Like the title says, my 09' SS/tc is at my local Chevy dealership, and is getting a new engine under FULL Warranty, the car has a little over 24,500 miles on it.

Now the long story leading to today.

I bought the car new Aug. 31 2008 with 7 miles on the odometer. Since day one the car had a very dramatic surge on acceleration. This problem was intermittent, but it happened often. Everytime I got the chance to take it in the chevy, it was having a "good day" and no problems. They basically told me I was an idiot, but I knew the car was not correct. I started to pursue lemon law and had an area manager of somesort come take a look at my car, the next step would have been the "big guys" and the the car would have either been lemoned or not. When I dropped the car off that day, it was working ok, so I told them to hold onto it over night, or the next couple of days or whatever because I KNEW it would do it again. Well, they returned the car that night to me saying it was fine after that day I never had the problem again...for 6 months, but then it did it for about 2 days, and it was fine again. WTF?

Well, as of about 2 months ago, I started having other problems, that a few other people on this site have had similar symptoms. My car started only boosting about 6psi (I have GMS1) and fluttering very badly between shifts (stock charge piping and bpv). This, like my other problem was very intermittent. Sometimes you could turn the car off for 5 mins and it would reset and drive fine, other times it would not. Sometimes it would just "fix" itself sitting at a stop sign or long red light. After a couple of weeks of having the problem it would then only boost the 6psi but it would blow-off normal. About a month in, the car finally threw the CEL. Immediatly I took it to an autozone and had them use their reader, and they came up with the P0101 code (lean code?). After leaving there, on my way to Chevy the CEL turned off. I took it in, and they used there reader, and came up with a different code (I want to say P0229, but I don't remember the code and they have the car with the write-up in the glove box). They tightned all my hoses and clamps, and claimed that my intake was loose. The car has run fine ever since.

Last thursday I went on a 650 mile round trip to GA in one day. About 200 miles into my journey I got a message on the tach stating "Low Coolant". At the next sears I found I got some more dex-cool and mixed it 50/50 with water and filled it back up. The rest of the trip home I had to fill it up 4 more times. I couldn't find any evidence of any leaks anywhere. No smoke or water out the exhaust, so its problably not the head gasket, and no puddle on the ground when I would park it. The next day I took it into my local chevy dealership and told them what was happening. They pressure checked the system hot and cold, and they also did a compression check on the motor, and everything turned out to be perfectly normal. They too were unable to find any evidence of a leak or any problem at all so they put a dye in the coolant system and sent me on my way telling me to return if the Low Coolant message showed up again. This morning, about 5 mins into my drive I get the Low Coolant message. It has been only about 100-125 miles since they looked at it the other day. I immediatly took it back to the dealership. After they let it sit outside for 1 1/2 hours they finally started work. After only about 20-25 mins the mechanic went and sat in the Service Managers office having a conversation...Well about 10 mins later the service write-up guy comes in and tells me that I need a new engine. I chuckled at first not realizing he was serious, but he was. I then asked if it was going to be under warranty, a little nervous because of the mods in my sig. He said it was going to be 50/50, but then he laughed and said it will be completely covered. They already had the engine ordered, and it will arrive here on thursday, and they will have the car back to me on monday. They claim that it is a casting defect on the block of the engine.

I really couldn't believe how helpfull and easy they are being about everything, they are even putting back on my aftermarket mods, and reinstalling the GMS1 on my new engine since, I paid them to install it on my first engine.

I'm sorry about the length of this post, I really just wanted to share my story and possibly help some other people that are having similar issues. And one last thing I figure I might as well throw in, my brakes were turned by this same dealership with about 14,000 miles under the car and they never said anything about it.

 

That's awesome. At least you're rewarded for almost two years of trouble with a brand new engine!
See, it's stories like this that make me reluctant to get an aftermarket tune. I'll bet if you had that they might not have covered it under warranty, although obviously something like a casting defect was not caused by it...
Congrats man, and good luck with your rejuvenated balt!

