the differance is that for the most part we are dealing with a differant client base between the cobalts and the Corvettes and GTO's. Most of the people who buy a Corvette or a GTO both realize the expense of racing and also have the $$$ to fix something if they break it racing. where us cobalt owners don't have the disposable income that the upperend car owners do and have faith that GM will build us a car that will hold up to some spirited driving. another unfortunate situation the arises out of my last sentense is that you get young adults that have little to no experience modding a carcause them to do mods that aren't well thought out reaking havoc on the remaining stock parts. They also don't realize that once you hit a certain point the stock components will have to be replaced or risk a major malfunction (ie pistons, valve springs, piston rings, etc). Not that moding their cars is a bad thing please don't take this the wrong way. but i see boths sides. i see the car owners side...he buys the car with faith in the General hoping to have a fun car that he or she can shall we say "personalize" then something breaks and the dealership denies the claim and suddenly the young adult struggeling to get by has to come up with 3K to get their car fixed. then there is the dealership/manufacturer's side where if they warrantied EVERY problem that came in that was a result of shall we say more than spirited driving they would be broke because people would abuse it. i mean seriously if you could go dump the clutch and snap axels and burn the clutch up cause the big puffs of smoke looked cool and then take the car back and get it fixed for free wouldn't you do it as often as you could since you thought it was the cool thing to do. i mean GM and the other manufaturers had to draw a line somewhere and drag racing is hard on a motor built to withstand it what do you think it does to a stock daily driven motor. that said i believe the burden of proof lies on GM and the dealership and without concrete proof of drag racing i think they should have replaced the motor for the guy who started the thread. as many have said without the liscense plate or vin number in the pic while the car is ON THE TRACK AND IN THE MIDDLE OF A RUN i think it's BS.

 

Yes, go up agains a bunch of Gm lawyers and ask that same question.

The purpose of that act has been blown way out of proportion. I could see if you put on a intake and your oil pump goes out, or something like that.

Its a classic case of the courts givving us an inch, and us expecting to get the whole mile, or 1/4 mile in our case.

BASIC CAR GUY KNOWEDGE: HORSEPOWER KILLS A MOTOR
COMMON KNOWEDGE: MODS KILL YOUR WARRANTY

 

Sorry. The guy was running an instense stage 4 kit. Which if im not mistaken should be 270 whp or so.

https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/show...=email+pistons

Here we have an email for a GM tech talking about a 300 hp build LSJ. Notice how they changed out the pistons. Because they know the pistons will fail around 300 hp.

Just because people are broke doesnt mean GM for pay to repair thier car if they build it up wrong.

As for why they voided his warrenty. Im not buying the story of the picture at the track. Because he has already lied to us about his mods. Who is to say he isnt lieing about this?

 

I think this guy owned himself. Good job BradyB,you need to job at the FBI.

I think paying the $400 to get his car back was cheap, they should have charged him 4X's that amount.

 

They dont need to prove he was drag racing . If there is evidence his car was modded , and caused the problem ....sorry . Thats all the proof that is needed . So , say he returned the car to stock ...you would be a fool to think theres no eveidence the pulley has been removed , or the fuel rail bolts were removed at some point , or the PCM has been removed . Sorry , but once you start turning bolts ....you can tell

And about the young and dumb theory . Ya know man , I know personally ALOT of young people that hot rod , there are alot of really smart young people on this site that hot rod . That did what they needed to do to UNDERSTAND what their doing . So why should GM have to compensate for some nieve kid who doesnt understand what he's doing . There a statement in the warranty agreement that says any damage incoured by and aftermarket part will VOID your warranty . At that point its up to the neive kid ( or hell anyone who doesnt understand that ) to ask questions . Educate themselves .

