My car must have been made on a monday, or a friday a hour before quitting time. So today I decide to repair my turbo exhaust manifold studs that connect to the DP. Back when myself and ryridesmoto installed my DP one of my studs was cross threaded from the factory. Fast forward to today, Im taking off the nuts to the dp(to install the vibrant defouler aswell) and guess what ANOTHER STUD IS STRIPPED FROM THE FACTORY ASWELL! So I have to make an emergency run accross 3 dealers to get 2 studs and 2 nuts since the are not common I finally found a dealer that had a couple. Long story short I have basically rebuilt my turbo exhaust all because the factory workers dont know how to but a damn nut on properly.

/rant

 

Talking about GM. I'm not surprised lol

 

lol, that **** happens far more often than you will ever know. That is also how an assembly line works, they dont take time to start things by hand, they use an impact and just run it down. A mechanic will almost never use an impact on things like exhaust manifold nuts/studs or most other parts on a car.

l8r,
PD

 

Damn what's going to happen if i ever need to tear down the engine? Did they do that right?

 

I have yet to come accross a cross threaded or broken bolt/stud on ANY kind of car from the factory. Overtorqued or unertorqued, sometimes. But actually cross threaded or broken, nope. Its not common at all, sounds like you just had an incompetant assembly line worker.

 

haha when they took off mine at megan the same thing happen they replaced it with a bolt and nut and i bought the stud and nut from gm but still have it sitting in my room lol

 

What he said.

I've yet to find anything cross-threaded from the factory. That's in 10 years of field service on nothing but GM vehicles.

Have I had exhaust bolts break or chew up threads due to rust? Yup... plenty of times. That's why I own a nice drill bit set.

Rust happens. Not the factory's fault there.

 

I wouldnt doubt it, probably had a worker that just started or was about to get off.

I thought about doing that, but I wanted to keep it as stock as possible. The new studs screwed in easily.

 

engines are built differently than the assembly line that your car ran down.

Im not saying it happens on every vehicle or even every other vehicle but when you are talking about tens of thousands of fasteners per day used, cross threading/stripping happens.

I work for an OE and Ive seen stripped hub bolts, cross threaded lug nuts, stripped exhaust studs, various interior fasteners broken or stripped, rounded off bolts, broken u-joint bolts, etc. It happens, but thats also why people like myself do constant quality inspections on vehicles prior to them leaving to reach a dealership and then eventually the customer.

l8r,
PD

 

totally true, also you didnt need to go to dealers to buy studs and nuts, you could have gone to local part store, thats what i did...

 

I think all Cobalts were build on Monday morning and Friday afternoon.

 

Yeah I've seen some weird stuff as well. I've seen GM cars come in with 3k miles for service and their oil drain plug is stripped. The Acadias/Enclaves have been having problems with front covers leaking because they aren't put together right. I've seen to many new GM products with major problems at less than 20k miles.

 

well the hole where mine is is stripped so id have to tap and die it or whatever its called lol

 

Even that is pretty rare. Those nutrunners are pretty accurate and the torque specs aren't super tight. The overtorquing is bad training or a stupid employee because we go through that once in awhile with brand new people.

 

Lol dude they have people building engines not on an assembly line.

I have seen rust on bolts and stuff before. When I took those off there was one that was either cross threaded on or the whole stud was messed up at the factory. Besides its not like we live where they salt the roads for winter. Southern California cars are known for having little to no rust issues. I did a full exhaust on my 95 Diesel Suburban and none of the bolts were rusted or cross threaded so I know it doesn't always happen. The other stud backed out when we were removing the nut... So I'll go improperly torqued on that stud perhaps. But as far as the one that was 'cross threaded', I'm not a rook mechanic, that thing took more torque to get off than my 18v Li Makita impact could give so I know it wasn't just a rust thing. Plus the nut came off with a good portion of threads in it.

 

Amen, 3.6's front covers, saturn vue's $1000 leaking compressor, 5.3's oilpan/frontcrank/rearmain, impala's everything leaks.

 

Just rediculous. Sucks now because most are in warranty but when all those acadias/enclaves/outlooks go out of warranty GM techs are gonna be in love haha. Warranty work time FTL.

 

I'll still take chains/heads on an R-body over most of the other warranty crap out there. Especially since the new design saddle-cap heads come fully loaded.... =D

 

Just spent 2 days doing a motor swap in an International Transtar. 13L 2880lbs, lots of fun. The engine builders forgot to put the head gasket in. ALL of the coolant was in the oil pan, looked like a milk shake pouring out of the engine block.

l8r,
PD

 

Unless you're talking about something like a ZR1, all engines are built on assembly lines, too. It's just not at a vehicle assembly plant. You wouldn't be able to afford a Cobalt if it had a hand-built engine in it.

 

What worries me sometimes is that back in 08 -09 GM was going bankrupt and was asking the UAW to cut down on benefits and money from the factory workers salary ........ I think we all know the quality of work goes down when the MAN is trying to take money away from the guy on the line . I guess we should be lucky our doors havent fallen off yet. lol

 

Considering their benefits and pay before the cuts they had to know it was gonna happen at some point. Even now they still get good pay and benefits for unskilled labor.

 

I'm not saying they deserved or didn't deserve what they were getting ....not my place ...... But I think most workers were upset about pay and benefit decreases, so I'm sure work quality took a hit.

 

I'm sure it did because there had to be bitter ones. At the same time they knew it was going to happen and that they were over paid.

 

Yeah my mom just bought a 2011 traverse. 5k miles on it and had a CEL, they had to take apart the engine for some solenoid, and were going to replace the whole engine. Rediculous!