Pb82 Ronin

Answer...whatever percentage this problem was at 6-7 years ago. 1% failure rate of 30K+ engines is an appalling number, especially on a $15K engine. That's well into the millions of dollars. 1% of 30K is 300...300 x 15K = $4.5M worth of issues for GM. And that's assuming that ONLY 1% is affected. This community knows that rate is much higher. Let's say 10% is actually affected. That now becomes a $45M problem for GM. Crappy part is GM knows it too...but they're getting away with not being held accountable because of warranties expiring. Technically speaking, ZO6 owners could "lemon law" every affected car and recoup their money. But then, they wouldn't have the car. So what options are left? Suck it up and repair them on your own dime. GM not getting hammered on this reminds me of Hillary Clinton not getting jailed for deleting subpoenaed emails. When your pockets are that deep, you can side-step a few landmines. This issue is a prime example of it.

Tonylmiller

Do you think 10% have failed? 3,000 engines? Interesting. And I cannot say that you are wrong, either.

Another calculation would be:

30,000 engines x $1,000 per fix = $30 million

But that doesn't account for the ones that actually dropped a valve. I'm not sure what it would cost them to fix the ones that haven't failed. I used $1k as a round number.

AzDave47

The info I gave above indicates BMW thought it was less than 1%, so how about that for GM, oh sorry, GM isn't a luxury car builder so their standards don't have to be very high.

Tonylmiller

Fair enough. I wonder if there is sort of an industry standard? Does anyone know?

I guess this would have to be some kind of voluntary thing from Chevy. I'm not sure if an engine failure qualifies for an actual recall.

Frankie2blue

It almost isn’t even worth talking about. GM threw all the Z06 owners under the bus on this deal a long time ago as they stalled and then outright lied about the issue. No one would ever make me believe (including the great spokesman Tadge) that they didn’t know pretty much exactly what was going on but chose instead to ignore it and hope for the best. They left it up to the owners and everyone else to try to figure it out, replacing a few engines that happened to be under warranty, and knowing most cars would be out of warranty with very low mileage and therefore never seeing a problem until much later. Now the class action came up a while back and they simply choose silence. This law suit will not really affect them or hurt them in any way and they have all but forgotten this issue as they push the new generations. The owners will see zip from it. At this point, what could GM even do to make it right? That’s right, nothing. Just as they have done from the beginning. Had all those folks not bought those early Z06’s starting with C5, the new ones would not even exist as they are today, yet they got screwed IMO. Frankly, I find it kind of sad and was the main reason I have refused to buy a C7 even though they could care less, because tons of folks are buying them that have never even heard of this issue or care about it.

MTPZ06

I know you're a numbers guy, and in a lot of ways, I am too...but not when it comes to this particular scenario.

For our situation, which involves personal as well as public safety, I refer to NHTSA for determining factors on when a recall is necessary.

"When is a recall necessary?
When a motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment (including tires) does not comply with a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard.
When there is a safety-related defect in the vehicle or equipment.
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards set minimum performance requirements for those parts of the vehicle that most affect its safe operation (brakes, tires, lighting) or that protect drivers and passengers from death or serious injury in the event of a crash (air bags, safety belts, child restraints, energy absorbing steering columns, motorcycle helmets). These Federal Standards are applicable to all vehicles and vehicle-related equipment manufactured or imported for sale in the United States (including U.S. territories) and certified for use on public roads and highways.

What Is a safety-related defect?
The United States Code for Motor Vehicle Safety (Title 49, Chapter 301) defines motor vehicle safety as “the performance of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment in a way that protects the public against unreasonable risk of accidents occurring because of the design, construction, or performance of a motor vehicle, and against unreasonable risk of death or injury in an accident, and includes nonoperational safety of a motor vehicle.” A defect includes “any defect in performance, construction, a component, or material of a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment.” Generally, a safety defect is defined as a problem that exists in a motor vehicle or item of motor vehicle equipment that:

poses an risk to motor vehicle safety, and
may exist in a group of vehicles of the same design or manufacture, or items of equipment of the same type and manufacture."


There's a known manufacturing defect, and even GM admitted to it...albeit they narrowed the window of "affected years". Their own admission should have triggered a recall of some magnitude. GM's only defense thus far is to try and hide behind their bankruptcy ruling.

Tonylmiller

Simply a financial decision. They fixed the ones that broke under warranty and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Their approach is much cheaper than fixing the root cause.

Tonylmiller

See, I thought an engine failure would not be a safety issue. Is there a precedent for this on other recalls?

