New to the site, first post. I have my third Vette-99 C5 coupe 6/spd w/33,000 miles. I have had two others years ago, 68 and 69 roadsters.

I read the info on the column lock a few weeks ago and low and behold last week my wife and I came out after dinner and the lights were on. With the typical battery issues with Corvette's I was lucky the car started. It barely cranked but did fire. The column was locked and the 'service column' message was on. After letting the car run for a few minutes I shut it off and restsarted it. This time the column would turn but the message light was still.

This may have been covered in the dozens of posts but is it normal for the lights to come on or stay on with this locking feature? When we got home I had to disconnect the battery. Next morning everthing was OK.

I contacted Chevy at the number listed and was told that my car was not covered under the recall! The rep did say that they might pick up part of the cost but I would have to pay the cost for diagnosis-typical GM BS. I have an appointment in two days at a local dealer.

The funny thing is that another local dealer has a like new 06 roadster that we were going to deal on-guess that I'll have to see how GM treats me on this one.

Thanks for letting me rant. Again what about the lights being on, is that normal with the column lock problem?

Semper Fi

 

What lights ???? You said .... "This time the column would turn but the message light was still."

Huh ???

What message light ... what was it doing ???

If you are asking about your headlights .... they and the column lock are completely unrelated. Does the car have Twilight Sentinal on it ??? I suspect that the car headlights were behaving "normally" under the Twilight Sentinal system.

The recall for the column lock expired at the end of February of this year. GM's policy is "we covered this problem for several years ... if owner's haven't addressed it by now ..... it's too late." If they wanna be "nice" to you, that is up to them, but they are under no legal obligation to provide any "assistance" with a column lock issue now, any more than they are obligated to help with a broken door switch.

I bet if you are serious about buying a C6, the dealership will "find" a way to help you with this item ..... such as full reimbursement of the repair cost as a deduction from the sale price of the C6 .... or whatever.

If you want to try and fix the column yourself, let us know, there are many posts and poster's who can assist.

 

If the wheel is turning and the DIC doesn't say "service column lock" anymore, then that is not the problem....can you drive the car? or does it fuel cut at 2mph? very vague on the details.....if it doesn't fuel cut, then you need to look somewhere else!

 

The parking lights were the lights that stayed on. They were on for about an hour so I don't think it is a twilight feature.

When the column was locked I did not try to drive the car, didn't want to be running thru a busy parking lot w/o steering.

After I shut the car off and restarted it the 'service column' was lit up, it is on the message center in the gauge cluster. It stayed lit while I drove home and the parking lights, etc stayed on when I parked it in the garage. The 'service column ' was not on when I reconnected the battery and is still off.

A GM rep told me one time that, recalls for 'safety' are never closed regardless of any time restraints, don't know but, that is what they told me when I took my Avalanche in for a seat belt recall.

 

So its not doing it anymore? You might want to get a CLB if it has gone away

 

First off, find out what work has been done on the car and if any column lock recalls were done.

Do not go to the dealer if it has not been touched. The dealer fix does not work. GM installs a crappy relay and the relay fails causing problems again, many times shortly after the work was done. There is a bypass module you can get for around $50 that you install yourself and it will fix it.

Peter

 

The recall that you are talking about is crappy! I had it on my car and it went bad.....but it is a Canadian recall, the U.S. recall is different and doesn't add a relay, they simply put a block off plate that keeps the rod from locking the column. My car has been a U.S. car its whole life and some how got the Canadian recall done on it.....when it went out, they warrantied it with 98000 miles on the car!

 

mine gave me the column lock message tonight but wouldnt go past 2 mph then when i finally got it in the drive way i let it sit for a while went out and fired up and the monitor said to pull the key and wait ten seconds i did it now it wont even start will i be allright with the bypass or does it have to go to the dealer ....i kinda thought the car had 80 g on it it would have been fixed by now ....i was wrong though any advice would help

 

Yes the column lock bypass should fix that. Mine locked on me after having the car apart and working on it all winter. I went to back it out of the garage and low and behold the column was locked. I installed the clb I had in my workbench and all is well so far.

 

Thanks for all of the input. I will get the dealers opinion tomorrow and then decide which way to go. It is a shame that GM would let something like this out of the factory.

However, it sure is fun to drive and to watch all of the jealous people want to race or otherwise screw with you. Had a woman, about 1 1/2 yrs ago, threaten to have her sons kill me because I had a Corvette.

Semper Fi

 

You are gonna get the dealer's opinion on this ??????????

Let me predict ......

The dealer is gonna tell you that "a control module has failed" and that the recall does not apply to the module ......

It will cost you $500 to "fix" the problem according to the dealer.

Let us know if I am a good at predicting what the stealership will say ......

 

I'm a little lost regarding the parking lights staying on.......they're doing that all on their own?

 

Picked my car up today. I had dropped it off on Wed and was told later, that they had looked at it and the service had already been done on it. However, they said it was done wrong and they could do what ever I wanted to remedy the situation. They said they would have to order parts and that would take one day. Yesterday, (Thur) they called, my wife talked with them. The car was ready.

We needed to go in that direction today (Fri). Went into the service department office, they called me by name and said it was done and parked beside the building. They handed me the keys and invoice, said thanks and call if I had problems.

Cost for labor, pt# 89023816, pt# 26095486 and freight totaled $0.00.

I'll have to drive it a while to see if it's fixed but, I am satisfied with the service from the Dealer (McClinton Chevrolet-Parkersburg, WV) and GM on this problem.

Semper Fi

 

Yes-I think it was all part of the column and the harness that was bad. The column was missing parts and had also been put together wrong by the previous repair shop->Rick Hendricks in Raliegh, NC.

 

Now would be an excellent time for you to buy and install the CL bypass. The folks in the dealership may have been nice and polite but the GM approved mod they applied to fix your CL problem is prone to failure. The CL bypass is the best way to deal with this issue.

 

You're right, that is what I am going to do shortly.