jackal27

Here is the complaint I issued yesterday on the nhtsa website;2008 ZO6

VEHICLE HAD 1/4 TANK OF FUEL IN THE TANK BEFORE FILLING ON FRI.AFTER FILLING TANK TO FULL NOTICED STRONG GAS SMELL FROM REAR OF VEHICLE,HAD TO ROLL WINDOWS DOWN TO DRIVE,ODOR WAS SO STRONG COULD NOT PARK CAR IN GARAGE DUE TO FIRE HAZARD,DID NOT SEE ANY EVIDENCE OF FUEL LEAKAGE ON GROUND,BROUGHT CAR TO DEALERSHIP ON MON.THEY STATED NOT COVERED UNDER FEDERAL EMISSIONS WARRANTY,ALTHOUGH IN CALIFORNIA IT WOULD HAVE BEEN,(SAME FUEL TANK USED IN ALL ZO6'S)ESCALATED IT TO GM WARRANTY CUSTOMER SERVICE,LEFT CAR AT DEALERSHIP AS ITS UNSAFE TO USE,WAITING ON WORD WHETHER THEY WILL HONOR EMISSIONS WARRANTY AND FIX POOR GM CRAFTSMANSHIP. BTW 42000MILES,NON TRACKED,NO ACCIDENTS,100% STOCK,SITS IN GARAGE 5 DAYS A WEEK. SHOULD BE CONSIDERED FOR A RECALL AS I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE W/THIS ISSUE.
Seems to be a growing problem on all c6's confirmed by the nhtsa website.
Dealer diagnosed as possible tank(s) but wont confirm unless I pay labor to remove tanks,dealer also stated could have possibly been covered under powertrain warranty but that expired 14 days ago! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
Don't you think GM should do the right thing and replace the tanks under the warranty,after all within reason the tanks should not be a wear and tear item and should last the life of the vehicle,or at least longer than 42000 miles! What say you?
Waiting to here verdict on wed.

VetteVinnie

After two C6s, over 8 years of driving them and almost 10 years on the Corvette forums, I have never heard of this.

jackal27

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-c...ealership.html

http://www.digitalcorvettes.com/foru...d.php?t=145619

check post # 10 in this link;

http://www.z06vette.com/forums/f5/sl...garage-121628/

I could go on, just do a google search corvette c6 fuel smell,also several complaints on the nhtsa site,and these are not including the 2004 c5 model year fuel tank fiasco

383vett

I'm not sure filing a complaint will do anything unless the underlying reason for the fuel smell is discovered (cracked tank, leaking fitting, etc). You can't expect them to start a recall campaign for fuel smell.

dmuellenberg

First of all, you don't know for sure what the fuel smell is from, so how can you expect GM to issue a recall? Secondly, even if you do find the issue, unless the problem happens to a significant number of vehicles (I'm guessing in the thousands), they aren't going to issue a recall. If GM hasn't issued a recall for the valve issue, which there have been a far greater number reported, they sure aren't going to issue one for a few reported gas tank problems.

I agree that a fuel tank shouldn't wear out, but you don't know yet if that is the problem, and even if it is, things do break (that's what a warranty is for). Hopefully since your warranty has just expired, they will do a good will warranty for you.

Keep us posted what you find out.

40YRW8

Here is my fuel tank experience. My car is never raced nor has it had any fuel system mods. I like to drive my car at low vehicle weights and I rarely put more than 8 gallons of gas in my car since that can last me a couple of weeks. I rarely fill the right tank. At around 50,000 miles I filled both tanks and when I went out to the car the next morning, the garage had such a strong gasoline smell that I seriously thought I had a major fuel leak. No leaks. I felt the need to keep the car outside fearing a fire hazard. The smell remained until I got down to 1/2 tank and didn't come back until about 2 months later when I again fully filled the car. Same horrendous odor. Again, after burning off 1/2 tank of gas the smell went away. After a couple of days of no smell I filled the tank again and again the smell returned. Still no leaks and I searched everywhere under the car and felt up around the tanks. Nothing. My personal feeling was that I had a leak in the big O rings that seal the crossover tube on top of the tanks and it was venting the fumes. I took it to the dealership and asked for the "Corvette Expert" He said that this happens "All the time" on Corvettes and that it was a failure of the pump on top of the tank that transfers the gas from one tank to the other. Well, I knew that there wasn't a pump there but he insisted. I let them repair my car and when I went to pick it up the mechanic said that I had a break in the plastic fitting where the gas went to the engine. I said, "Really, a leak in the high pressure side of the pump and it leaked no fuel and only smelled when I filled the right tank?" I asked to see the pump and he came back a couple of minutes later with a left tank pump module and the fitting had a crack in it and what looked to me like screw driver marks under it. I took my car, paid the $1300 bill and left the dealership. About 5 miles or so from the dealership I noticed that my gas gage read Empty and stopped to get gas. I filled the entire tank and it took 16.5 gallons. I got back into my car and once I was back out on the street I noticed that I had a low fuel warning and a gage that read dead empty. I marked my trip odometer and drove the car for about 8 days until I had run out most of the gas and took it back to the dealership and told them that I thought the mechanic might have not connected one of the fuel sender wires. They took the car in. They called me and said that BOTH of my fuel sending units had failed simultaneously and had to be replaced. I got one BS story after another until I finally gave them authorization to fix my car. I told them that I wanted my old sending units back. They replaced the sending units and I still have the old ones and they looked perfect. No scoring or calcium deposits. The charge for that was $900. I took my car to the dealership in hopes of getting a mechanic with Corvette specific training and I might have. Who knows. However, I have been conned by this dealership before. It is amazing what they will tell you when they assume that you know absolutely nothing about your vehicle or cars in general. Young girls must get hosed there on a regular basis.
Gary

Mark2009

I think he's trying to set a fire under them to do the repair under emissions warranty (which I presume is still active on this car). Considering that part of the emissions system is to capture any leaking fuel vapor I don't think that asking for emissions warranty is unreasonable.

