Greg Gore

I can certainly see his side of it. When you weigh it out it could be more of a headache than even getting a favorable decision is worth and he wants something better anyway. I would sure like to see pictures of the broken parts. I believe it would be obvious right away where this one initiated. It may very well be tune but it could also be something just broke for whatever reason but impossible to say without seeing the parts. As glass said the headers did not cause an increase in IMEP (tune may have), the headers did not cause this failure.

mastiffdog

Exactly. I have lived the rodeo, and as a businessman I can confirm that this type of distraction creates an enormous intangible toll on you, your family and the business, not to mention the actual hard dollar costs. You are clearly taking the correct course of action. Litigation is more often than not designed to have only one winner: the lawyers.

You appear to have carefully evaluated your options and I think your choice is the most cost effective and efficient way to go.

BlackOps

IMEP, cool acronym, I had to google that one. I thought at first it was the name of an Egyptian pharoah, or something.

StixInMyPocket

Ok, please explain wth that means....

Frenchican

That's just a random, passing comment during a moment of frustration.

Threed

Detonation or lean burn conditions are not that hard to recognize. From what Tommy saw there were no signs of that happening. I'll be waiting to see this engine in person before I render any off the cuff decisions.

BlackOps

I got the chance to drive a friend's '06 Z that had headers and a tune done by a SoCal tuner. My friend said the tuner took three or four attempts trying to squeeze that extra two or three HP out of it so he could get 600 at the rear wheels. I mentioned to him after the drive I thought it had some spark knock. I wish I had been a little more insistent with him on getting the tune looked at by a different tuner. Seems his engine grenaded too. Bummer.

Now he's screwed too. GM denied the warranty claim, and the tuner doesn't seem to be responding. Maybe we could have a BBQ and talk about it sometime.

glass slipper

They're cast pistons and gray cast iron liners...it doesn't take much detonation to "break a piston" and "crack a liner" (damage he stated in his first post of this thread). While those parts are very strong, they crack very easily. As such, you won't see signs of detonation/lean burns anywhere since parts failure happened very quickly. Just the nature of the beast when using cast pistons/gray cast iron liners. I'm not trying to render any off the cuff decisions either, just stating the most likely. In civil court, no signs of detonation/lean burn will carry no weight. Now if they were forged pistons and ductile cast iron liners, that's a whole different story as you'll see aluminum spatter all over the place from the excessive heat of detonation/lean burn due to those parts being able to withstand a longer time/more severe conditions before failure. Hopefully, Katech will be using forged pistons and ductile iron liners in the engine they're building for him...just cheap insurance.

allanlaw

Interesting choice of words, Don.

LOS ANGELES PI

Frenchican, you know, there are a few Attorneys here is California that specialise in this arena. You should check it out.

No sense throwing your rights as a consumer out the window just because somebody said no, hoping you would just go away.

1991Z07

What nobody is talking about is GM is using ANY excuse they can to deny warranties...

Track the car with race belts and harness bar? Warranty Denied

Drag race the car? Warranty Denied

Put ANY after market stuff on your car? Warranty Denied

Next thing you know...they'll deny warranty on your trans 'cause you swapped out tires/wheels with 21" ones...

It's gonna take a class-action lawsuit against them to wake them up. It's sad, but unfortunately true.

One of our club members bought a crew-cab dually 454, put a twin-screw Whipple supercharger on it and lunched an engine AND a transmission.

Both were replaced by GM under warranty. They needed to be pushed with the Magnusson Law, but they ponied up and replaced it (and he kicked in the extra $$$ for a 502 cu/in replacement).

Now...one the other hand this does NOT mean Frenchie has no warranty on the vehicle...only on the drive train (and for some of you that IS the vehicle, I know).

I've seen too many threads about this...time to make a statement to GM that they can't advertise it as a "race car for the street" and then balk at fixing it when people ACTUALLY take it out and have fun with it!!!

I've talked to a few ZR1 owners who went through this same back when they were new cars...GM finally saw the light and did the right thing.

The ONLY thing (I think) you would need to worry about was IF you had a tune done on it...they could get you on that.

But headers and free-flowing CATS???? Not a chance...especially if the CATS have EPA & CARB approval...

I CAN see where you would just want to have it back...and Katech is certainly a good place to send it...

You MAY need to keep that lawyer on retainer to keep you out of jail once it's back

cthusker

... I think GM knows exactly why this engine failed! Not saying you don't take serious risks with engine mods but I suspect GM doesn't want to know more about LS7's puking then they already know. I do however respect the owners right to call it night and get on with fixing his car..........

allanlaw

LT headers, free-flowing cats with CARB approval?

