Dropped a valve in #7 cylinder

sandsman1959 · 08-19-2009, 05:41 PM

My 2002 Z06 was idling in my driveway 2 nites ago and it shook violently and acted like it was just running on 4 cylinders. It dropped a valve in the # 7 cylinder. Weak stock valve springs appear to be the cause. Has anyone heard of this happening? The local Chevy house diagnosed what happened. Needless to say the engine is trashed, good news is that I bought a extended warranty on it when I purchased the car from Friendly Chevorlet in Dallas.

81c3 · 08-19-2009, 06:08 PM

Its happened to many people. Glad you had the warranty! I'm ordering my new springs in the next week. How many miles on your car?

East Tx Muscle Cars · 08-19-2009, 07:12 PM

all stock?

blazer427X3 · 08-19-2009, 07:12 PM

My 02 Z had 2 cracked valve springs (on one cylinder) replaced under warranty at 32,437 miles. The previous owner tried to get GM to replace all the springs but was told that warranty would only cover the cracked springs. Luckily it didn't drop a valve like yours did. Are they replacing the entire engine including new heads or do they replace it with a "short block" ?

sandsman1959 · 08-19-2009, 08:13 PM

My miles on the engine was 52,000

sandsman1959 · 08-19-2009, 08:15 PM

I am still waiting on an addjuster to look at it. The service manager told me that they would find a "like" engine with simular miles on it to replace it. I know that if that is what they are going to do, I am going to throw one big ass fit.

blazer427X3 · 08-19-2009, 08:22 PM

Hope it turns out well for you. The guy I bought mine from didn't like the idea of potential future spring failure and ended up putting the TSP heads on it with all new springs, rockers, etc ... after the warranty period was up.

sandsman1959 · 08-20-2009, 08:50 PM

I have some photos of the damage in my profile albumn. The dealership is going to order me a new engine after the adjuster looks at it. It has a busted head, busted piston, cracked block, and all of the loose pieces are down in the pan. All in all it looks pretty nasty.

blazer427X3 · 08-20-2009, 09:01 PM

Glad to hear the dealership is doing right by you. Hope you get it back on the road again soon.

B

tblu92 · 08-21-2009, 02:35 PM

The yellow z06 springs are not bad but there have been some failures--i've heard that some dealers are trying to say a failure is a result of a missed shift or over-rev--
Off the subject but here lies my biggest complaint with the "On Star" GM system that you get free on a new car for awhile and then they want you to purchase it yearly--As a tuner i hear rumblings that the future of On Star is for them to have a complete record of your driving history to use it against you in a warrany situation such as yours--They will be able to pull up data that can show if you missed a high RPM shift or something similar ( big burnout )and hit the rev limiter with a possibility of tagging a valve--your driving privacy is totally comprimised--OR if you are somewhere where you shouldn't be their GPS could be used to pin-point your location and it will be used against you in a variety of court cases ( a nasty divorce in a fault state for example)---That's why they give it to you free for 1 or 2 years because they are toying with making it mandatory on all of their cars to be used in warrantee situations---This sucks !!!!

sandsman1959 · 08-21-2009, 09:09 PM

Well the valve springs that were in the engine that cratored were the yellow ones. The good news is the adjuster has looked at it and a crate engine has been ordered and will be in on Saturday or Monday. I might have my car back by the end of the week if all goes well.

Greywolfe · 08-21-2009, 09:48 PM

I found out after I bought my 03Z from a dealer that it had a new engine put in it. Same issue, dropped valve. Good news she now has 50k on her but the engine has only 20k and no problems.