Dan_G

I don't think there were many engines that were affected. Coolant levels fluctuate with temperature.

If your engine is losing coolant into the block, you will know it. It will be running low on coolant on a regular basis. You will need to add coolant and there will be no leaks on the floor ... and then you will need to add again. You will see it in the oil and may see an increase in oil level.

I know first hand what this is like. It has happened to me twice on my suburban (intake manifold gasket leaks). I caught it early both times and the engine is fine - has 170K miles. Of course if it's a porous block, you're engine is done.

If you are really worried, you can always run an oil analysis from blackstone-labs.com They will send you the test kit for free, analysis is $25. If there is coolant in your oil, they will detect it. I will be running one of these on my 09 SS TC. I just need to get a bit more age on the oil. I can see the car is not loosing coolant so I don't expect anything horrible.

nRRe

my build date was 8/08

i have JUST under 50k miles.

no coolant loss

just took it for an oil change and they didn't add any and last time i had the oil done was 10k miles ago, wife had it done not sure if they had to top any off then either.

think i'm ok.

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Add me to the list.
2009 SS Sedan
Build Date: 09/08
Miles: 72,000

Yesterday the low coolant light came on and it had an insatiable thirst since. I let it sit for about 18 hours, then checked the oil in the pan and this came out:


I'm having it towed to the dealership. I called and he said that "it's out of warranty so they won't pay for the motor, but they'll do something." Considering the prevalence of the issue, this isn't satisfactory. If they don't pay I'll have to escalate.

maliki778

been dealing with the dealership sicne may they told me no gm goodwrench engiens will be available until late cotober driving a sonic sedan in the mean time >> luckily i had a 3rd party warranty

YelCal7

iTrader: (1)

SIGH...This is what I am afraid of. I have the exact same build date as yours. I am on 68 thousand miles all stock. Had not put in ZZP 1.0 PCM yet, cause I don't want GM blame on ZZP 1.0 PCM.

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Considering my experience of being out of warranty with this problem is probably one of many more to come, I'll update here with what I'm going through. I'm expecting a tough battle.

Round 1: Dealer said the bill would be $7000 and they can knock off $1200 for a final price of $5800. Obviously that won't cut it. I'll talk to the service director tomorrow morning.

Shanedude

emecham hope the best for you bud. It's not your fault and I don't think you should be paying at all if any. You will have to go higher up on the GM customer service chain methinks.

I would hate to have an 09 and have this problem floating over my head. Damn that's a hefty bill...

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the sympathies. I'll try to get some names and numbers to call from the service director. I figure I'm only a few days into a very long battle.

swanman35

Fight it all the way. I recently bought my 09 and it has ~70,000 miles. I know that it usually happened way earlier, but when I hear about people close to my mileage having the problem it worries me. I've been keeping an eye on mine though. Good luck, keep updating with what happens

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Round 2: Talked to the service director and he immediately went into a-hole mode with the no extended warranty, hasn't seen this before, etc bs. The only thing he did was try to sell me a $4000 short block and give me GM customer dis-service's number. I'll see what they say.

joepackersrock

Good luck. I messaged the GM rep on this forum a few times and then sent them the results of my oil analysis and haven't heard anything since. I've called GM several times and they keep telling me they will pass my "concern" to the district supervisor. This person never calls me back and I can never get in touch with them. So im stuck with a broken car.

Dan_G

I have an 09 with a build date in the "danger zone." So far so good. I have only had the car for about 6 months, ~50k miles. The car is bone stock. It does not use any fluids. I was very lucky luck to find a clean car that appears to have been driven by an adult all its life. Still runs and drives like a brand new car.

I did a blackstone labs oil analysis last month just to get a baseline. The oil was absolutely perfect in all respects as I expected. There was no contamination of any kind, almost no metals.

The current plan is to drive this car for as long as possible ... so hopefully we will see how this particular LNF holds up long term. Fingers crossed

tomj77

iTrader: (2)

I really think we should all get together and do something about this. We should all call or email Gm demanding a recall on it or if it happens it's covered no matter if u still have warranty or not. Get news stations involved , whatever it takes. We didn't pay 15-30 grand for our cars just to have the most expensive part fail under 100k miles

tomj77

iTrader: (2)

I feel ur pain. I was lucky enough to have this happen to me after only 2k kms though.

