I just started having the problem at 9,000 miles with a manual shifter. The first time it happened I thought I had screwed up by not putting it into reverse but it now has happened four times and each time it was in reverse locked. It seems to happen when it gets below 40 degrees but who knows.

Last Saturday it didn't start in the morning so I used my other car to run errands. Just for fun I tried it in the afternoon after it had warmed up to the 60s and it started with no problems.

The car seems to be more difficult to jump when it doesn't want to start. Like the engine needs more power to turn over. I'm one frustrated C6 owner at the moment.

 

You may just have a simple degenerating battery problem, as DBS has not seemed to be weather dependent. I would suggest having the battery load tested, as colder temperatures will tend to weaken it.

 

The car does probably draw a little more cranking amps than most cars. The jumper cables you buy in the stores are worthless. They are made with #10 or maybe with luck some #8 wire. In order to deliver cranking current over 8-12 feet of wire and have enough voltage left, you need to make up jumper cables out of at least #2 welding cable. All you can really do with the cheep ones is run the car you are jumping from with them hooked to your battery for 15 min or so and let your battery charge up enough to deliver the amps.

 

Keep your shirt on Hoonose.

What I said was:

197 people voted in that poll and that represents 1.3% of all the '05 Manual transmission C6 owners out there. Hardly a big enough sample size to pronounce it an epidemic.

You have a small sample size. A miniscule sample size. 1.3% of all owners. And of that 1.3% you have 25% of those people reporting dead battery "syndrome". 25% of 1.3%. Miniscule.

And undoubtedly, some, much, ..... or quite possibly, "most", of that 25% reported as "DBS", is nothing of the sort and fueled by fear and unfortunately, paranoia. Case in point we have just witnessed a report of what appears to be a degenerating battery which was about to erroneously go down as dead battery "syndrome". I have pointed to a few other examples as well.

Yes there is a small problem and GM is supposedly working on it now. But nothing to get up in arms about.

 

I couldn't agree more and I think 25% is on the low side since there are people who drive their car every day and don't even know if they have DBS or not and then the people that just take their car in and the dealer charges it up and tells them everything is OK now.

I personally am seriously considering dumping it before everyone figures out that the 05's should be avoided. Funny thing, I went on the Honda S2000 forum to see what kind of problems they are having and not a one. This clutch issue, transmission issue, front pulley coming off, headlight lens fogging up, shifting like a truck, rear end exploding, running hot in traffic and DBS is about too much for me.

GM has been building cars for what, 100 years now. They used to be in racing. I just assumed they would know how to put a front pulley on an engine or make a transmission that could have pointed teeth so you could slide into first gear and a clutch that would work and not stick to the floor at high RPM's. It's like there reinventing the wheel here. I don't see Honda making the same mistake twice, ever.

Gary

 

I rest my case, for now Hoonose. Now with the exception of his dead battery, this poster quite possibly has not had any of this. And quite possibly knows no one personally who has experienced any of this. Yet he is ready to bolt based on what he has read on an internet forum.

This is a prime example of what reading internet message boards can do in terms of stirring unnecessary panic.

 

I think dumping is the wrong way to think. You will lose a large amount in this short a time period.
Gm or a good dealer mechanic or perhaps someone on here will figure this out. There are people working on this. We are thinking the problen is in the reverse/steering wheel interface. Changing/programing BCM and assorted sensors to 06 status will fix this once and for all (IMNSHO)

If GM does not come out with this change, quite possibly some vendor will come out with a kit. (think of the C5 with steering lock issue)
I agree that some people are having just a bad battery problem, but there are plenty out there with the real DBS issue.(this is for EB)
FWIW i enjoy my Vert, it is quite a car. I hope to hold onto it for quite a while. If I do it will have some MAJOR up grades as it gets older.

 

Certainly there are genuine instances of dead battery "syndrome." And I am confident that this issue will be taken care of sooner rather than later.

It makes no sense to panic. But when you scream the equivalent of "fire" in a crowded room, ("....... I think 25% is on the low side .....") panic is the natural human response.

What you wind up with is a situation where any and everyone who has a car which is slow about starting, whatever the reason, be it weather conditions, faulty battery, etc., automatically has this knee jerk reaction that it must be due to some sort of a "syndrome" or another.

 

Well, I tend to think the problem is much larger than anyone knows. Only a small percentage of owners are on this forum. What do the rest do when there battery goes dead? The dealers know nothing about it. I have a fairly large dealer so they sold maybe a half dozen C6's with manual transmissions since they were only able to get about one car a month. I told them about DBS about a month ago and they knew nothing about it. A week later they called me and said they had a customer with a manual transmission with a dead battery in the garage and asked what they should do. If I hadn't called the dealer the week before I can assure you this car would have been towed to the dealer, put on a charger for a day or so and then they would have read the diagnostic codes, checked the alternator, all OK, and given it back to the customer. Possibly they would have convinced the customer that they must have not had it in reverse. I don't know about you, but it sure makes me ponder how many thousands of cases there might be out there that are totally unreported.

 

We will not rest our case.

There is a great difference between a rare problem, like the crank pulley problem causing somewhat of an unnecessary, although short-lived, fiasco, and dead batteries in '05 shifters. This is a recurring and chronic problem, there is no panic.
It's not that an individual case of a dead battery is anything like a disaster, but it's the prevelance and reoccurrence rate of the issue that is the problem. It's ongoing and producing dead batteries about 10X as frequent as one should expect.

I sincerely thank you for resting your case.

 

I can always re open it as the need arises. Unnecessary panic and fear are rampant with regard to this issue

 

Well lets take a closer look at what you say

Question #1. Why do you think they knew nothing about it?