Same deal with being young and having limited funds ......tough luck . If you cant afford to fix a *** up that u caused , then you better keep your car stock . Shoulda took the time to educate yourself about the possiblities of what can happen , costs associated ect ect when it comes to modifying a car . This site and many more on the net are WEALTH of information . Like I said , theres plenty of young people who educated themselves , are sucessfully modding their cars , and when there car breaks because of something they did ......they realize they cant come crying on GM's shoulder .

And lastly , the same crap happens with GTO's , Vettes , Camaro's Mustangs ect . Try explaining to 04 Z06 owner how he is NOT getting a new LS6 engine , because the dumba$$ jetted his nitrous wrong and punched hole in the block .

 

GM told me on the phone... there is no proof of any modifications done to the pulley on ur car ... but gm also stated the dealership does have proof of ur car at the track ... a side picture... again no vin or license plate... the only thing the dealership is going on a pic of a black ss/sc cobalt at some race track there is no proof that car in that picture is my car.. if gm cant prove it then gm has to cover it...

http://www.sema.org/main/semaorghome.aspx?ID=50096

read the paragraph under "The Law" My point is if gm cant prove a pulley was ever put on there then how does denial stand if theres no parts to prove the malfuntion on???

 

Oh this is a good thread now. I make my living working at the dealership (and make a decent living doing it) and love it every day. Yea "we" get bad mouthed all of the time about bogus claims and over charging.
I worked on a 2006 cobalt last week, 600 miles, just bought 3 weeks ago complaining
about not starting. After checking it out I found that rats chewed the wiring up at the
pcm. Now... should that be covered under gm warranty??? Is it gm's fault that a rat
chewed up the wiring?
Now... how is that different than some kid modding his SS/SC with aftermarket
parts, over boosting, unknown tuning, racing and blowing a piston?? The problem is that
the dealership prabably didnt handle the issue properly. If it was clear that it was loaded
with aftermarket parts he should of been told on the front end that it "may not" be covered under warranty.

had to say something...

 

It wasnt clear , he returned the car to stock to convieniently look innocent .

 

So did you have Stage 4 or not?? Judgin by the posts that you have made, you did! If that is the case, I hope you pay for an expensive lawyer and loose. Their are so many stupid people on these boards that put Stage 4 and mods similar to that on a completely stock car and expect it to live. If you want to yell at someone, yell at Intense. Their site says nothing about the car requiring the proper upgrades needed to handle Stage 4.

 

I agree..............If you mod the car and take it to the track, then you should pay for the service done to get you back to the track(that would make this thread pointless also).
With that being said, I would worry that a totally stock car (that has never been modded) may get turned away by GM because of these false claims. They know it's happening so when I take my stock SS to them, they might look at me as a fraud too and dishonor my warrenty also.

I guess what I'm saying is............have fun and mod your car and be safe at the track. But, don't ruin it for somebody who is HONEST and has a stock car and loves it because it is a nice car.

 

We see your point.

Your point is that you want to get out of paying for a repair that is your fault. You want GM to pay for a "defect" that wasn't there from the factory.

We don't agree with your point.

 

WTF does the build book have to do with this situation? You can use it the build book to build up a pretty badass Cobalt but you can't expect GM to warranty the car afterward.

Right on, I understand trying to getting the car fixed under warranty, but I don't understand getting all pissed off when your fraud didn't work. You know you broke the car, so suck it up.

I've said it before but, the point of a warranty is to fix factory defects not to sponsor your racing career.

 

i will say it again ... this isn't GM doing this to people IT IS THE DEALERSHIPS. I go to a dealership that has had some serious bad claims against them yet for all of that known previous to my purchase I still bought my car and get it serviced there because I talked to the service and parts installer guys first to get a feel for how they work and understand stuff.

 

rock on jason!

