VENOM ACR

FYI, let me just start out by saying I'm not annoyed the warranty was denied, more annoyed by the reasoning.

So I have a 2017 Grand Sport, bought it November 2017, currently with 4K miles on it. I drive to car shows and do some mountain runs/cruises. My wheels look like they have been sandblasted with rocks, sand, pebbles, you name it. My dashboard is starting to show lines/creases. I brought it to my local Chevy dealer. The service advisor comes out, looks at wheels and dash board and agrees it looks like **** and poor paint job on the wheels. And he can see the lines in the dash board forming. He says come back in 2 days and let service manager see it. I come back in 2 days, looks at it, says to send him pics so he can submit to GM because it looks like a shitty paint job. Couple days go by and GM denies it because "the dashboard doesn't look bad enough yet" and the wheels "that's normal".

I reached out to Chevy customer service, opened a ticket, worked with a senior advisor. She called the dealership and spoke to them. According to a Corvette engineer, "the wheels take in rocks and pebbles from inside the tire and shoot them out through the spokes." WTF? Seriously? A car was designed to take in rocks and shoot them out the other side? I have owned a bunch of cars, with much higher mileage, and wheels look brand new. C7 has 4K miles on it and wheels look like I went down a construction road and then took rocks and debris and blasted wheels.

And as for the dashboard, the dealership is now saying "that's normal". Ummmmm, it's normal for a dashboard to begin showing lines and creases? It's a 3LT, so I paid extra money for higher quality leather and it's normal for the leather to warp. And the Chevy senior advisor tells me on the phone "that's an act of weather, not a defect with the part". Um, so basically you can't park the car in the sun? The car was sitting on a lot in Montana from April 2017 until November 2017 in the sun. It sits in my garage now the majority of it's life.

So to sum it up, the wheels will not be warrantied because it's normal for rocks to get picked up and shot around inside the spokes from the outside AND it's normal for the dashboard to show creases and lines in the leather, which will only get worse as the car gets older (as will the wheels). How come the faces of the wheels aren't chipped? How come the other surfaces of the wheels aren't chipped? All 4 wheels in the same 1-2 inch spot have the peppered look. To me it doesn't seem normal for only certain parts of all 4 wheels to get chipped up and not the entire wheel. And it seems absurd to me that rocks are gathered from the inside of the tires and then shot out through the spokes.

You buy an $84K car and the wheels look worse than a $15K Cruze. Car has already been in twice to have a seat squeak fixed, both headlamps replaced because there was some acrylic drips inside, and the stripes replaced because of bubbling.

Below pics are of the wheels. I do not have an updated picture of the dashboard, but the picture shown is from the 14 Z51 I owned and that's how the dashboard looked after 30K miles. Apparently how that dashboard looked is normal.

PatternDayTrader

So the rock thing isn't about rocks at all. Its about cooling the brake rotors under extreme use.

asc709

KenHorse

I can agree with the road rash of the wheels but the dash certainly looks like a manufacturer's defect....

aj98

Your dash is developing unique "character"
The leather seats on my C5 have similar patterning in them.
Id guess their position is the dash is natural, not synthetic leather, so the sun/heat/cool cycle expand and and shrink the material - as the natural oils etc slowly evaporate, the character lines form.

Foosh

I agree none of the reported issues are legit warranty claims. Knicks and chips on wheels are no different than on body paint and not covered. Natural leather does also develop character lines. If it was debonding anywhere, that would be a different issue.

ssidekickbp

I had my wheels powder coated. Solved any pitting.

Does anyone honestly except standard paint to hold up when there constantly pelted with small rocks and such from driving the car??

John Ulrich

Chrome is a tad better. 3 of my chrome wheel vehicles show similar pitting on the spokes. One has well over 150,000 miles on the wheels

Mayor111

Not trying to start a black rim vs chrome rim argument here, but I own BOTH chrome and black Z51 rims - my black rims look horrible most of the time - scratches, tiny holes, dull looking paint - you name it. My chrome rims have DOUBLE the mileage and look brand new.

Think about a black car just driving down the road, how dirty it gets - now drag that same black exterior body panel down close to the road, like the height of a rim...how dirty / damaged do you think it would get then...? Probably as dirty / damaged as our black painted rims...right?

Bill Dearborn

Do you know whether or not the track brake duct package was installed? The way the car is delivered air comes in through the grill brake duct holes and is deflected toward the back of the wheels.