Question #2. How do you know that the owner of that car shut it down
properly?


I shall ask again, how on earth do you know that the owner shut the car down properly?

 

Heck, this morning, I opened the passenger door (twice), left it open the second time while cleaning my glasses. In a matter of less than 2 minutes, DBS occurred. Thankfully, I have Priority Start. After going through the usual open trunk, open door, press cigarette lighter, the vehicle started right up (did not touch another thing, so it was in reverse and brake on).

It is a royal PITA and GM should be ashamed of themselves selling such a piece of garbage. Worse, they are total @#$@#$#@%@#$ for not fixing it.

 

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. But once again, that could be a genuine case of DBS, or it could simply be a weak battery.

You have enough power to open the passenger door not once but twice. You leave it open, with the interior lights on about 2 minutes and now you cannot start the car.

Could be a bad battery.

Indeed if you look at the instructions which came with your Priority Start under "Troubleshooting" "Disconnects Battery Too Often" there are 6 possible reasons for why you are seeing what you are seeing.

Among them :

battery is weak, needing replacement.
There is a short circuit in the vehicle's electrical system.
Post adapter needs tightening.
An accessory is unintentionally left on.
Ground connection requires attention.
Corrosion Build up.

 

EB, you are right, I have not had all this happen. My pulley didn't come off because my VIN is 24XXX and my rear end didn't explode, although, I am pretty sure it would if I ever unleashed some wheel spin and got wheel hop. Makes me afraid to get on it now. As for the rest, I have had DBS 3 times, transmission about half the time won't go into 1st with out letting the clutch out or pulling back into 2nd, clutch hangs up sometimes and doesn't engage, headlight lenses both fog over consistently, it does most definitely shift like a truck, and temp climbs to 220 plus in traffic which I realize is not the end of the world, but most cars have adequate cooling and air flow to avoid this. OH, and I forgot to mention the huge vibration in the engine. I guess I'm not a very happy camper and that is why I went to google and typed in "C6 dead battery problem" the first time my battery was stone dead and subsequently joined this forum, not the other way around.

 

My pulley has not come off and I am in the VIN range that it supposedly happend. I have no intentions of taking the car in to fix what ain't broke.

If you read carefully, you will see that the reports of failed differentials of which I count 5 out of all the manual transmission cars here.

Two had aftermarket programming to defeat safety measure put into place by GM to prevent such occurences.

One belongs to the owner of a Cartek heads and cam car. It's owner has posted a video right here from Bahrain showing a 203mph pass. How much power does it take to do that?
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...0&page=1&pp=20

One belongs to another owner whose car makes 493 RWHP 439RWTQ
Better than 150 more rear wheel horsepower than stock and 100 more ft/lbs of torque.

Only one report of a completely stock car losing it's rear end.

I have been driving manuals for a long time and went without driving them for a while too. By habit, when I come to a stop I depress the clutch shift into second and go to first. I have discovered that I am not the only one here who does this. I have never had a problem, nor have I heard of anyone else having a problem with the shifter who drives like this.

Did you ever wonder why you rarely hear of DBS on any other forum other than this one?

It is in large part because of the obsession here with it. People love a "crisis."

Were it as common as some are trying to make it out to be:

1.Why are GMs rivals not making hay with this?
2.Why has it not shown up in national publications and newspapers or on 6 o'clock news reports?

3. Why have the consumer advocates not gotten involved if its such a big deal? They did with the column lock issue in the C5.

 

I'm quite sure that our forum didn't 'invent' this problem. It's also commonly discussed on the DCVette site. I don't follow any others. What other C6 related forums are out there?

The information about all these dead batteries is still relatively new, and it's dull information, at that. Eventually you'll hear more about it, as the significant world around us catches up. I just don't recall when the column lock issue became more recognized, but I'm sure I had my '99 C5 for a while before I began hearing about it.

 

I have always had 3, 4, 5 or 6 speed manual transmissions. I never sit at the red light with the clutch in because I don't want to spin the throw out bearing. In all my other cars it's been easy to pop them in first and go. All you need is for a point to be filed on the teeth of 1st gear so it can't butt heads with the other fixed gear when both are stationary, much like the modification GM came out with to fix this issue. I guess my point here is why after they had it right for 10, 20 maybe 100 years, why didn't they ask one of these past engineers if they thought these square cut gears might slide in to 1st OK or NOT. That's what I mean by reinvent the wheel.

 

[QUOTE=Hoonose]I'm quite sure that our forum didn't 'invent' this problem. It's also commonly discussed on the DCVette site. I don't follow any others. What other C6 related forums are out there?

QUOTE]

Member of the C5/C6 registry since 98.
We know all about the problem. It is well know. Even some GM engineers in a "off the record" talk know all about it. That request for DBS names and Vins came from a C5/C6 member that has a "friend" in GM.
Yes other groups know about this.

PS we knew about the column lock issue long before any other group, to the best of my knowledge.

 

http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/forums/index.php?

http://z06vette.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=61

http://townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.ef17d75

http://corvetteactioncenter.com/foru...play.php?f=180

http://corvettemechanic.com/board/index.php?act=SC&c=10

http://www.ls2.com/forums/

And NONE OF THEM exhibit the paranoia with regard to dead battery "syndrome" that we so often see here.

If the column lock and the dead battery "syndrome" are related then it will probably never reach the headlines because column locks are no longer used in Corvettes.

The few cars that have been hit by this will fade into the sunset and it will fall by the wayside, as it should. This does not appear to be the issue that many are trying to make it out to be. Yes it does exist, but it hardly appears to be a crisis.