I don’t claim to be knowledgeable on mechanical issues with cars and especially electronic issues. So, here is what is happening with my new (1700 miles) ‘19 C7 GS. Drove it Saturday and it ran fine. Started it Sunday and it sounded awful, Engine running rough, felt like it was going to shake out of the hood. Engine light came on the dashboard and a message lights up that it has “reduced power”. Major issue it appears. Could barely get it out of the garage. Left it in garage. Flat bedded on Tuesday to dealer. Told the engine is fine and that there is a problem with the ECU and its impact on operation of the throttle body . At first they said it was showing a code that was a mystery to them and had to contact Tech at GM. Told later today that they are replacing the ECU, BUT the ECU is on back order and they are trying to get the GM district rep to track one down given the car is practically new and this is really unusual. First, does this sound remotely right? Secondly, are other C7 owners having this same problem with the same part? I’m curious since if a part is on back order that might indicate its a more widespread problem.

 

I've not seen this reported before (of course, others may report differently). I cannot believe that no one is authorized to walk into the Bowling Green plant, pick-up an ECU, and walk back out with it. When I was in business in my wasted youth, that's what would have been done if necessary. What BS and there is no assurance that is the problem and the dealer is not simply in parts changing mode. BEST of luck, in any event!!!

(do, please, let us know what happens so others may benefit, if nothing else)

 

GM has had a lot of parts availability problems lately, they inventory control is nothing but worst there is out there. When I took my Vette in for a new differential, I drove the car until the new unit came in & I was sure it was the correct part number, There is no excuse for this type of customer service, but apparently GM could car less.

 

It's not like the plant has a big box of ECUs people can just pick from. The very few ECUs actually at the plant are already assigned to cars coming down the line. They couldn't take one from production without screwing up the assembly line and parts queuing, and that would be way more costly than one unhappy GS owner. Read about 'just in time' production processes if you want to know more about how that works.

 

All these threads on parts back order makes me wonder if some GM bean counter is discontinuing inventoring C7 parts early because the C8.

We understand GM cares nothing about their warranty.

 

That isn't how spare parts supply works. The plant orders the parts required for the cars they are building. They know exactly how many they need to build the number of cars planned over a specific period of time and have those parts delivered as required. You don't walk into the factory and pull a part out of stock thus potentially shutting down the assembly line due to a lack of parts. No production control coordinator would ever give you an authorization to pull a part needed by the factory. If they did they would be kissing their job goodbye. Not sure how much it costs if production is halted for an issue but I suspect it runs into many thousands of dollars per hour.

Service Parts orders replacement parts based on usage history and signs contracts with the suppliers to provide those parts. If their estimate of the number of parts to order is short then they run out of parts. Not sure of how often they order spares since they probably don't order everything right away but spread the orders over time and revise their estimate of how many are required as the demand experience develops over time.

That is how I have seen spare parts supplied for several different industries. The only time they buy supplies to cover all expected future usage is if the supplier sends a notice the part is discontinued because components needed to make the part have been discontinued by their manufacturer and a life time spares purchase or redesign of the part is required. This happens quite often in the electronics industry as the designers/manufacturers of chips stop making chips with obsolete technology and replace them with similar function but new technology chips. New technology chips rarely work the same in the old design for various reasons so the part has to be redesigned to work with the new chip or you order a life time purchase of those chips so you can avoid the cost of a redesigning the part. Not an easy decision to make. A lot of chips are discontinued on approximately a two year schedule.

Bill

 

It almost sounds as if GM is really trying hard to push C7 owners into C8s, by not having inventory of critical parts. It will probably get much worse as time goes on. Hope the 3rd party vendors step up like they did with the lack of C6 parts. Of course ECUs and BCMs and such are not likely to be sourced by anyone once GM runs out. Too many hard to replace electronics in these newer cars. All the best of luck to the OP in getting his new car back on the road. I have to wonder where the QC is at with this last run of C7s, mine included since it was on a flatbed back to the dealer the day I drove it off the lot.

 

Update. The sales manager at the dealer (who sold me the car) really helped. As soon as he heard the problem, he contacted his district rep and they searched for the part at other dealers. They found it and had it shipped in. Total time from tow to the dealership to the part and repair and home was 7 days. Not ideal, but better than what I feared at first when told no idea when “we might get the part.” If I hadn’t politely (yelling usually doesn’t work) asked the manager about it, it may have taken longer. One of the 2 sensors which monitors the gas pedal (there are two for redundancy) for situations which might be an unintended sudden acceleration, wasn’t working. As a result the ECU shuts the car down from 8 to 4 cylinders and its basically in limp home mode. According to the service rep the car did exactly what it was supposed to do in that scenario. Replacement of the ECU solved it all. Runs perfectly now.