FOGeologist

I'm owner #5, and my car is a M6 1997.

I noticed that I had the "Security" light coming on randomly recently, with greater frequency. I had the "Pull Key - Wait 10 Sec" message come on once a few weeks back.

This morning, I got the "Pull Key" deal and the "Column Lock" message again, and the speed cutoff. Could not drive to work. There was no indication of mischief on the weekend, and the car sat for 2 days undriven until this morning's failure.

You will note that I have never had the steering column actually lock the wheel in my car in any way, shape or form. I do have recall stickers from GM mounted on the fan shroud, but have never had the ability to find a source for the "Recall Campaign Numbers" visible on the stickers. I have no decode for the numbers.

I am unclear if anyone has ever been at the steering column lock issue in the car; I thought they were because the wheel has never locked.

My battery might not be in perfect health, and while it looks really fresh, it could still be old. I have a phone charger plugged into the outlet and it has one of those dopey bright LEDs, which may be trickle-discharging my car battery. Voltage always appears to be at 14.1 indicated when the car is started and slips to 13.1 shortly into the drive, so I have had little indication my battery is bad... although it still could be a candidate. I will place the battery on my excellent computer controlled charger once I get back to the house, but I may take the dismounted battery to Autozone for a diagnosis first.

I did purchase an LMC from the vendor directly this morning. Wifey drove me to work.

FOGeologist

Great Advice, sounds good. On my way to auto zone. Battery specs out at 12.4 V dismounted. My multimeter has a load setting and it only dropped to 12.39 V.

FOGeologist

OK, Autozone says their Duralast Gold (2015 vintage) is "good," but needs a charge. My NoCo battery charger is giving it the old zip-zap on the bench.

note: the lead attachment bolts were almost completely rounded off and were on nearly finger-tight. Hmmm. I wonder if I was getting the full-on charge of the alternator? I'm replacing them with extended bolts/nuts in an attempt to get a solid connection.

FOGeologist

Battery's coming up on full charge, should be 100% within the hour.

Here are my recall codes:

FOGeologist

Battery pulled and charged. Still have the condition. Compliance sent out my LMC5 today. Should have 'er fixed up when it gets here.

mmartinez

Also check your positive battery cable connections at the starter and where they connect at the fuse box, proper battery voltage is really important on the c5, also check your ground connections.

FOGeologist

Installed the LMC5 on Saturday and it immediately restored normal operating conditions.

Thanks for the help and advice in this thread.

Rene's Rage

FOGeologist

I bought the unit directly from Compliance. I do not remember how many wires it had. There was an extra. I connected only 4.

No issues.

Rene's Rage

FOGeologist

Well, two weeks on and I'm getting the stupid "Service Column Lock" notice in the DIC again.

Pissing me off. I haven't gotten restricted yet by the 2 mph bullcrap that Chevrolet installed, but the message is annoying. Is there anything I can just disconnect or a fuse I can remove that will bring all this nonsense to a halt? I thought the LMC5 was actually going to work,.

FOGeologist

Yep, I sent him an email about an hour ago. I explicitly followed the instructions and the problem seemed to be solved for a while after the fix, so I doubt I did anything screwy during installation.

My battery seems to be solid (it was load tested) and my alternator seems to put out 14.1v initially (according to the DIC, anyway) for the first 2-3 min of driving, after which it eventually slides down to 13.1v. I wonder if my alternator is slowly going tango uniform?

FOGeologist

Followup: removed the negative battery cable and let the car sit for a few minutes. The "Service Steering Column" notification on the DIC is gone. It's been several days now and I think that the problem has been resolved.

My battery is just fine, BTW.

rollin59

Wish I hadn't sold my Mustang GT and bought into this column-locking nonsense...

mmartinez

That's doesn't sound like a true corvette fan, when you can correct the column lock problem with a LMC5.

rollin59

I didn't say I was a Corvette fanboy, but I bought a 2000 Vette 6M just to see what all the fuss was about...
Not all THAT impressed, frankly, even by Y2K standards...my first GM vehicle ever...probably the last...

Column is unlocked, had GM dealer install an LMC5, this stopped column locking, did NOT stop "pull key wait 10 sec" or fuel shutoff problems. Sent Compliance a note, see what they suggest.

Maybe if I'm lucky the thing will catch fire and burn to the ground in some parking lot. Then I can take the insurance money and buy something else.

Interstate battery is fully charged and recent (2 years). Car is garaged and well maintained.
(A friend told me his new-ish Cadillac has essentially the same security system problem.)

rollin59

I contacted Compliance Parts to troubleshoot the LMC5, maybe they were affected by the wild fires...Answering machine is full and no reply to email...maybe they've got bigger problems than old-Corvette relays.

Read the sticky and tried this, after resetting all the codes in the DIC...

A1 Sometimes the latching relay in the CLB can get out of sync sending the wrong status to your BCM. This has happened to a few folks even with the CLB installed. The CLB latching relay gets out of sync with the BCM possibly due to shock, vibration or relay contact bounce during switching which confused the BCM. The CLB does not physically know which state it should be in; it only switches from one state to the other when it receives a signal from the BCM. The BCM can be reset by pulling Fuse 23 and waiting 10 seconds.
and this:
A2 Check to make sure Fuse 25 in passenger footwell is good.

Did my little Chevy chant...Drew runes in chalk on the garage floor...
Short blast up & down Highway 41 for full warm up...So far, no "Pull Key" messages. No new codes. We'll see after a little time goes by...