On the car I'm supposed to pickup it has had Body Control Module Replacement issues twice. Once under warranty at 17000 miles and again 2 yrs later at 24000 miles.

The second time was recently and it was a $1400.00 repair.
Repair says Body Control Module, 3d brake light
Brake pedal switch

Would that scare any of you from buying if okay now? That's what scares me about buying a used car, but I want so badly

Anne

 

If you are not getting a certified car with the full warranty, I would shy away from a C6 with known electrical issues. There are way too many really nice cars for sale that you can find out there. Just take your time.

 

agreed- if they replaced the BCM twice there's most likely something else going on like a ground issue or electrical harness problem/short - lots of other cars to spend the $ on that don't have all of those issues...

 

So this is probably a consensus among experienced Corvette Owners??

Thank God I read about getting service histories. Sad part is all work wouldn't necessarily show up.

Anne

 

If it was me I would pass on this one and keep looking.

 

I am an experienced looker. The best advice I've gotten here is to check service histories at a Chevrolet Dealer. Most of the ones with problems, have had it during warranty.

Thanks again Anne

 

My bet would be that the dealer had no idea what was actually wrong and replaced the BCM in an attempt to correct the real problem. Throwing parts at an undiagnosed problem is very common. So with the real problem not being fixed, I would stay away from the car. The BCM is rarely the problem and having two actually go bad is astronomically unlikely.

 

The following is more info that you really want to know: when you press the brake pedal there is a position sensor (not a switch) that gets power and ground from the BCM and reports back not just that your foot is on the pedal but how hard you are pressing on the pedal. Among other things the BCM does with that information is close an internal solid state relay that will ultimately be used to power the brake lights. Depending on options the center mount lights might have a wire connecting to the BCM to receive power directly or it might just tap into the wire that powers the right side brake lighting. The brake position sensor being bad would prevent all brake lights from working. The center high mounted stop lamp being bad would mean it would not work but being LEDs I find it hard to imagine how it could draw enough current to destroy the solid state relay inside the BCM. That leaves just a wiring harness issue as something that could destroy the BCM. A wiring fault in either the brake pedal position sensor or brake light circuit could damage the BCM. Giving the dealer the benefit of the doubt, that could be very hard to diagnose since 2 years between repairs makes it VERY intermittent. I can MAYBE understand missing it the first time if they were in a hurry. Maybe they fixed it the second time and maybe they didn't.

I would keep looking for both another car and another dealer than the one who has so far collected $2,800 from the owner and GM to fix a brake light issue. Good luck in your search.

 

I'm thinking that the BCM is probably internally protected from this kind of excess current draw on its' solid state relay..which I expect is just a transistor.

 

There is an external 15A fuse for the brake light circuit in the underhood fuse box. The problem is that fuses may or may not be able to protect semiconductors and the usual answer is they probably won't. In most cases the fuse is only there to prevent a fire. It takes time for a fuse to heat up and blow. A semiconductor can be destroyed in microseconds.

 

Agreed.