Stripeknight

So my car detailer called me over to check out my rear right wheel because of a problem he noticed, the entire inside of the wheel was completely covered in thick grease.......

I immediately took my car into the dealer the next morning to check it out, the assistant service manager called me that afternoon and said that after a careful inspection it was determined that the factory had not properly sealed my CV boots around the rear axles causing the leaks, they further informed me that they had ordered two new axles under warranty on my new 16 Z with under 5200 miles.

I got a call today after dropping off my car and the dealer informed me that some animals were actually the cause and had chewed through all the CV boots causing the leaks, they completely changed their story and said I owed them $1,700 to fix the problem.

I inspected the vehicle today and there were obvious one inch holes in the CV boots in multiple spots as well as other size holes.

Fortunately I'm only out a $500 insurance deductible.

In the dealers defense, they are super cool folks in all my dealings so far and the service manager I met with today is a really cool guy, those holes look very abrasive like something actually chewed on them, what the heck do you do? Put rat poison on the CV boots? I think Chevy needs to make a serious change to the 2017 model and not put such delicious CV boots on their cars to protect the consumers :p

Photos:

RajeeK

What is there not to believe?

Stripeknight

Do you hear about rat's chewing CV boots on new corvettes on a regular basis? Also if it's so normal how do I prevent it from happening again? Also isn't it strange that the story changed so dramatically from the dealer from it was a factory issue to animals after a formal inspection and then re inspection? I don't really care it's only $500.

jaden61

Check your wiring too.

Ratboy

Had I not had a rat eat through some rubber bits on my dishwasher, I would have raised the BS flag. So, plausible, but I'm still not entirely convinced. That was in Florida during the dry season, and I suspected he was thirsty...

sunsalem

Never EVER trust a dealer over a warranty issue.
Like insurance companies, their first response is almost always "No."

DLC7

Question is why? The stealership and GM are different business entities....

Got a crushed valve, broken lifter, bad water pump or an unsolvable brakes worn code???>>>>>oh the dealership loves that. It's how they make money.....

RajeeK

Ummm.....welll if you have rodents, then they may do that. I doubt they care it is a corvette or not. But if they do, then you got some pimp rats there. Even if you have a Prius, you are still at risk. Just bad luck man. Happens sometimes. Consider an exterminator or rat trap or rat poison. Good luck.

ZR1OUS

Where do you live, and is your car stored in an attached garage? Thats crazy!!! traps ....I know rats will bite through almost anything but to get at what,grease? By the miles it doesn't seem like your car is sitting for long periods and this has not happened to any other cars you've owned correct?
I would push your dealer to prove what they are telling you is correct and if they make you pay find another dealer..Its not like you abused the car and broke something, your dealer should just change them out..
I guess a way to find out if it is filthy rats is to set some traps with PB....

sunsalem

Dealers are the first line of defense for warranty issues....just as claim adjusters are the first line for payouts.
Unknown/unknowable reasons for failures are prime candidates for denials.
It's just a $$$ issue, no more.

Stripeknight

For $500 I am not going to make an issue out of it, that's only a couple hours of my time, I will set some traps as a precaution though.

jaden61

Peanut butter, lol. and just leave the jar out. Exterminators don't even use peanut butter.

ZenicaPA

I heard German auto manufacturers use a type of rubber that is peanut oil based which attracts rodents. Maybe this is true and GM uses something similar?

ZR1OUS

LOL all you want I caught 6 that way at a home where the bastards kept chewing up wiring near the pool equipment.

3 Z06ZR1

Where do you park where there are rats running around that want to eat your car? Hard to fathom really least around here.

spearfish25

Don't know where the OP is but rats are everywhere. Florida has Palm rats which I continue to wage war with.

USMCVader

My brother had squirrels chew up his wiring on a brand new jeep, and I have friends with different cars with similar experiences. Looking into it some manufacturers use rubber or plastic with a soy bean component that apparently is quite tasty. Not sure if that is the case here but would not surprise me. In my brother's case, it was not covered by the warranty either.

NSC5

A couple of years ago I got in my GMC diesel pickup and the check engine light was on before I put the key in the ignition. The truck started normally and I drove to the post office but when I turned the key off the engine kept running. When I got home I had to pull the PCM relay to stop the engine. The next morning I put the PCM relay in and the truck operated normally with no odd symptoms. About one month later a repeat of the CEL on with engine won't stop and this random intermittent behavior continued. The only DTC set was loss of communications with the TCM (transmission control module). I ordered the Helms shop manuals (truck was out of warranty and I wasn't interested in having the dealer troubleshoot such a random intermittent issue).

After studying the power control logic and making some measurements I found that there was some leakage between the always hot and ignition switched 12 volt buses. I traced the trouble to a buildup of corrosion between some of the bare copper wire in the underhood fuse/relay/electrical center. This has the fuses and relays on the top, connections to the electrical system on the bottom, and the interconnections (not visible without disassembly) in the center of this sandwich. From a chewed label I deduced that a mouse had moved in and used this as a urinal. No wires were chewed but the corrosive mouse pee had build up a path between two bus wires and when the humidity was high enough this unwanted path was sufficiently conductive to create the leakage and once the voltage was high enough the regular PCM relay was activated.

It took about two hours of reading the manuals and another hour of measurement to find the problem. After I located the problem I bought the part on Ebay for $100 and it took about 15 minutes to replace. Since then I have kept mouse traps and poison in both garages. A couple of weeks after this incident a colleague had a $2,000 repair bill for mouse damage to the wiring harness in his BMW SUV.

I hate mice!

DevilDog II

Wow! That's just nuts.

dale fehrenbach

Maybe you have a rat problem, maybe the dealer made those holes.