It locks whenever you remove the key. Try turning the steering wheel when the car is stopped, and you'll see what we're talking about. You can hear it move into place after pulling the key out, and you can hear it retracting when you put the key back in.

When we say "column lock," we're not talking about the normal condition of the lock when the car is stopped. We're talking about the steering column lock either not unlocking when you put the key in place or locking while driving. While the later is very dangerous, I've only read about four or so other accounts of it happening, so you don't have that much to worry about. I'm just one of the unlucky ones. It's gotten to the point where I don't enjoy driving the car. It's approaching five years-old, and I still haven't hit 30k miles yet. I leave it at home if I'm driving more than a few miles from home.

If GM would admit the problem and mail-out parts and instructions to the owners so we could fix our cars, that would help. Instead, they refuse. It's a shame to spend this much money on a car only to have it strand us or put us in danger over a part that shouldn't have been put in the car in the first place. GM's old mechanical lock worked just fine.

 

that is a terrible story, i hope i never feel that way about my vette. i hope someone is able to provide you with a solution. do all c5's do this eventually?

 

I have had a 2001 coupe (12,000 miles on it) and a 2003 convertible (17,000 miles) and never had it happen. I never put the bypass on either car. I realize the odds are pretty good it will happen, but the later models seem much less prone to it.

 

I've seen a picture of a locking plate and a nonlocking plate. Both plates looked like a really big washer with notches in it. The nonlocking plate had a cutout where the locking pin would go. I don't think there's any reason why the nonlocking plate could be installed in place of a locking plate. Don't know how hard the install is, or the part #. I think it might be:

locking plate
98-99 plate, strg shf lk----26045147
00-01 plate, strg shf lk----26090855

There also:
coil kit, infl rst strg whl mkl----26087359

It may be possible to replace both of these parts with a pipe bearing, but unfortunately the steering shaft would have to be disassembled.

I'm pulling part #'s from the catalog I downloaded from CrossedFlags.com and I'm in Group 6-->Steering column

 

With all the postings I have read on the Column Lock, I am amazed that GM hasn't been sued. Obviously the factory fix is not the answer. My 04 MN6 only has 1000 miles. Should I install the CLB?

 

If the Gov and GM are not removing the lock mechaism from manual trasmission cars, sounds like its high time to take matters into your own hands. Seriously, I would remove the plastic cover from around the column and locate the motor and all the mechaism. AS a theft dererrant, I'm sure it won't be easy, but with my life at risk, I would have no hesitation to attack the thing with tools and dis-assemble it to the point of being able to outright REMOVE the lock motor and whatever it moves into place that engages in the steering shaft to keep it from rotating. It would make a really nice DIY with pics and text. If something like this got posted, it would be about 3 or 4 minutes before GM would have the Gov [ what is it anyway, National Hyway Traffic Safety Institute or something like that? ] on the phone demanding permission to allow its dealers to do the job, ....the liability of unexpected lock-ups, combined with the need for owners to find their own home brew solution would be a HUGE red flag to the Lawyers. Another thing would be, as a vehicle owner and driver, to write a polite letter to the Gov agency explaining the total history problem, and asking them for the name and address of the persons inside the agency that your Attorney will be asked to sue by your estate after your killed or injured by the failure of them to allow GM to remove the known and well documented offending safety hazard.

Anybody here up for exploratory look at the column? Somebody must have a shop manual and I think www.C5forum.com has the GM safety recall and basic procedures online. Is the manual column much different than the autobox column, for which removal of all locking potential is allowed?

I would NOT want to loose steering at speed under ANY conditions.

 

I'm interested. I wouldn't mind cutting it out and dropping a little useless weight off the car! It's cold as hell outside, so it'll be a while before I do it.

 

I would be more than a little scared if my steering had locked up even once while I was driving! Your experience was all I could think of when drivng my Z06 in Christmas traffic this afternoon.

If I had the column lock up as many times as you have, I would be getting the GM bypass kit with the blocking ring that replaces the locking ring like the recall installs on the automatics.

If the dealer would not do it for me, I would find some other shop that would. You do have to remove the air bag, steering wheel, and the covers on the steering column, but it would be worth it. I have a shop manual that describes what has to be done, and it is do-able by the owner. There are a couple of special tools to remove the steering wheel and lock plate, but is definitely do-able by anyone with reasonable mechanics skills. Keep us posted on how you come out with GM.

 

Dammit, I was hoping it could be done without removing the steering wheel because if that wheel is coming off, it's getting replaced with a nonairbag race wheel with quick release. Oh well, this becomes another piece of that project whenever it happens.

 

It will lock up after approx 1500 cycles. Normally, you will get in the car, start it up and see the message "Remove key and wait 10 seconds." After you do that and insert/turn the key, the message will read, "Service column lock". So, you do have some time before yours will fail. However, it WILL fail someday.

