Which is sometimes changed with a tune.......

 

I hear ya, sometimes this forum can be a bane.

 

Slowly over three weeks of part time pleasure street driving, (like grandma) starting with squeak that slowly turned into metallic chatter.

 

Dealer mechanic says the pin that holds the spring in lifter broke.

 

Wow. As long as it's going to be covered.

 

True enough, but there is no rev limitation on downshifts.

 

Put me down as having this experience.

2008 coupe, 34,000 miles. Obviously, lots of mods, I know. But, here are the facts...

4 weeks leading up to the failure, my local dealership had been doing warranty work on my car (leaking power steering line & popping roof). They had no issues performing these types of covered repairs even knowing that the car was modified (as seen in my signature below).

On Saturday, August 15, 2009 (about 1 week after my car had been in the shop to have the PS line repaired), my engine tanked. Driving down the freeway, metal grinding, motor died. Would not even crank. Had it towed directly to the dealership. Monday I get a call from the service manager.

"We looked at your car this morning. When it wouldn't even turn over, we plugged in to pull the codes, and it shows that you no longer have the GM program on the car. I can tell you that no matter what we discover as the internal issue that caused your failure, GM is going to deny the claim because it's not the GM program anymore."

That said, he proceeded to tell me that their mechanic who was working on my car wanted to pull the bottom end to survey the internals for damage. Told me it would be $1200 in labor to pull the bottom end - and that would be out of my pocket.

At that point I was faced with a decision. Knowing that I had aftermarket internals, I chose not to proceed any further with pressing GM for warranty support. Rightfully so... I had no business trying to get coverage on an engine with these mods. I only had it towed to the dealer to see what might be covered, and I would never have to answer the question, "Well, why didn't you at least let GM take a look at it and see if they would cover anything."

Anyway... the moral of my story is to address your comment, "I haven't heard anyone here saying their warranty was voided by a tune!". Essentially, I was told my engine failure wouldn't be covered (no matter what happened internal to the engine) because they found an aftermarket tune. Furthermore, to even crack open the engine to find out IF the failure was of GM components would cost me $1200 out of pocket.

OP - I say you're very fortunate that both the service manager, and the ultimate GM rep who approves this level of engine warranty work approved your repairs. I think it just goes to show, what many people on this forum repeately say: Your mileage may vary - each dealership may honor or decline warranty work differently based on aftermarket modifications to the vehicle. In my experience - the local dealership service manager that we deal with has discretion on most all minor items, but big ticket that require "home office approval" is probably out of the hands of that local service manager.

 

Sorry to hear that, Jim.

 

Ok, Thanks for letting us know. Certainly sounds like a plain old failure that can happen to anyone on anything. Happy for you that they are going to take care of business on your car.

 

Need to get some Slick 50 for engine protection.

 

When my solid roller lifter went on my BBC, it kinda did the same thing...I had a very random knock, like somone hiting the block with a very small ball point hammer...couldn't figure it out for the life of me...motor ran fine, no lose in power that I could feel...anyway, the very next day I was tearing the top end...that's when my friend and I found a mushroomed lifter ...
So to this day, I have a slight bit of paranoya when I hear "new" noises
Do you think if you had brought it to the dealer for that squeak it could have stoped the total destruction? (or did you and they dismissed it as "normal" ?)

 

oops. they might beg to differ with you that a tune is not a "direct engine mod". After all the hardware only does what the software tells it too.

 

Me too, Jim's one of the best guys on this Forum. Best of luck to him.

 

There have been at least a couple of people on the forum who have reported their dealers would not work on the car due to GM's stance.

Since GM has already stated they will not honor claims if a non-stock tune has been loaded on the car, the dealers have been put on notice that they may not get paid by GM for the work they do on a car. Anything that's as serious as an engine tear down and rebuild will almost certainly be closely reviewed by GM, so if the dealer chooses to work on the car "under warranty", they could potentially be on the hook for the work they do, with no payment from GM. That's a chance that smarter dealers won't take.

I think many incidents will be honored by GM (either because no one bothers to follow process, or because it's obvious that the issue is a manufacturing defect, and not caused by the aftermarket tune), but personally, I definitely would not be comfortable with getting a tune done.

 

TA-DA!

07, 50K miles. same mods as OP. Never tracked





and the craziest part, check out how the roller broke off BUT THE PINS STILL THERE!?! It must have cracked right in 2 off the pin! how the hell does that happen??

Pretty much had the same symptoms as everyone here says, I thought my car was misfiring, then the knocking started. I might have dodged a bullet though by tearing it apart so soon, the lifter bore looks pretty good, just has some small scoring at the very bottom I can hone out. Hoping I can find whats left of the roller in the oil pan.

This is how I felt tonite after pulling it all apart, 50K miles WTF? ya Im modded but Im only making 430 at the wheels and still have the stock redline. If these are what theyre putting LS7s that rev to 7K and put down 450whp stock Im scared to think how they'll get by. We should all be VERY concerned about this.

 

I can feel your pain, I too had many "modded" vette's over the years and was lucky, I didn't blow a motor or tranny etc. But with what's going on right now with GM when it came tme to spend $50K for another C6 I opted for a pre-owned Z06.

It is and will remain 100% OEM GM. With the Z06 I have far more power/performance than I need, if I had purchased a LS3 after driving a modded LS2 I most likely would have felt the urge to get "a few more ponies" out of it. I'm getting ready to buy a 6/60K GMPP hence another reason to leave it stock.

I'm semi-retired and just couldn't take the chance on having a $50K door stop.

Good luck with your claim.

Tom

 

Claim was denied by GM.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...-decision.html

 

Just got off the phone with Gene Cully to order a new head gasket/headbolt set and a lifter. Interesting bit is he says the LS7 lifters, are NOT the same as the LS2s, he says you can tell the LS7s are beefier when you put them side by side. Best part is the cost of a single LS2 lifter is $38, but you can buy a whole set of 16 LS7 lifters for $130!

Needless to say, I bought a whole set and another headgasket/headbolt kit for the other side. Im swapping them all out for the LS7s, I'll post some picks of the different lifters side by side when they come in.

 

And the fact now is that GM will indeed not honor their warranty if a non-GM tune is on the car.

Tag this thread cthusker so that you can refer back to it for your proof that a tune does invalidate the warranty.

 

Thats odd, his catalog only lists one part number valve lifter for all the LS engines from 2005 on.