Turns out the C8 gods weren't smiling on me yesterday during a road trip with my son. We were headed into eastern Ohio for a full day of backroad driving when the breakdown happened.

In the interest of sharing my experience and hopefully helping others see below for a detailed write-up. I will update the post once I hear from the technician what the root cause was and fix.

Apologies in advance for the length and all the details but figure I'll try and eliminate the need for the types of follow-up questions I've seen on other threads about issues. If I've left anything out that you'd like answered don't hesitate to ask as I'll be glad to share whatever I can that could be helpful to know.

Car background:
- 2021 Stingray 3LT, Z51, mag ride & front lift produced 7/26, delivered 7/30, with proper procedures followed for the first 500 miles.
- 732 total miles at the time of breakdown with 130 of those miles yesterday morning prior to breakdown.

Breakdown specifics:
- in Drive / Tour mode about 100 feet prior to a stop sign (we were going to be making a left across a busy 2 lane divided road) the car died without warning.
- no electronics shut off and the right side of dash illuminated a message to the effect of "car no longer running - press start to re-start".
- I realized the car was rolling so told my son who was driving to stop the car and re-start it.
- when he hit the start button dash showed a message to the effect "trying to re-start" … car turned over but would not engage.
- looked at the dash and the CEL light WAS NOT illuminated so I told him to stop trying, wait a few seconds, then try again.
- when he hit the button a second time the oil pressure gauge went from 27/28 psi to 0 and turned solid bright red … the car was trying to turn over but would not engage.
- I immediately told him to stop … at which point the traffic behind us started honking so I waved them by.
- it took me a minute for my brain to engage as I was processing the events when it hit me … "how did the car keep rolling if we were in gear?".
- I looked at the dash below the tach and saw it was showing Neutral … since we were in D coming up to the Stop sign it somehow must have automatically done that as / when it was dying because my son didn't hit the N button as both his hand were on the steering wheel.
- my mind immediately went to "holy smokes, we've got to keep it in Neutral so we'll be able to roll it on a flat bed" so I told him to not touch any buttons as I jumped out to push it backwards so it was out of the road main lane area (THANK GOD we weren't in the middle of the intersection). Someone stopped when I was pushing it to help (turns out he was local to the area and had 2 70's Vette's at home and said he was familiar with being broken down - go figure) and we got it most of the way out of the lane but I made sure all 4 wheels stayed on pavement and 2 didn't drop off to the gravel as there was a slope (note: this car is heavy and hard to get rolling!).
- when I got back in the car I noticed the dash continued to show 0psi oil pressure in solid red (since it wasn't running I figured it would be 0psi but in the 8 days of ownership when I was starting or parking it and it showed 0psi it was never red so I assumed something might be up with the oil pump). I also noticed at the point the CEL was now illuminated as it apparently must have come on after the 2nd restart attempt.
- I used On Star to connect with GM Roadside Assistance (in hindsight probably should have called AAA but my mind was in a million places at that moment ).
- I was connected to a local towing company who said it would be 2 1/2 hours for a rollback to get to me … I asked if their rollbacks had dollies in case the car somehow went into Park and they said no and they weren't aware of any of the 3 local towing companies that had individual dollies that could be used on their rollbacks. Figured there was nothing I could do at that point about that so asked them to get there was quickly as possible.
- ironically the dash was still displaying the message "car not running - press start to re-start" but I told my son not to touch the start button or any other button for that matter as I wasn't sure what would or wouldn't cause it to completely turn off and possibly shift it into Park, at which point we'd really be in trouble.