YelCal7

iTrader: (1)

Definitely! We all need to make some kind of list of built date that has porous block and send an email to GM!

swanman35

The only problem is that very few cars had this problem. We could try though.

tomj77

iTrader: (2)

From what iv seen a lot of cars had this problem. And I'm sure more to come. Let's do it. How do u find out the build date

exninja

iTrader: (1)

GM knows exactly how many engines they've had to replace up to now for this. This is the uncharted territory. The time limit on the warranty just expired on the affected cars up to a year ago max. Now is when GM can earn the good-guy points and own up to the problem and fix it on their dime, or leave everyone out to dry. My case and similar cases are now proving that the problem isn't weeding itself out in the first few thousand miles. Honestly, I don't understand how any engineer could possibly think that a fatigue failure would be limited in that way, esp for aluminum which doesn't really have an endurance limit. I am sure that this problem will keep coming up and isn't going away. I've called GM Customer Service and I'll see what they have to say. If they fix it, then I'm happy. In my book, they will have owned up to their problem and all is forgiven. If they don't, then I'll talk to a lawyer to see if there are options there. If none, then I'll probably drop in an LDK and walk away from GM never looking back.

That last sentence is too bad, really. You could see this car as winning over a bunch of us young guys. Old people didn't/don't buy this car. If they had made this car well, they could have won over a lot of future business. I have many many years of car buying left, and many of those could be much larger purchases than the 'balt (eg large SUV for the wife and kids, corvette for me, etc). Now after stuff like this how many of us are going to go back to imports, or (Heaven-forbid) Fords? If they don't fix this, that's exactly what I'll do.

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Build date is on the door sticker (on the door itself, not the tire sticker on the door jam). It'll be a MO/YR. Mine was 09/08. You can assume block castings correlate to build dates. What I'm not sure about are how the other models that use the LNF would correlate (ie solstice, sky, hhr). I know the HHR has the same issue, but haven't heard much from the solstice or sky forums about it.

exninja

iTrader: (1)

Also, tons of people had the rear brake problem (include me in that one too). Our forum posts and petitions didn't do much there. I'm not sure if the TSB came from the extra social media attention, but the only thing they ever told the dealer was to turn the rotors. Bit of good that did. Luckily new rotors from NAPA didn't break the bank too bad and with new pads my car's been just fine.

maliki778

ive spent so much time trying to get gm to own up on it even my warranty company gave up and said they will replace it good luck man gm has the most worthless customer support ive ever delt with in my career and personal life. im worked tech support and cusotmer service for 8 years and tried every trick in the book to get some contact with a GM engineer or anything but all i get is the same bullshit


this happeans to be at the worst time possible when everyone and there cousin is calling about recalls so customersupport ageants are getting **** on daily by managment and customers in the mean time they gave me a rental till i get a new /reman LNF in late october

QuickSilver_SS

Are you kidding me ?? That is exactly why GM will walk away from it. Its notan easy and or cheap fix. Its about the mmost expensive thing that could go wrong. They will not ever own up to a mistake and start recalling cars. Especially after the ignition recall. It would coat them millions more they can not afford. And despite what everyone thinks. It is still a small percentage of engines that have CRACKED blocks. It ain't never gonna happen...

exninja

iTrader: (1)

You can't possibly know what percentage of cars this has affected or will affect. Does it really matter? No they're not going to recall cars. But they can still do good will warranty replacements. It has been done in the past.

swanman35

I just bought my ss. I'm 19 and this is my third Chevy. I bought my 99 blazer as my first car, then my base balt, and now my ss. I love this car, but if I were to get this problem and it not be fixed, I'd leave gm forever.

QuickSilver_SS

I never claimed to know the percentage of blocks that have cracked. But I am willing to guarantee that gm knows how many that have replaced. and I also bet it is less then 5%. There are a lot of Lnf's that fall in the build date in question that have a lot of miles on them and will never have any problems. My point is. So many people worry about a problem that will never be an issue for them.