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GM Faces Defective Corvette Class Action Lawsuit

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San Francisco, CA: General Motors is facing a defect automotive class action lawsuit filed by a group of Corvette owners who allege the company was aware that model years 2006-2014 have excessive valve guide wear that leads to engine failure and repairs.

According to the complaint, there are over 70 claims including violations of the RICO Act, unjust enrichment, negligence and consumer fraud. Specifically, the lawsuit asserts that GM broadly advertised the 7.0 liter V8 engine, used in the Chevrolet Corvette 427 and Chevrolet Corvette Z06 cars from 2006 through 2014, as high quality and durable. However, design and manufacturing defects of the engine make it prone to mechanical failure.

Despite being aware of the defects, the plaintiffs contend that GM has so far refused to issue a recall. "... GM has taken no steps to correct the deficiencies in the subject engine,"the drivers claim. "Despite GM's repeated assurances that the subject engines were performing as designed, the engines fail at a high rate."

According to the lawsuit, the drivers have incurred significant expenses for inspection and repairs of the cars. Even cars with extremely low mileage have shown a high degree of wear.

The lawsuit notes that despite being aware of a number of complaints about the alleged defects, GM insisted that "valve train noise" was an inherent feature of the engine and that they weren't defective.

Further, the lawsuit contends that as a result of the customer complaints, GM developed and implemented an investigation technique known as the "wiggle method," as a way to determine whether the valve guides were out of specification. Using this test, a high proportion of owners or lessees of the affected cars had out of specification valve guides, according to the complaint.

"When GM determined that its adopted test would lead to more repair and investigations than it wished to perform, the test was summarily rejected,"the lawsuit states. "In dealing with multiple complaints concerning the subject engine in the class vehicles, GM acted, at all times, to deflect criticisms, defer investigations and repairs, and minimized the extent of the problems."GM has yet to come up with a solution to the alleged problem, the plaintiffs assert.

The plaintiffs are represented by Andre E Jardini of Knapp Petersen and Clarke. The case is Pilgrim et al. v. General Motors Company LLC, case number 2:15-cv-08047 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.



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Reader Comments

Posted by

on
The problem is that these particular engines "hand built by GM" have cylinder head valves (both intake and exhaust) made of Titanium and have NO protective coating on the stems of the valves, thus eroding the valve guides. Ti is TOUGH.
The fix is to take the top end of the motor apart, (cyl heads and all) , machine new guides in the original aluminum cyl heads, and use new Ti valves with appropriate coatings or use stainless valves. I can see 15 hours of labor and $600 of parts. No wonder
GM denies this......quite a few thousand LS7 motors were made.....2006 to 2013.
Why did they use Ti ? To save a few grams of weight in the valves, thus using lighter valve springs, thus having a very bit more H.P.

Posted by

on
I I own a 2008 corvette Z06. The vehicle has 18,500 miles on it and unfortunately I was in an accident on October 20, 2014 with this vehicle. The damage appeared to be only cosmetic at the time. The body shop fixed the cosmetic repairs an I picked the vehicle up in February of 2015. I picked the vehicle up and as I was approximately 2 miles from the body shop I noticed I didn't have any oil pressure. I immediately contacted the body shop and they advised the insurance company of the engine issue. He insurance company had a mechanical engineer inspect the engine once it was removed from the vehicle and tore down. The insurance company's findings were that it was normal wear and tare. I wrote a letter to Chevrolet who advised me that there is nothing that they can do and it was more than likely from the motor vehicle accident. I also reported the same valve train noise to Chevy and they told me it was normal. Come to find out there was metal filings in my oil from something which in turn may have contributed to my number two main crank bearing spinning resulting in my engine failure. It has been a year and my vehicle is in the same condition and I'm out of options. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. I have all the documentation that the insurance company provided. The has never been tracked nor beat on as the insurance company claims, I can't afford to do that.

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