I know this has been beat to death... but here is a little different spin on the situation...

2001 z06. I bought used in 2009 from Georgia. I have had the dreaded column lock issue since I have owned the car. I have ALWAYS been able to go gorilla rage on wheel to unlock it within a minute or two though, so never worried too much about it until last night when I couldn't get the wheel free. I have had the clb sitting in my trunk for 2 years... but never installed it. Well, today I got it unlocked after a few minutes. So I decide to install the clb. I have read about it not being compatible with GMs recall fix, so I called local dealer her in Alabama to check Vin service history. Service manager was very courteous but tells me this vehicle has already had the "latest and greatest fix done at John Thornton Chevrolet in Georgia in 2005, so recall is closed on this car". (Not same dealer I purchased from if it matters)
Now... from my understanding, and from what this local service guy verified, was that the latest fix was mechanical...locking plate REMOVAL.
IF this is the case, my wheel would be physically incapable of locking...correct? Meaning the dealer in question scammed GM and billed for a recall they never did. Do I have any recourse at this point?

 

WOW, talk about

AND, you had the CLB in the trunk for 2 years-WOW.

 

Suggest you install the LMC5 fix. It is easy and you don't have to potentially undo any dealer fixes. See the installation video on the eBay ads they have. It is from Compliance Parts and in my opinion is the best fix. Of course 99.9% of all CL issues are caused by low battery voltage at startup.

 

I had believed that manual cars did not get the locking plate removed due to the requirement of having one anti-theft lockout still in the car.

 

Thanks for all the replies. Long story short... I was on borrowed time. Although I was confident I could bust locked wheel loose as I had a dozen times before...no chance this time. Hours of attempts... All the usual things that work (making sure battery fully charged, unplugging battery for a while, smashing wheel back and forth into stops, tapping lock motor with hammer, turning on and off a/c) were not doing a thing. I went and bought small hack saw... got nowhere. Wanted to try the safest thing first. Went and got a Kobalt sawzall and got it cut in two minutes. No collateral damage to anything. :-)
... plugged in clb, and in two minutes that headache was gone FOREVER.

Thanks for all the help.

 

I forgot to mention... The point of my post was that in my experience with my car, the dealer who claimed to have done recalls (I was told two separate services were done) did nothing. No extra harness. No nothing. I wonder how many dealers bill for this and simply don't do a thing but collect money from GM?

 

You blame the dealer as though he is some kind of criminal. Did you ask what the recall fix was or just assume? Or did you do what I did and actually have the local dealership pull up the GM service history (did it for free). My 2001 only had the reprogram "fix" and no hardware fix.

 

Perhaps you didn't read my initial post before you came here with a douchey attitude like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed... of course I asked the local dealer to look up service history(as I already stated in my original post), and he told me that the harness was done, and then the final updated version of recall had been done which he said was replacement or removal of the locking plate. Obviously, none of above were done. Local service manager was in agreement with my suspicions.

 

The latest fix was plate removal but not for automatics. So the previous dealer would not have done that. You do not say what was actually stated as having been done and there was no mention of harness in your post.

PS: I am old and retired, spend about 2-3 hours a day helping Forum members solve problems so I have a crappy attitude sometimes before I have beer and cigars. With that said, I am glad you resolved your problem without damage to the column. Peace out. Mr. Sam

 

My Z06 had the locking plate removed as part of the recall. So I do not believe what you stated is true.

 

That would be an unauthorized GM recall activity. Does your GM service printout actually say they did that? The dealer could have gotten in trouble with GM and the Feds by doing that.