Update on my malfunctioning '02 Z06
The service tech scheduled me to bring in my Z06 monday of this week after I got off of work. Took car down. New service tech, had only been with the dealership 2 weeks. He put on the ticket that they would have the car delivered the next day at 4:30 PM. How bad can it be, right? Either I called him or he called me Tuesday afternoon and said that they were busier than normal and the tech had an emergency at home but would definitely get to the car first thing Wednesday morning, but he would definitely have a diagnosis by late Wed morning. Called me that afternoon and advised that the tech had snowballed him but the tech was now motivated. I went in Wednesday after work and my car was sitting untouched in the "broken but not fixed or diagnosed lot" The service writer paged the mech but no response. He took me to the tech. The service writer took me To a person whom he introduced as the service manager after my insistance and the tech and service writer crying and whining in his office before they let me see the service manager. Upon my departure from the service manager's office I asked him for a business card in case I needed to contact him again. He advised that he did not have any. I will update this story when I hear something today.

 

And the beat gets worse:
Service writer called me yesterday and told me that if they could keep the car overnight, they would have time to fix the rocking chair seat.
I agreed. He also told me that the service manager had test driven the car several times Thursday and everything worked as normal and that no warning lights came on. Said that they had found a short in the body position sensor, and that it was it that had been causing the problems. Service writer called me Fri at about 2:30 and told me to come down and pick up the car, that everything was fixes other than the rear end differential leak, and that they would fix that at another date. When I went down to the dealers they told me that everything was ok. The driver door unlock worked from the fob, put key in and the seat ease entry did not move the seat forward, and nothing on the driver side door control panel worked. Windows would not roll down. Open door, and the windows worked from the driver side control panel. Close door, and it would not work. Didn't feel that the driver side seat rocking chair movement had been fixed, either. Left damn thing at dealers. This is very fustrating. In short, this sucks bigtime. Will update when i check out the car again on Mon or Tues. Oh, something else, too. When i took the car in there, I had slightly under a half-tank, and the mileage read 12,509. When I went to pick it up today, the mileage read 12,518, and the low fuel warning was on. How do you burn almost half of a tank of gas and only go 9 miles. Did they disconnect the speedometer, or did they idle it to death checking to see if the warning and service lights came on when warmed up? How many visits to the deaklers do I need for the lemon law to take effect here?

 

Sorry to hear about your bad experience! This dealer sounds beyond incompetent. Wouldn't care to name him, would you? I'm in SoCal too, and I want to make sure I avoid that clown.

I'd cut my losses and take it somewhere else. Why continue with these fools?!

 

It would be rather inappropriate timing for me to name the dealer while my car is in their shop and possession. I will be hearing from them Monday, I am sure, and that they will tell me to come pick up my car, that everything is fixed, and that upon taking delivery of the car, I am sure that everything that was inoperable before will be inoperable now. I have this feeling that they drained the gas tank and/or ran the car at idle till all of the gas ran out to keep me from running the car at the dealership till the dash warning lights came on, generally about 30 seconds or so. Monday will tell, and I will be more than happy to disclose their name as I don't want anybody to go through what I have gone through.

 

Just got the Z back this morning, its running great, no more weird messages, and everything works!!!!! I just hope that its fixed for good


zo6kid

 

I had much the same problem with my 00 FRC. The problem turned out to be the battery. I put in a red top Optima and had no more problems! I just traded it in on a MY 03 Z! Can't believe the difference!

 

Mine turned out to be a body control module and a driver door module. Dealer is still trying to get the factory security system to engage the appropriate lights when the key fob door unlock button is depressed. This Monday it will have been at the dealers 2 weeks. I am literally sick about this. They have tried to get me to take the vehicle when it was not repaired, mysteriously lost about 5 gals of gas, and I don't know what else. They wouldn' take my calls thrusday and after leaving 2 messages and about 8 calls to the service writer and the service manager, I drove up and had to get the Customer Relations guy involved. Be very careful whne taking your car in to the dealers for service/repair. I will post more monday.

 

Guys,,,,,,,I can put ALL of your electrical problem stories to shame! My 98 Coupe would break down hourly!!!!!! I was LUCKY to even get it to start
After YEARS of living HELL, this is what resolved ALL of my issues!!

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=896875

Please examine this post and let me know if I can help resolve your ELECTRICAL problems!

For the most part, dealer Techs are very good at following troublshooting charts in the GM service manuals! What the manuals do not provide is COMMON sence! I DID NOT find this probem on my own!!

A GM C5 Technical Rep at Bowling Green Ky turned me on to this ground issue and I took the innatative to further diagnose the problem and figure out how to resolve it with out cutting up the electrical system on my coupe.

Bill Curlee

 

Thank you so much for the cure, Bill Curlee. If I ever get my Z06 back from the dealer, I am going to put your suggestion to good use.
A person would have no idea that connections could be so rusted/tarnished/corroded on so new a car. that does suck.

 

Bill, you da' man! Great info, as this is something I have experienced in the past on a couple of motorcycles and older cars. As a precaution, one of the things I do on my newer vehicles is disassemble the connectors/connections and add a little squirt of dielectric grease to help prevent corrosion. I really can't believe the factory doesn't do this as a matter of course, but I guess that'd just add to the cost of production.

 

Well, I got my car back from the dealer yesterday afternoon and I am not happy at all with this particular dealer. They were supposed to fix the rocking chair seat and did not. It seems looser now than it was before. And they only road tested the car for 18 miles in the 2 weeks that they had it. I am just bexside myself with grief over this. So after a dealer having my car 2 weeks I still have to go to another dealer and get the seat and the differential leak fixed. I will give uo the dealer's location & name after I regain my composure over this incident.

 

I would definetly take this up with the next higher ups. I would have gone to the general manager of the dealership if you were not getting any results with the "Service Manager". Or call the GM hotline . I have not had and hope I don't have to take mine to the dealer. There must be someone that could make a difference. I know the service underwriter and service manager pay/bonus are tied to customer satisfaction. I sure hope they gave you a survey card for warranty work. It is dealers like that GM needs to do a better job of oversight. Dealers like that are what will drive buyers to go to other brands. I share your frustration but hope I do not have to.

 

I had a very similar problem with my son's Monte Carlo. It was not grounding or an ignition switch even though it appeared to be that from the onstart. It was intermittent for a while but eventually failed hard.

What it ended up being was a bad supply line to a sub fuse box. I looked in the fuse box under the hood on my 04 Z06 and it has 6 large fuses ranging from 25 to 40 amps. The large fuses are for the main voltage supply circuits which usually feed various other small fuse panels or main systems like the ABS. I suspect one of these circuits is bad on your car.

I isolated it down to the connector that passes through the firewall on the Monte Carlo. I suspect that is likely were your failure is also occuring. I got lazy on the Monte Carlo and strung a new wire instead of trying to fix the connector.

Don't mean to sound arrogant but the dealer mechanics are not usually very good with electronics and wind up guessing most of the time. I am fortunate to have been a EE for 20 years so these types of problems are not new to me.

I hope this helps and good luck with your problem. Now that I have finally bought a Vette I will never be without one again. You could buy a Mustang but face it, you can't polish a turd.

 

Please be patient with me this is the first forum I have even joined. Not much of a joiner but my Vette has driven me to seek like minded individuals!

Found the second page of the thread and read the article on the grounding issue. This is an all too common problem on aircraft but is easily fixed.

The reason it occurs is due to something called dissimilar metals. When you attach a tin plated grounding lug to aluminum or steel a small electrical charge flows between the two different metals and the result is corrosion as pictured on the other thread. Including the corrosion in the plug itself. The grease will help but is not the complete solution.

This can be completely eliminated by placing cadnium plated washers between the frame and the grounding lug and the bolt and the grounding lug.

I will find a supplier for the said washers from a buyer at Boeing and place a post as to where they can be bought. It may take a few days since I am currently swamped.

Hope this helps.

 

Guys

There is one more thing that can cause a C5 to loose it's mind You have to read a little story first.

I purchased my 98 in late 97. Back then the C5 was ground breaking for the service people! If you had an ELECTRICAL problem the car could be at the dealer for weeks and you were LUCKY if they could figure it out at all. We were on a road trip in Vermont on a Saturday and it was raining very heavily! All of a sudden the dash lit up like a christmas tree. Every warning that could have been lit was. Traction Control failure, ABS failure, Check gauges, Check engine, Charging system failure,, ect ect.

Drove to a dealer ship and all they did was scratch their heads and said, bring it back Monday and they would TRY to figure it out. They wanted to replace the Alternator!

Long story short,,, I figured it out my self! Turned out to be a WET Body Control Module. The rug was wet and the BCM had water dripping out of it! The water came from two places!
There is a 1/2" dia black rubber hose that supplies cool air to the HVAC blower motor from the AC air box. When the defrost or AC is on COLD the hose gets cold and condensates. Guess where the water drips on to?? The BCM.
The other water entry issue is caused by the AC/Heater Box drain. The drain can plug up with calcium like deposits and green sline and the condensation from the AC system can NOT drain out of the box and it backs up into the passengers foot well and wets the BCM!

I wrapped that rubber hose with foil covered bubble wrap and took care of that!

I cut the tip off the AC box drain and I have not had any other passengers foot well and or BCM issues.


If you guys need any pointers or help with wet BCM issue PLEASE ask!

I have had my fair share and then some. Oh yea,, 30 days after the warrenty was out I found out that leak also filled up the Theft Deterrent relay with water and, caused it to literly rot apart inside and I was stranded!
Had to find and fix that myself too!

 

I heard the weight of a bunch of keys or weight on your keychain will wear out your ignition switch prematurely.

 

Bookmarking this thread. Being in the UK, it doesn't inspire confidence should it go wrong....

 

Here's the deal. I had this happen and it was a bad computer module in the passenger door. My dealer was perplexed as well, until the 2nd time it happend they call into a high level GM tech, and apparently some kind of sensor or module in the passenger door goes bad and is a fairly common problem.

Previously the dealer reflashed the entire PCM and still the problem went on...when the fixed the door module, it never came back. I hope this helps. GM knows about this problem...your dealer just has to go up higher in their support chain to get the secret answer.