Uncle Meat

I dropped off my '09 at the local Chevy dealer to have them fix a couple things and inspect the valves before the warranty expires. She just went over 35K miles.

Just curious who else in here has had their local dealership perform the check and if it checked out good what did they charge you for the inspection?

Fingers crossed that my valve guides are still within acceptable tolerances.

U.M.

Uncle Meat

TTT

Really? Nobody has had this check done by the dealer?

U.M.

moose.b3

You asked "if it checked out GOOD what did they charge you". That could be the issue. When I had my Z inspected, Abel Chevrolet used $200.00 as an estimate. But they check out BAD.

vetteuphoria

Same as moose. I had my heads checked at Abel dealership one year ago prior to warranty expiration. They checked out bad so I received replacement heads under warranty.

Hope all goes well for you.

hhntr111

Just got my 427, but was at the dealer the other day to arrange 1000 mile oil change next month. I asked the service manager about LS7 valve guide wear, and he'd never heard of it. It's ok, because I'll ask them to do the wiggle test this fall when I put her away for the winter and provide the TSB number. Not sure how many LS7's they service, bought my car out of state.

LawrenceFromTorrance

The scary thing about taking your car to your local Chevy dealers is that, in my opinion, about 90+% of the dealers will side with GM on any issue. Things like, "that's normal", "they all do it", "it's not covered under warrantee", "you have an after market exhaust so your warrantee is not longer valid"... Or you'll get charged an exorbitant price. Somebody who doesn't have a clue will do the work. Somebody will joy ride your car (it's happened to me twice).
I'm not saying don't take it to your local dealer but just check out all the dealers in your area (maybe via the forum) and find out if they work for their customers or GM.
Good luck.

Uncle Meat

Too late now. It's already at the dealership.

U.M.

LawrenceFromTorrance

Well, again good luck and I guess you'll have some feedback for the rest of us.

rockinSeat

$250, maybe $150 depending on how long it takes. Turned out to be $0 and heads replaced. Good luck.

Dirty Howie

I predict if they know how to check that they will be bad


DH

hhntr111

Lawrence, good idea, there are 4-5 dealers within 15-20 miles, I'll look for a dealer that seems to understand LS7's.

Uncle Meat

As stated in my other thread. Local service department claims that performing this service bulletin requires 6+ hours for one head (drivers?) and 5+ hours for the other. At $98.63 an hour for labor we are talking just shy of $1200 to do the inspection.

U.M.

LawrenceFromTorrance

Had mine checked for $250 which I didn't have to pay because they were bad. Your getting had by the dealer.

clogan

My dealer never heard of the valve guide issue, and had never heard of the wiggle test. Essentially told me I was an idiot who surfed the web too much.

Forget him.

MX944

Is there a bulletin that specifically states how they are to check the valves and if so can anyone post it??

ctsv510

https://www.corvetteforum.com/1583214616-post26.html

Have yours been checked yet? It's been there for a week right?

Uncle Meat

They are holding firm on their $1200 price to perform the check. I've decided to just leave the car in the garage and not drive it until I can come up with a solution I can afford.

U.M.

Bill Dearborn

They are giving you a pretty much standard quote based on the time to and materials to do one cylinder and multiplying by 8. A couple of years ago the dealer that I was using in NY State (an excellent repair shop) gave me a price just shy of $1K plus tax. You are dealing with an estimate so the actual cost could be less. If they find something out of spec it won't cost you anything if the repair is covered under warranty or a Service Plan like GMPP.

Many dealers haven't heard of the valve drop issue thus wouldn't know about the service bulletin. Remember they see thousands of service bulletins floating around as bulletins cover every car made by GM, improved methods of doing a repair, what labor code to charge for certain repairs, Customer Satisfaction procedures, etc, etc, etc. My previous dealer replaced the engine in my Z06 that failed due to a dropped valve and replaced another guy's LS7 due to a dropped valve. They knew both engines dropped valves. They still did not know of the bulletin.

They also have to be careful with all of the yahoos that come in with half baked issues they picked up on the internet. Just like MDs have to address hypochondriac issues repair shops have to address the latest "my car has this problem I found on the internet". Most of which are so far off base it is ridiculous and the owners are usually so clueless and incapable of speaking clear english they can't even explain what is happening.

Bill

MX944

So what bulletin would you walk in with to show them? Can you post it or give an identifying number and date?

Mark2009

#13-06-01-001: Information on Customer Questions About Valve Guide Wear – (Jan 14, 2013) Subject: Information on Customer Questions About Valve Guide Wear Models: 2006-2013 Chevrolet Corvette 427, Corvette Z06 Equipped with 7.0L V8 Engine (RPO LS7)

GM Document ID 2155745 covers the valve stem measurement technique, however it references the wrong pass/fail value (.0037 is the clearance limit, but given the nature of the measurement the gross reading will be 2x that and should therefore be divided by 2 to get the actual clearance... dealers actually doing this as warranty work have been using a figure of .008 wiggle = fail [~.004 clearance]).


Rotsa ruck

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