Never mind, this was easy to find!

Tribune wire reports

Hyundai and Kia are recalling 1.4 million cars and SUVs in the U.S., Canada and South Korea because the engines can fail and stall, increasing the risk of a crash.

The recall covers some of the Korean automakers' most popular models in the U.S. and Canada including 2013 and 2014 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport SUVs and Sonata midsize cars. Also covered are Kia Optima midsize cars from 2011 through 2014, Kia Sportage SUVs from 2011 through 2013 and Kia Sorento SUVs from 2012 through 2014.

What I do not know is, were they forced to do it?

MTPZ06

Anything that can causes the engine to shut down while in motion on public streets and highways puts lives at risk.

MB: https://www.motor1.com/news/178611/m...-43-amg-recall

Kia: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...407-story.html

I'm sure there's more.

Zip Corvettes

I would question if it is even 1%. First off you have to separate the failures that happened to engine that had modifications such as tuning and then you have to separate the ones where they are being used in HPDE's. All of those failures could be GM's issue but they also might not be. Those are already out of the fix. So the only ones that GM needed to look at were the ones that failed on the street within the warranty time. My guess is less than 1% so you just fix them as they break. I have a 07 but it has a highly modified engine and so I have never had to suffer this issue.

Unreal

My hyundai had a recall on it too because a main bearing could fail and cause engine to stop.

moose.b3

My bet is there are way more than 10% of the original LS7 heads out of spec. Whether they are modified, tuned or stock it really doesn't matter because defective heads are just that. I just found out my second set of GM heads are bad and they only have 24,000 miles on them. When you replace defective heads with defective heads, you end up with defective heads. AHP with ms90 this time around.

Les

This situation is reality based, not made up. You and I have been through the drill twice each- lovely, ain't it? My solution was the same as yours. Anybody who chooses to dismiss or ignore the facts is not a concern to me at this point. Good luck with getting straightened out and getting back to enjoying your Z06. I assume you're going through Rich and his crew for this. While they're in there you may want to have them take a good look at your cam- assuming it's the original. Mine had a lobe starting to go bad, which they discovered while doing the head related work.

moose.b3

Yes (sarcasm), I agree, thank you, yes and yes... that's being taken care of.

Les

Tonylmiller

I think there is little question as to whether way over 10% are out of tolerance. If anyone disagrees, there is actually data on this if you search the forum. But the vast majority seem to function just fine anyway. So the design seems to be robust and tolerant of this situation, most of the time. At least that is my opinion, based on what I've read.

Pb82 Ronin

Or the vast majority doesn't have the time, money, motivation, reason, or know-how to check and see if theirs are "out of spec" yet. Unfortunately, this is a normal human behavior called denial. Or maybe just unawareness of a problem. "Most corvette owners" just buy them, and drive them, take them to shows, race them, etc. And like any of their other cars, only address problems when they come up. This community has pretty much been a large mouth piece (if not the largest) to voice this "problem." But what about the owners who don't visit forums? How would they ever be aware of the problem? You think GM spams their email and says to get their heads fixed? Of course not. This same demographic also will just deal with the problem when it comes...and STILL not bother to post there experiences because they're not "forum guys/people." So I'm of the opinion that 10% affected, is an understatement.

Tonylmiller

I didn't say it very well, but I agree. I think it is way over 50%.

The_Raging_Bull

Having read every LS7 dropped valve thread and reply, I can say one thing; too many folks on CF post to hear themselves. If you want the absolute fix, go AHP, with MS90 guides, and stud mounted roller rockers. The issue on side loading, with the subsequent wear on guides and valve stems from this issue will disappear like a fart in the wind. For my money read Hib Halverson's article over on the Corvette Action Center, "the mystique of the 7 liter ls7....", paying careful attention to his comments on the head fix pages (~ p18 to p21).

It'll certainly save you a ton of time over reading the thousands of well meaning but often blabber-mouthed replies. Speaking of 5 to 10%; that's how many replies there should have been, not the 8000 to 9000 (maybe 10K?) that there were, which if you wanted to read them all ,well it took several weeks.Wow do CF members ever like to hear themselves talk. And now I've added another useless post.
Flame-on now..

LawrenceFromTorrance

My son's head blew at about 15K. I then had mine checked at 17K and they were replace because I had bought an extended warrantee. They were again replaced (under warrantee) at about 32K. So I'm on my third set of heads and about 50K miles and plan on checking again before my warrantee runs out. Oh no there's not a problem this just normal wear and tear.
PS I'm 78 so just how hard do you think I'm driving the car?