- GM RA had told me they were only paying for the tow to the closest local certified Vette Chevy dealer which was 12 miles away (I was 100+ miles from home) but when I called them to let them know I was coming in I talked to the service manager who told me they hadn't seen any C8's yet so I made the decision it was going back to the dealer in Cincy that I bought it from (plus that would put it very close to home so I didn't have to worry about traveling 100+ miles to get the car eventually) and I would sort out the towing expenses afterwards.
- during the 2 1/2 hour wait the dash kept displaying the message "applications being shut down to conserve battery" but we couldn't tell what was being turned off because nothing on the dash changed including the infotainment screen (the NAV option stayed on the entire time at the screen it was showing when the breakdown happened) and the 0% oil pressure gauge stayed solid red.
- shockingly the car stayed in Neutral the entire 2 1/2 hour wait and we got the car up on the rollback when it arrived (see notes below about that process) and when the rollback driver told my son it put it in park (for safety purposes he said he wasn't comfortable transporting the car the 113 miles to my dealer with it in N and only strapped down with tow hook attached which I agreed with him on) I heard the transmission shift and then the car completely died and the dash went blank. My first thought when I head the tranny "click" into park was "holy h&ll, how are we now going to get it off the rollback ?????" but I pushed that to back of my mind and figured we'd deal with it when we got to my dealer.
- ironically during the ride to the dealer I got an email from On Star to let me know my batter was critically low and I should run the car to recharge it. No kidding, wish I could!
- after a 2 3/4 hour ride in the cab with the rollback driver we got back to my dealer just North of Cincy. They knew I was inbound as I was in communication with them prior to the rollback even getting to me and I had let them know once it was on the rollback to be prepared to figure out how to get it off the rollback with it in Park.
- when we got to the dealer and backed the rollback into the service bay my sales guy told me to jump up in and let's see what was going on. When I got in the dash went through the normal cycle and he told me to try and push the start button just to engage the electronics (but not fully start the car) so we could see what happened. Shockingly the oil pressure gauge showed 27/28 psi so we tried to shift it into N and it wouldn't do anything (which makes sense since the engine wasn't running but we figured it was worth a try). With the oil gauge showing "normal" he said to try and start it but it wouldn't … a message appeared to the effect "insufficient battery supply to start".
- he then had me jump out, open the frunk and remove the panels to get to the battery. Wow, those clips sure are tight on the right and left sides … very fragile too so fortunately none broke but if they did I figured that was the least of my worries at that point. Managed to pull off the main center panel and had access to the battery. The flatbed driver pulled out his jump pack, hooked it up and I got back in the car.
- checked the oil pressure gauge again and it was still showing 27/28 psi so hit the start buttons and it fired up.
- quickly shifted it into N, tow operator disconnected the straps and we rolled it backwards using the winch until gravity stopped us, he unhooked the winch and then I shifted into R and took it the rest of the way off the bed under power.
- oil pressure gauge continued to show 27/28 psi.
- after backing up, I shifted into D and pulled it forward where they wanted me to leave it and turned it off.
- we all stood there stunned at the turn of events, wrote up the service ticket and left it there for the technician on Monday morning. I probably should have gone and played the lottery last night with those odds because it could just as easily still been sitting on the flatbed this morning.
- to top it off, since my wife is out of town and couldn't come get my son and I my sales team gave us a ride home … major shout out to them for their help yesterday (Gary and Dave at Columbia Chevrolet on Montgomery Road in Cincy).
- the only thing in hindsight I realize I didn't do during the frenzy to get it off the flatbed was to check to see if the CEL was still illuminated.