A few injuries, explosions, or deaths due to fuel vapor, reported on national TV, will be all it takes. Hopefully his dealer (or someone at GM Customer Service) will wise up before that and address his issue under emissions warranty as requested.

Apples and oranges.

Mark2009

That really, really, sucks -- but unfortunately is not surprising

dcamick

One thing is for sure......I have and always will fill up!

I have truly never heard of anything like this in 45 year of Corvette ownership!

Bill Dearborn

The smell could be due to other issues than the fuel tank. Although you should get a code with an evaporative control system leak that doesn't mean it should be ruled out. As for how many times it happens it isn't that often or else there would be tons of threads matching the valve thread count in quantity.

Bill

ltdodge

had the same issue on my 2008 z06. below 1/2 tank the smell goes away. when you fill the tank and leave the car in the garage overnight, if you light a match the fumes are so strong i was afraid to leave my car in the garage and started storing it outside.

I took it to the dealer twice and they said it was out of warranty and they needed to drop the tanks to see what the problem was. they wanted to charge me 15hrs labor to drop the tank.

i ended up taking it to a shop where they dropped the tank and the seal on the fuel pump was leaking. they replaced the seal and put it back together. we noticed that the evap hose was collapsed and it threw a code, but the fuse blew. 10 hrs later, it was put back together we filled the tank and the same strong fuel odor.

so after spending money on trying to fix it and no success, the next step was to replace fuel pumps tanks and all evap hoses.

so i said **** it, im tired of GM BS and sold the car the next day


good luck trying to fix it, i wish I would have found the problem.

TTZ06VETTE

With mine it was due to an incorrect washer fit where the fuel pump mounts to the driver side tank on top. Terrible smell of raw fuel every time I filled up. Easy fix, not so easy doing the fix.

Prime Target

This sounds like an extremely dangerous issue. I hope the OP gets the problem resolved.

Rossi6998

I was starting to get a faint fuel smell from the driver's side rear wheel well of my 2009 Coupe. I too noticed the smell seemed to get stronger when the tank was full. Took a stab in the dark and replaced the fuel cap because it was not tightening properly, but the fuel smell remained.

Dropped the car off at the dealer today. They just informed me that the fuel tank needed to be replaced and possibly the fuel pump. The advisor said he would not know for sure about the fuel pump until they started the repair. He has to order the parts and I am expecting the car to be down for at least the rest of the week.

In addition, I changed my oil yesterday and noticed a slight power steering leak, so they are also going to replace the power steering pump.

On a happy note, everything is covered under my GMPP extended warranty (so far). Thank GOD! The extended warranty just paid for itself and then some...

Update - Dealer had to replace fuel tank, fuel pump, and power steering pump. They charged GMPP almost $3,400. The advisor told me that if I did not have GMPP, it would have probably cost me over $4,000... Thank god for GMPP!

jp_tt_awd

My car is actually at my local chevy dealer getting the passenger side transfer pump replace on it. I was driving down the highway with 1\2 a tank of gas and all of a sudden my gauge went to E and the dic said "service fuel system". No smell of gas or anything car ran perfect. Filled it up and took it to the dealer the next day. The said the transfer pump in the passenger tank failed and they needed to replace it, quoted me $1,400-1,500. Luckily my extended warranty covered it.

--jp

pkincy

Just so we don't bash GM unnecessarily I am picking up my wife's 03 PT Cruiser today from the Stealer, who had to drop the tank to replace a seal on the fuel pump.


Guess they wear out.

40YRW8

I don't understand what seal they are referring to. The pump is inside the tank. The only place the pump could possibly vent fumes is at the joint between the fitting at the top of the pump module and the line going to the engine. That would leak fuel as well as fumes any time the engine was on, not just when the passenger tank was filled as was with my case. Since the pump is inside the tank, if the seal failed, you would never smell any fumes and the pump would fail to provide pressure, causing the engine to stall.
Gary

2xmks

I have the same issue. 07 Z51 with 58,000 on it. I would get a random fuel smell once i filled it up past half a tank. Then 2 days ago I filled it up and the car stinks of gas horribly. I threw it up on the lift at my shop and the drivers side tank has fuel streaks coming down from the top. I dropped the tank an inch or so and sure enough it is leaking from the top. Now I get to drop the tank (which I HATE doing) to fix this. I run a lot of nicer cars through my shop and have never run into this issue except on the Vette.

40YRW8

My personal feeling is that the cross-over tube O-rings aren't sealing causing the fuel smell on fill up. Unfortunately, the dealership doesn't make much money on an o-ring kit. Also, people seem to get a little ticked off when you have to charge them $1000 labor to change a $2 o-ring. Sadly, I think that profit margins tend to overshadow integrity when they think they can and do get away with telling you crap that you have no chance to refute.
Gary

RainMan12

This is a growing problem with C6's. I've seen four new reports in just the last few days. In many cases it is due to cracks in the fuel pump.

I don't know if ethanol gas is playing a role in it or not, but it appears the plastic in the fuel pump is becoming brittle over time and cracking. I've also seen one case where the tank itself was cracked, but most of the reports point to the fuel pump as the source of the problem.

I'd urge anyone with this problem to go to the NHTSA site and fill out a complaint. It is the only way it will ever get addressed.

https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/Vehicl...nt/index.xhtml