 

A short while back the NHTSA was investigating reports of our cars locking up while in motion while driving. GM argued the point saying that we Corvette owners were stupid in that the car never unlocked after starting & we did not know it was still locked while backing out of our driveways. The NHTSA bought GM's explanation. But like someone said why has GM not been sued, they know it is a known problem otherwise why would they disable the mechanism on the A4's. Me if I have any expenses, etc if it ever locks up I would gladly sue GM. They just keep sweeping the problem under the rug with non fixes for the M6.

 

is this on 97 vettes?????

 

Always carry a car charger for your phone in the car.

 

You assume there's a car charger available for the phone. I'm going to start carrying a home charger with an inverter.

I'm not going to do that! This just gets worse and worse.

I've still got the top and the bottom pieces off of the steering column, and I can't find anything that looks like the lock. Is there any way to get it off, even if I have to break it, without removing the steering wheel?

The closest Chevy dealer is Farrell. They said they're not comfortable working on Corvettes, so I think it's in my best interest not to push the issue with them. I've talked to the dealership I bought it from, Whitaker in Greenville, SC, about two dozen times, and they said they don't work-on Corvettes because the owners are too picky and GM doesn't pay enough for warranty work to make it worth their time. Also, the first time I went there for service, they had just dropped a Corvette off of a lift for the second time that week! The woman I talked to (the service manager?) didn't seem too concerned about what they had just done. They blamed "picky Corvette owners" on why they won't service the cars they sale. In other words, they blame us for getting mad, when for example, the drop a car off of a lift. The closest dealer that I've heard recommended for Corvette work is City in Charlotte, NC. It's a four hour drive, but I did it a couple of months ago. They waited until after I had driven that far to tell me they wouldn't work on "safety issues" on Corvettes due to liability.

I finally heard back from GM. A "Customer Relationship Manager" with the "Chevrolet Customer Assistance Center" told me that GM's only responsibility in this matter is coordinating with dealers. The dealers are the only ones responsible for recall work. That's the same load of crap they told me wrt the warranty issues I had. They claimed GM wasn't responsible for the warranty. They said it's actually the dealers that are responsible. I'm tired of the corporate pass the buck game.

My friends, family, and the owner of the company I work for are pushing me to sale the car. It left him stranded the one time he drove it. I really want to keep it, but it's getting hard to justify to everyone keeping something that could hurt me.

 

JSW,
I agree with TEXHAWK0.
I know it's frustrating and I wouldn't be too crazy about removing the steering wheel but it sounds to me like you're taking the easy way out!
Let's see now, you have a choice between taking the steering wheel off and installing the GM kit which would make the car safe to drive and enjoyable again or you can continue to drive it the way it is and take the chance of injuring or killing yourself or someone else! If you really love the car and yourself and really care about your family and friends then install the kit or have it installed and you can thank me later.
Happy Holidays!

 

1) we know we have a problem and the GM recall sucks for m6 cars.
2) if you do the clb and have a failure in the cl you will be blamed for a non-factory tampering of the cl. So you can't sue GM.
3) if you leave it stock and have a problem then you can sue gm
4) all those with cl during motion should write to NTSA and report the safety defect. it is not a safety defect if the car is not moving.
5) you can't just chop out the cl. the cl motor unit talks to the bcm and if it does not get the right signals it will column lock on you or cut fuel to the motor.


maybe one day they will have a factory fix.

ymmv

 

You can still cut a section out of the plate or grind the pin down. Either way the BCM will think it's locking, and it will be doing all the right stuff, but there won't be anything to lock onto.

 

is there any benefit if all of us who have locked columns form a group and present a signed petition to the various GM nerds to perhaps tell them we are a significant purchasing group, and maybe we will buy other vendors' performance vehicles ? as well as convince prospective vette buyers to beware ?

 

Here's an idea......Jay Leno is known by all of us to be a real straight-up car nut, AND he is IN really tight with the brass at GM......What about collecting all the posts from the past months/years on this issue onto paper and forward it on to Jay, with a very pretty please would he forward it to Bob Lutz....I know they ar buddies. One of Jays shop guys posts once in a while...I think he posted on the 'Leno chops 2 C5s' thread earlier this week. Maybe he could help. In the end its usually connections that make the difference, WHO YA KNOW !!! I'll bet the brass at the top don't even know this problem exists, middle managers take the heat and give the crap, top brass just take credit.

 

It sounds like the only real fix for this is to get rid of the locking device or put in the blocking plate, then install a CLB kit to fool the BCM.

Or you could remove the locking device and put it in an accessible place and plug it back into the harness. Then if it eventually failed and started giving you "the message" you could just reach in the glove box and pull out another one and plug it in.