PS sucks that you'll have to break her in all over again
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Black 2010 SS/TC – GMS1, Hahn catted down pipe, Hahn catback exhaust | GM racing pedals | DEPO 4th gen projectors w/ 6K HIDs; smoked LED tails | Pioneer z110bt head unit, Alpine PDX-5 amp, Focal speakers all around

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3835837

 

Thats the worst part lol

 

As far as mods, you could have bitched about it. There's no way a CAI, DP or catback should ever cause engine damage (especially the kind which is clearly a casting defect). At least they're good about it

 

sweems like the dealer has their **** together, and was able to trouble shoot the cooling leak in a reasonable amount of time and knew the correction..

 

Yeah, I was very satisfied. They worked fairly quickly on it, and figured out the problem, and started working on ordering the engine and getting me home immediatly. From my POV they really couldn't have done much of a better job. They have argued with me in the past about a few simple things which always makes me nervous taking the car in for any service at all, but obviously they realized it had nothing to do with me and or my mods so they were very helpfull.

 

now you've got me wondering... my car randomly seems to get boost crazy and then fall over out of now where when driving normal... car holds 15psi no problem normally tho.

 

Thats exacly why I wanted to post my issues, it might be your problem, or it might not, but at least you have somewhere to start. I had soooooo many issues that noone could explain, and it just got irritating.

 

Its hard to find a dealer that will do that, but it'll be nice having a working engine.

 

Nicely stated!
Break it in easy for at least 500 miles!
Collect all the new paperwork from the dealer too!

Dad

 

Update:

I was supposed to receive my car back on Monday June, 28, but when I called the dealership that morning I was told that the engine hadn't even shown up yet, that it was supposed to be there that day and they would have the car back to me on thursday or friday. Well, Thursday past, and I gave them a call on friday to see at what time I would be able to pick up the car. The service guy told me that the engine was in and running fine, but now there was a clutch hose leaking (although the service write-up says something about the slave cylindar), and they had to wait until monday to get a new one.

Monday July 5th, Chevy called me and told me the car was done. So finally after 2 weeks, I went and picked up the car. Almost immediately I noticed there was a weird rattle under the hood at certain low RPMs. I decided not to say anything, figuring there would be something else that I would probably find and like to bitch about, so I drove off. After going only a few minutes I realized that now my steering wheel is crooked, and I know for a fact that it never used to be like that, so I added that to my list. When I got home, I parked in the driveway and let it idle to listen to the rattle under the hood, when I realized that there was also clutch chatter, which also never used to occur (remember they replaced a leaking clutch hose). I was able to find that the rattle under the hood, it was my Hahn Intake now hitting the strut tower, which it never used to do, I was able to make a temporary fix but its not correct.

Well, today I go to leave on a short drive and when I start the engine in the garage and allow it to do its high idle warm up the low coolant message comes accross the screen. The engine only has 90 Miles on it! And remember this is the same reason I took the car in two weeks ago and they replaced the engine. I took it to my dads house where I had the car parked earlier in the day, and there was a little puddle where it had been parked. At first I didn't think too much about it just assuming it was the coolant since I got the low coolant message. Well after a while I did end up paying attention to it and realized that it was yellow, not red like the dex-cool/water mix. Although I could see it actively dripping off the bottom of the engine, with a lack of jack stands or a lift where I was at, I was unable to find exactly where its coming from. The oil dipstick is a POS and very hard to read, but I was unable to find any signs of dex-cool in it.

Needless, to say I'm very unhappy. Tomorrow morning I'm going straight to chevy (damn this is getting old) and giving them the car again. They better get it right, or get me a new one.

 

Wow.I'm really sorry to hear that I hope they get it right for you.I see you have a Mini Cooper,my wife has an 06 S convertible that we just love th **** out of.I will probably trade in my 09 SS next year on a Cooper of my own.

 

Yeah, the cooper is great, its a very fun car to drive. My current one is the third one we've owned lol. They are pretty easy to make fast if you know what your doing, and they already handle great. I'd say if you do it, go for an 05-06 unless you go convertible so you can keep the supercharger. It has a few quirks like a stupid clutch (throw-out bearing has gone bad on all three of the cars including my current one which did it when I bought it with only 14k miles or so), but I believe it puts the turbos to shame lol. I just like the body more and was never a fan of the interior of the turbos...but I might be a little biased haha.