Jump to content

Chevy Spark's cousin - Holden Barina Spark


Recommended Posts

Hi everyone, I have a 2010 Barina Spark, I love it but I am not fond our Australian Holden dealerships. They will milk you for every dollar they can get out of you. For instance my first service was $900. 13 more services and I could've bought another Spark. I'm sure that the reason why some people buy a small economical car is because that's all they can afford, this is the reason I bought my Spark. Bonus was that I loved it anyway but crikey they really sting you with after sales stuff....and the poor get poorer. Anyway back to my issue....my aircon switch won't stay on. If I hold it in while I'm driving it works perfectly fine, but that tends to interfere with changing gears, scratching my nose and steering, not to mention my fingers cramping up after an hour and a half. Now I'm not stupid I have worked out that I probably have to replace the switch, but on ringing the Holden Dealers I was told it came as a full assembly and would cost around $270 Australian then labour of $130 an hour. So clever me got on the net an found out your Chevy Spark is the same car...only you guys drive on the wrong side of the road so the steering is on the other side. The price for the part on eBay is $114 incl postage, problem is the switches etc are reverse (bugger) So before I spend a zillion dollars I just want to find out if any of you had had this problem, whether it can be fixed without buying the complete assembly or if I was to buy the one on eBay whether I could remove the switch and put it into my assembly. Has anyone got a pic of the reverse side of the assembly?

Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm assuming you mean you have to holdit over for it to work or it switches back. have you tried messing with it. pull the knob off see if anything is getting in the way, might need a little tighening etc, since it doesnt work anyway not much damage you can do you'd have to replace it anyway. maybe a little wd40 or something.. best of luck

Link to post
Share on other sites

The part I found on eBay is for a 2010 Chevy Spark and looks exactly the same with placement of dials and buttons, I braved it and pulled up the top of the dash and from the limited view I'm guessing there is a possibility of reversing the cables. The problem would maybe be with the length of the cables. I really don't want to pull it all out and find I can't either change over the whole assembly or my preference to just change over the switch. I can tell it's going to be annoying trying to reattach the cables because they don't allow much give to drop the assembly out. That's why a pic/view of the back of the assembly would be handy. Thanks for your post.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I tried tapping the switch to see if there might have been some dirt or dust in the connection, no luck. I will try the WD40 sparingly. Just a thought.....if the light doesn't come on when I push and hold in the switch could it be the relay that is knacked....

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Jingin,

I too have a 2011 Barina Spark (Chevrolet Spark/Chevrolet Beat/Daewoo Spark Creative). I replaced a few things in my CDX. The easist way I found was to Google "Wrecking Holden Barina Spark <insert city>" I got a few listings of wreckers with sparks, gave them a call and picked up the item. It's a fairly cheap way of replacing stuff and considering the car isn't that old most of the cars wrecking are accidental damage, so small parts like the one you're after should be undamaged.

When you get it at least you'll know it's a 1 for 1 swap out. wiring etc.. remains the same.

My CDX didn't come with a height adjustable drivers seat, but a visit to the wrecker I found listed and $75 later, I had a seat frame. It was only a couple of hours of work to swap them across.

If you find one that's outside your area, you could always get them to post the part.

Just a thought.

Cheers

Dave.

Edited by David Palmer
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 years later...
On 01/08/2015 at 9:08 AM, Jingin1 said:

I tried tapping the switch to see if there might have been some dirt or dust in the connection, no luck. I will try the WD40 sparingly. Just a thought.....if the light doesn't come on when I push and hold in the switch could it be the relay that is knacked....

Did replacing the cluster fix the problem, or was there more to it? 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...