 

or here is a better idea, support your local repo man and miss three payments

 

THAT'S A BAD BAD BAD BAD IDEA!!!! IF HE LETS THE CAR GET REPOED THEY WILL SELL IT AT AUCTION FOR SAY 10K (BEING GENEROUS SINCE THE CAR'S MOTOR IS TORN APART) AND HE OWES SAY 18K. THEY WILL BE GOING AFTER HIM FOR THE OTHER 8K. SO HE WILL BE PAYING ON A CAR HE NO LONGER OWNES AND SOMEONE ELSE IS DRIVING AROUND. NOT TO MENTION RUINING HIS CREDIT FOR THE NEXT 7 OT 10 YEARS. THIS IDEA IS AS CHILDISH AS MODDING YOUR CAR, BREAKING ****, THEN PUTTING IT BACK AS STOCK AS YOU CAN GET IT AND TRYING TO GET GM TO FIX IT.

 

Yeah, you got caught doing something we all know is wrong...just suck it up and pay your dues...

 

dealerships aren't so honest themselves, I used to work at a Chevrolet dealership and let me just say they would use warranties all the time to cover other stuff. For instance.....a mechanic there had a truck out of warranty that need some work, they ordered the parts for it and claimed the repairs on a vehicle that was still under warranty. Hubs(wheel/bearings) where a big one also, they are expensive and quick to install, so they always made money on them. So everytime a mechanic screwed up and misdiagnoised something or messed up a part, they would just do a bogus warranty on something to make it up. I am sure this goes on at almost every dealer. If GM is so concerened about bogus warranties, they need to start looking at there own dealers.

 

Nice first post.

 

i think teenagers breaking their cars racing and trying to get it fixed under warrenty is a bigger problem but that's just my opinion

 

I think that some dealerships want to be asses sometimes for no reason. Before my SS i had a sunfire and the cat blew. Anyways they didnt want to cover it because they said the car was wrecked cuz a plate underneath the car was "shinny". Anyways I had to fight with them and bring it to another dealership to get it fixed under warranty. I dont understnad why they would do that, they get paid for doing the work on the car, dont do the car and dont get paid for doing it? i dont understand the reasoning. And thats not just GM, my friend bought a honda SI in the states and brought it back to canada, the local honda dealership basically told him to Fu@# off with his car. If he wanted to buy a us car, they dont want to here from him? I mean fu$%. The next honda dealership is like 1.5 hours away... Just goes to show that not just GM is that way. OH and Toyota is the same way to, they didnt want to change the batterie on my dad;s one month old Tundra cuz they thought i might still charge when my dad knew and tried it a few times without success.. so They are all the same to some extent

 

Oh. No one isnt saying that dealerships are these great places and always nice. There are plenety of dick dealerships out here.

But here we got a kid trying to fraud one. Then one he doesnt get what he wants posts "This is what GM does to us SS/SC guys!"

 

^^ i agree not all dealers are the best but most are atleast half way decent personally my dealer has replaced my wheels when they chipped and even helped me not have to pay an insurance deductible when my girl friend wrecked it so they are not all bad but If you go out and trash your car racing it you shouldn't expect someone to fix it for free thats what makes it hard on honest people with honest problems to get there stuff fixed

 

If you are such a good friend, why didn't you send him to Dobles Chevrolet since they don't seem to have a problem with aftermarket modifications, or a car that is raced?

 

^^^^exactly!!! i think now that it's been taken up the ladder at GM and the motor is apart any dealership he goes to will give him the same response since they have to call GM and give details of the situation. here's how the phone call would sound...

DEALER: Well hello...i have a cobalt ss/sc here in my shop a and the motor is fucked.

GM: Well how do you know it's fucked?

Dealer: Well Banks Chevrolet took it apart and denied warranty work on the car.

GM: Why did they deny warranty work? Dealer: I dunno.

GM: Well lets 3-way call them and find out...RINGING...Hi this is so and so from GM we have another dealer on the line here and they have so and so's car in their shop and they are saying you denied warranty work on the car is this correct?

Banks Chevrolet: Yes...we have pictures of him racing it
GM: ok thank you!

GM to new dealership: sorry we don't warranty items broken while racing. Goodbye