ZeeOh6Nut

Seems like the dealer should let GM decide and stay outta the decision beyond obvious situations. It's GM that issues the warranty, not the dealer.

allanlaw

I think the point is that in most situations, if the dealer doesn't make a stink about it, the job gets done. HOWEVER, in the case of big ticket items like replacing an engine, you would be correct since GM pre-approval is usually needed.

SBTuner

One question I would like to see answered is... What does the warranty cost the consumer? Based on that cost, if you had an option for warranty when purchasing the vehicle would you take it? In my eyes, (20+ year service professional) I don't see much value in the warranty especially if the tech performing such services are being cut time for performing services that take longer to perform than the warranty allows. What incentive does he have to perform the job cleanly and properly?

Extended warranties? I recently have witnessed GMPP warranty inspections, for 7+ years we have been dealing with GMPP, recently we had three claims started and they required an inspector prior to service. This has never happened in the past. Well the inspector was doing his job and wanted to shortcut labor claims, labor rates etc, one vehicle they told the customer to tow it to the dealer because they were cheaper...

Anyhow sorry to rant but I have some strong feelings about this warranty stuff.

Regards,

Scott

Greg Gore

You are exactly right about this Scott? What really is the true value of the warranty when the typical dealership technician "flat rate hour" pay scales are designed to encourage shortcutting? Do you really want a technician working on your car when he knows the company is not compensating him enough for what he is required to know and do? Usually technicians feeling the pressure of the typical dealership service department flat rate hour pay scales will make sure your car occupies their workspace in the minimum amout of time possible so they can get on to the next car. It should be obvious why most service departments operate this way now. Most technicians know what their time is worth and if they are any good they will either get into management or get out of the dealerships and open their own shop or go to work for a good independent. The remaining ones are either young inexperienced and still learning and have not learned they are being taken advantage of yet or they they decide to accept the system and cheat it best they can by shortcutting as many jobs as possible each day. I probably would let them work on my wife's STS because it's just a daily driver but I would never let them work on my Corvette unless I had my mind up to get rid of it when they were finished. If I had an engine failure I would fix it myself knowing what I know about typical dealership service departments. Ever drive through a neighborhood with garage doors open and wonder why you see so many big professional type roll away tool chests in residents garages? I bet it wasn't so they could be well equipped to work at home in most cases.

Frenchican

Obviously, I have been thinking about 'warranties' lately. I purchased an '05 silverado SS new, had a Magnuson MagnaCharger supercharger installed as part of the purchase contract so I could have the drivetrain covered by an aftermarket warranty that was pruchased through the dealer at time of sale.

I have close to 40,000 miles on it now and not one problem. The truck is all-wheel drive and according to Magnuson, puts out 511hp at the flywheel. If something were to happen, such as the event with my Z06, I feel that the dealership will be very constrained, and not so motivated to make the appropriate repairs. I feel that it's only a matter of time before this happens. I hope I'm wrong though.

As a courtesy, I usually tip a mechanic on heavy warranty repairs, in some cases I've given $100. A contribution such as this does help with GM shop techs wanting to work on warranty related vehicles. I do sympathize with the mechanics, because they are the ones that usually get the short end of the warrenty stick.

Greg Gore

It probably helps to tip the mechanic on a heavy warranty repair because the factory alloted time is cut to the bone in most cases and he would lose his shirt on the job otherwise. Take a waterpump replacement for example: for a non warranty repair the dealership would probably bill the customer something like 1.8 hours at whatever their customer labor rate is, maybe it's $100 per hour (guessing). The factory does not pay according to the generally accepted time studies used by most dealerships for out of warrant repairs but instead has a separate time study they developed for warranty repairs that they use to reimburse the dealer. The waterpump replacement example here under factory alloted time might only compensate the mechanic .8 hours for the same job. One will begin to see how under this current system it would be desireable to cherry pick which is what happens. The older more experienced mechanics generally prefer to do the out of warranty cars because they pay better while letting the new guys have all the warranty work. This is especially true of engine work or heavy drive line repairs. Engine and drive train work is considered hard grunt work and the pay is too little for all that disassembly and cleaning so sometimes things just don't get done according to the manual.

Frenchican

yep... That's exactly how it works.
Funny... the dealership quoted me a little over $20K to replace my LS7. I wish I knew what the dealer would have received from GM if still under warranty. I'm guessing half.