Well, it sounds like you're making excellent progress. Hope they eat the transport / duty fees this situation is causing. As always, I wish you good luck with the situation. :seeya

 

I would tell them THEY are paying for the whole thing, unless they want pics of that bracket plastered all over the 'net, along with getting the NHTSA and the NTSB involved.

It would make the Ford Explorer/Firestone thing look like child's play. Can you see it: every single C5 recalled for faulty frame welds. That's about 180,000 cars out there. Paying your costs would be much cheaper.

I'm not advocating actually doing this since it would hurt the brand and we all love Corvettes and don't want that, but it should certainly be used for all it's worth as a pressure tactic. You have been seriously inconvenienced already and your safety put in joepardy. You should not than have to be required to foot ANY part of this bill. That's just adding insult to injury.


[Modified by TTRotary, 5:49 PM 3/28/2002]

 

Dude, I've seen a lot of welds and failures and that was a bad weld. There is very poor weld penatration displayed in your posts. No doubt that I would have GM in on this one. It may not be just you that has a reason to be a bit concerned. For sure I would check every other weld on the chassis for problems. You can use a dye process to check for cracks that are hard to see. You would need to clean the surface and apply the two components of the process a penatrant and a developer. This is a major safety issue for you and possibly others. I've seen major crashs that did not break pperly welded steel. Check it out. :confused

 

While you have it up in the air, check the other side. You have had a problem for some time without noticing it. You probably had one bad weld. The vibration from the bad roads caused the other welds to weaken and break. Or, the vibration alone weakend the rail and welds (see explanation below). If that's the case, you could have the same problem on the other side. If it isn't as bad, you might be able to save that rail.

HSLA steel is very strong, hard and brittle and when you reheat it with another weld, you will ruin the molecular structure and it will revert back to mild steel in all the heat affected areas. You have lots of cracks and rewelding to do. The constant vibration and flexing on the rail also causes the molecules to "relax", the rail reverts to mild steel and eventually breaks. Even if repaired, it will probably crack again, especially with the abusive roads there.

I don't want to alarm you, but you have a more serious problem. In the event of a collision, the rail will bend/break in the weak areas, rather than the designed "crush zones". When the frame rail collapses in the wrong place, the air bag deployment timing is affected. It's a long shot, but a deployment a few split seconds fast or slow, would prevent the airbag from doing the job it is supposed to do. (BTW, back in the 80's Chrysler used some Ultra High Strength Steel in their bumper reinforcements. They later found that just routine vibration from driving caused the UHSS to convert back to mild steel.)


The only right way to fix this is section in a new frame rail. GM has procedures for sectioning a new rail behind the suspension. This will cost more, but it is the only way to go. Any chance you hit something that could have broken the first weld? If so, your insurance company may foot the bill.

Sorry, but Plan B of welding a plate to the area for strength doesn't work either (I'm sure a body shop will try to talk you into that one). Although it may be less resistant to cracking again, the added strength will screw up the airbag timing just like weakness will.

Again, sorry for bringing bad news. I've had to testify as an expert in Federal Court, Illinois State Court, and Florida State Court regarding some of these same issues when body shops have screwed up repairs like this. Believe it or not, it happens too often.

 

This is my main concern with doing coil-overs.Everyone says the shock mount will hold w/o re-inforcing.After seeing this I'm nut to sure about GM's welding capabilities!!!!!Neill I hope you get this taken care of to your satisfaction and you are able to show up at the Cruise In minus the Caddy!!!!!

 

Damn! :eek: Sorry to hear of your troubles. Please keep us posted.

 

Any new poop to report???

 

On hold now with the local service manager. He is supposed to come around and verify the damage, authorize a temporary tack to the welds so that the car can be moved around loading docks and on and off flat beds more easily.

He never made it here today, I am hoping for tomorrow.

Neill

 

they will probably fly a technician out there to repair it.

 

It's sad to hear this sort of thing happens on a $50k car ($90k in Bahamas???). Push hard for a buyback from GM. Best of luck.

 

*City_Cobra hands BatMobile a Goombaypunch*
Stay cool over there in Nassau! :cheers:
Hope everything will turn out good!
Good luck!
I feel with you!

 

Well, local GM service rep came around this afternoon. I have met him before so we chatted for a little bit. His impressions were along the same lines as the rest of us. It is quite simply a defective weld and the car needs to be shipped to Florida for a full blown inspection and repair.

We are going to try to tack weld the bracket in such a fashion that the faulty welds are not tampered with too much so whatever engineers want or need to look at the bracket when it gets cut back off, can have a look at it.

Now we just need to do the arrangements for transport and haggle over who pays what.

I look at it a few ways.

1. I am currently able to drive a company vehicle, so I am not incurring any rental car fees that I would be chasing after GM for.
2. FORTUNATELY the car exhibited the instability at slow speeds which gave me a chance to realize something was wrong without killing myself!!
3. If I lived in the US, and the car was based in the US, chances are it would be bought back and replaced...
4. If I keep the car, which I forsee, the resale value of the car will be diminished as the chassis has had to be sectioned and repaired. I was never intending on selling it anyways, until this happened.

At the end of the day, it would be in their interest to absorb the shipping fees, do the repairs and get the car back to me.

JMHO

Neill


[Modified by BatMobile, 4:06 PM 4/3/2002]

 

Bat, As I am sure everyone selling a car believes in FULL DISCLOSURE ;) IMHO, That car would only be good for parts unless GM puts a whole new frame on it. They owe your car a free ride to be fixed + a rental free. I would settle for nothing less.
Thats what we get when our car has gone in twice for the rear axle seal!
Or GM could send the equal to what we call a "TIGER TEAM" (in the sub world to install an at sea mod) and install a new frame under your baby there at home under your watchful eyes :D :D
It would probably be cheaper for GM too, they would like that.........

 

Neil:
IMHO I would accept nothing less than a buy back or a brand new replacement. How will you know for sure that there are not other welds waiting in the wings to bite you? Obviously this could have caused a very serious situation and GM should step up and replace it with a new one of your choice.

 

TTT for those of you who may have missed the updates.

New news...

Speaking with the rep on Monday to try and finalize things. The car will go to the body shop to touch up the nose on Monday, and he will get one of his welders to temporarily tack the bracket. He needs the car for three days.

So hopefully Thursday or Friday, I can have the shipping and transport schedule and over she goes...

Stay tuned for the latest...

:rolleyes:

Neill

 

Neill, it sounds like things are moving right along. Hope they do the right thing, and cover the shipping/duty costs. As long as they have a good welding/frame shop do the replacement, the car should survive this alright and look good doing it. Lots of the older restored Vettes that are out there have survived the same surgery with flying colors. One of them belongs to the my friend on the left in my sig pic. ('67 427/435 roadster -- sectioned to repair racing mods - solid axle rear - done to the chassis in the late 60's -- can't tell AT ALL). :yesnod:

 

OK...about to start a new thread...will post the link in a minute...

grrrrrrr

 

Click this link and respond in THAT link please...will most likely let this one drop away...
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=276381

Neill

 

Hoooooly cow, Neil. Glad you are ok. I'm just now reading this post (finally!)

:eek:

 

Might have a metalurgist look at the 2 componants for your legal defense :yesnod: