thousands of the vehicles being recalled for similar issues as listed above.

The driveshaft problem car occur if the driver of the Cruze makes a right turn at slow speeds, which can cause the driveshaft to fracture. If this happens, the car will lose power and roll to a stop.

As is usually the case with vehicle recalls, affected owners will be contacted by Holden and required to make an appointment with a dealer for an inspection. If the driveshaft is faulty Holden will replace it, an operation it says takes roughly an hour.

General Motors, which owns Holden, has recalled more than 28 million vehicles globally this year, with a whopping 8.4 million vehicles recalled last week.

It's not the only car company recalling en masse, with several Japanese manufacturers recalling millions of vehicles due an airbag fault.

The world's second-largest component supplier, Takata, is to blame for more than 10 million recalls from Honda, Toyota, Nissan and others, for supplying a faulty airbag. The latest recall activated a week ago affected almost 26,000 Nissans sold in Australia.