The deflectors mounted on the lower control arms will also deflect air coming under the car. The track brake duct package changes things a little bit. It has a duct that is mounted to the lca and takes air from the grille ducts and from under the car and directs it to a place behind the center of of the rotor so air can enter the center of the rotor and pass out through the outer edge of the rotor. There are also deflectors that channel air to the rear of the wheels just as the as delivered configuration does. That means a lot of stuff gets picked up and blown onto the wheels through several mechanisms. Running on a track I get to see a lot of debris thrown onto the outer edges of the wheel spokes. Painted wheels don't hold up well to the constant barrage of small pebbles picked up and thrown into the wheels with the cooling air, even Powder Coated expensive aftermarket race wheels don't hold up well to that abrasion.

You compare the result to a Cruze but you don't recognize the Cruze has much less cooling air directed toward the rotors than the Corvette does since it doesn't need that much cooling air. It can't go 150 mph into a braking zone, have a hard application of the brakes to take speed down to 50 mph and hold up to repeated similar brake actions over a 2 or 3 minute time period. Try to do that with a Cruze and you end up with a ball of twisted metal that you would be lucky to crawl out of.

You paid $84K for the ability to drive the car hard and have it last not for the pretty painted wheels.

Bill

Jeff V.

Chrome is a lot harder than black power coat. Who knew...

Foosh

Perhaps, but if you don't like the look of chrome, it doesn't matter if they're pristine clean or not. They simply do not look good to you.

Jaylars

My wheels are the same way. Noticed it around 3k miles or so. Keep them clean and consider using a different technique to clean them. The scratches are what will make them dull.
Mine have over 20k miles on them. When you look at them up close with a flashlight, you will see all the pebble rash. But when seen from a little distance away, they look just fine.

Kevin A Jones

I believe some of the wheel pitting is a result of leaving brake dust (slightly corrosive) on wheels for extended periods of time.

As far as your dash goes, it's just the leather showing it's character from aging as most leather's (even furniture as below) will do over time.

Thank your lucky stars that your 3LT dash isn't shrinking and cracking like many 3LT dashes do, then you would have a REAL problem.

VENOM ACR

Yea from a couple feet away they look fine, just up close look horrendous. I have a 2011 GMC Terrain with 75K miles. I have driven it off road, through construction zones, mud, all kids of stuff. I don't have 1 chip and they look brand new. 4K miles and these wheels look bad. I can only imagine what they will look like at 8K, 20K, 30K. I guess my best bet is to get them repainted but with tones of clear coat? Powder coating won't leave a smooth glossy shine like factory, correct?

I just expect the entire wheel to be chewed up, not the same spots on every blade on all 4 tires. The faces are fine. The area where it says "Corvette", that flat/curved area is fine. I have see some people's wheels who have 20K on their C7 and wheels look brand new. As for the dash, I would have rather had a 1LT and not gotten the upgraded leather but the Collector Editions only come with 3LT. I saw what happened to my Z51 dash and I can see the GS dash starting the same trend. But for GM to say "yea it's normal" ummmm no. I have plenty of cars with leather and none turned to crap. Driver seat I expect with the constant in and out, *** on the seat, etc. But not the dash. Oh well, I guess that's the "Chevy" quality despite it being an $84K car.

Gearhead Jim

Those lines on OP's dash look like stretch marks. Has the car ever been pregnant?

Seriously, GM has been having problems with their expensive 3LT leather dash for about 10 years now. Their standard procedure is to deny warranty coverage and clam up.
In comparison, my wife's Toyota Camry is now 7 years old and the dash is perfect, but we just got a letter from Toyota apologizing that some cars (not ours, nor any we've seen) have had some appearance issues with the dash and we've just been given a free warranty on the dash to 10 years/120k miles. Which helps explain why we switched to Toyota for our family cars 30 years ago and never looked back. Each of our four modern Corvettes has had more warranty repairs in the first year than any of our Toyotas in their entire life, and the Corvette problems were not related to the high performance nature of the car- just simple stuff that fails.

Mr. Jones

I have the black machine faced wheels on my Z51, 18000+ miles they are not as bad as yours.
Do you bring your car to a automated car wash?

JALLEN4

Is it not difficult to compare a 3LT dash with any other dash? I am not aware of a ton of other cars with a real leather dash even if they have a leather interior.

MMD

mschuyler

You are wanting the warranty to pay for wear and tear you inflicted on the car. Those wheels are not "defective." They've been hit by road debris. That's one of the disadvantages of black wheels because they show it more readily. And as for your dash, it looks great! Makers of vinyl products intentionally put those lines in their stuff to make it look like real leather. I'd be very happy if my dash looked like that. You're making mountains out of mole hills. I agree with GM. Not covered by warranty.