Not that I ever wanted this to happen but I have to admit yesterday turned out about as well as it could have all things considered. Most importantly my son and I made it home safely, the breakdown happened in a spot where we were clearly visible from all directions and at a stopping area so weren't in danger, we managed to get it back to my local dealer and the car is under warranty so there won't be any out of pocket repair costs.

Yes it is extremely frustrating to have a new car with only 732 miles have this happen to but I realize it is a first world problem to have. Even when the car was on the rollback it still looked sexy and there were several times where the rollback driver was getting frustrated with cars pulling up along side to take pictures, wave and give thumbs up as some of them were drifting into our lane. He said he's never seen anything like that before.

So I don't add any more length to this already long post I'll create a separate post with the lessons learned from this experience so others can benefit from my learnings. Here's a link to that post: Lessons Learned From My Breakdown Yesterday - CorvetteForum - Chevrolet Corvette Forum Discussion

Below are a few pictures … certainly not the ones I was hoping for when my son and I started out but memorable none-the-less.

Again, let me know if there is anything you are curious about I might have left out and I'll update once I've heard from the tech.

*** Note: status updates provided in post #'s 20, 31, 38, 43, 62, 70, 78, 79, 84, 88, 89 and 101 ***

 

Sounds like your battery is shot or drained. Good luck and let us know the outcome.

 

Thanks for sharing and sorry to hear about this. Good job staying aware of the forced-Park crappy design of the C8. Keep us posted! Luckily the car didn’t crap out in a dangerous situation.

 

Wow, sorry to hear of this! Glad everyone was safe. Thank you for sharing the details, and I hope it's a simple fix.

 

Thanks for the support, hopefully it will be an easy (and quick) fix!

fishfordays - tried sending you a PM about your experience but it wouldn't go through. Can you send me a PM with the pieces of our stories that were similar and how they diagnosed the FOB to be the issue? Just curious as the FOB didn't even come to my mind as a potential culprit, thanks.

 

The car should not shut down if the fob is removed or becomes inoperable, it just won’t restart once it IS shutdown. If the car is ON and a door is opened and then closed the car rechecks for a key, and alerts if set up to do so under “vehicle personalization” (for instance, if the passenger is the only one with a key and they get out). But even in this case, the car does not shutdown, it just alerts you to the fact that there is no longer a fob in the car. If you choose to drive away you would know you will not be able to restart the car until you have a fob present.

 

Sorry to hear about this. The symptoms don't seem to fit the issues some others are having, so maybe it's something simple. At the very least, Chevy should fully repay the towing cost.

I had a new car once with about 2,000 miles on it. Was cruising down the interstate at about 65 mph on a Sunday afternoon when, without warning, the car died. The engine quit, the gauges went to 0, the dash lights went out, the radio quit. I coasted to a dead stop in the emergency lane. My dad happened to be following about 10 minutes behind. He stopped and we raised the hood. Battery cable was lose. In two minutes I was on my way.

 

I believe the oil pressure display is always RED when the oil pressure is ZERO. Before you started it at the dealer you said the oil pressure was reading 27/28% so you started it up. It should have been reading ZERO. I vote for a bad battery or bad terminal connection.

Good luck for a speedy and permanent fix.

 

Sounds like an electrical gremlin for sure. Likely a bad ground.

 

Very sad GM.

 

What an ordeal you went through. Hope the tech can figure out what the heck is going on and get your car back on the road.

 

what an awesome equipped C8! i know i would not have been at all as understanding as you
obviously have been. Love the C8 looks but will just continue to admire from afar

 

Hope it is a one time event.

 

Minor, but related question here. Has anyone had success with convincing GM Roadside Assistance transporting a Corvette to the closest dealer with a certified Corvette tech? Not all have them on staff, and it's supposedly a requirement for any dealership desiring to receive allocations to sell them.

 

6:20pm Monday Update - talked to the service manager about 90 min ago and he said they'd let me know as soon as they knew something. Will check in again late tomorrow if no word in the interim.

 

Be glad it wasn't the tranny.

 

I have a similar story. The car locked up electronically. It needed a new transmission module.

 

Sometimes batteries can fail suddenly. Also, it appears the C8 makes heavy use of the battery to run all the sub-systems and I think it is a good idea to keep the car on a charger at all times when not being driven. If not, the battery is cycling deeper.

 

That's too bad you got a car with a bad battery. If that turns out to be the case/culprit. Sounds like a good battery is an essential ingredient to C8s running. So sorry to hear that this happened in cross traffic situation. Any time this happens, it's potentially life threatening. Glad to hear the battery seems to be the problem.

 

8/10 8:30pm Update: Service Mgr said the car threw no codes so they've spent the past day and a half going through everything and can find nothing wrong. They said it runs great. They've engaged the GM Technical team to try and troubleshoot. I'm hoping for some answers tomorrow because for peace of mind it would be nice to know that something was fixed instead of the possibility of it just randomly happening again.