Earlier this year, Car and Driver experienced engine failure on their long-term C7 Corvette Stingray, caused by metal shavings breaking loose in the oil filter. Then, not long after, the C7 Corvette Chevrolet had given them for their Lightning Lap test also broke down due to “contaminated oil” in the engine.
Now, the first 2015 Corvette Z06 has decided to lunch itself with only 891 miles on the odometer. Corvette Forum member Lawdogg said he was accelerating from 35 mph and shifted below redline when he heard a loud noise. The car began knocking, so he pulled over and popped the hood. He discovered a knock coming from the no. 6 cylinder, and another “serious, grinding, metal-on-metal sound coming from the supercharger area.”
When the dealer had a chance to inspect the car, they found a failure in the No. 6 cylinder’s valvetrain. GM gave him the option of fixing the engine itself in order to retain a numbers matching Z06, or replacing the engine altogether. He took the smarter option of those two and had the entire engine replaced, which means he’ll be without a Z06 for quite some time.
It’s not entirely clear what caused the engine failure, however GM instructed him not to start disassembling the engine as they’d like to evaluate it themselves. Lawdogg, somewhat worryingly, said GM seemed hardly surprised by the fact his Z06 engine had blown up and said it “seems this has happened with test fleet vehicles.”
It’s much too early to speculate over whether this is a manufacturing flaw with this single car or if it is only the first of many Z06 engine failures. GM should give Lawdogg an answer soon enough, which he’ll hopefully share online. For now, you can stay up to date with the discussion on Corvette Forums.
Comments
Funny how only Car & Driver has these problems… They need attention since the general public is not buying their magazines anymore.
Wasn’t C & D..read the article.
Here is a YouTube video of Lawdogg149 doing a hard, past red line 0 to 60 run this is one of a “FEW” attempts, see the abuse for yourselves……sad…..
I would have demanded a whole new car to retain matching numbers. GM should have given the owner the option of an entire car replacement due to the inconvenience.
After all, a lot of cars are pre-tested. nowadays people tuned secret of its new cars, and if the problem occurs again with the stock condition ago.these cars are very important for a lot of things you do not really know what to think or owners. or even if the owners of these cars use tevad about it still made my changes to take their revenge. such cars was doing the very serious expertise to identify the error. may have wanted this car more power to get the car home and made changes before the engine run in.
and the cars could also be some form of demands for the use of the car when the engine is run in a certain number of kilometers. loodetaavsti hear what the problem is.
However, these cars are very long before tests and a lot of miles in severe conditions of the Nürburgring circuit
@OPC, Not trying to be rude.
I am not sure if you are using a translation program but your posts have been in pretty poor English. I am not sure if you noticed.
Your past English I know was better so you may want to check your translation program if you are using one.
Likely from Europe because of the dots above the U. Maybe German. I still get what he is saying.
Here’s a German word for ya’ll: “vollgasfest”, which means roughly “withstands wide open throttle”, and is a standard that German nameplates use when testing their engines (BEFORE selling them to the public, if you can imagine that); they have to survive extended wide open throttle runs on the Autobahn.
GM V8s of all generations are well known for NOT being “vollgasfest”; they tend to overheat and seize. One of the many reasons people don’t buy them there. But for now, lets blame the operators when an engine blows on a $100,000 car.
Gee your observation skills of the obvious are profound.
It is easily clear he is German or in close proximity as it has been clear from his comments and words he uses and OPC name and comments on Opel also are a clear give away.
Hence my advice to check his translator if he is using one. If not at least let him know his English is a little jumbled.
As for your comments on the GM V8 his english is better than your understanding of how engines are tested. You really have no clue do you?
Using the blanket statement GM V8 means little as they have used them in many different cars and made by the different models over the years.
The key to the cooling was often the cooling system its self. Since most of these cars were made for America where they would see 70-80 MPH they were set with water pumps and cooling systems for these speed. The GM cars with the more heavy duty systems could handle the higher speeds with no issue.
The nature of the use was where things were different. Now take an Opel or Vauxhall that was designed to be used in Europe and you can run all day with their systems as they were made to handle these condition.
Today most American cars are set with much more improved cooling systems as they are key in the emissions anymore and they now can handle about anything that is tossed at them.
If you had any clue you would realize that these engines have for years been run on Dynos for long periods of time.
Case in point the GM built 800 4200 DOHC 6 to test. 24 went to the Dyno and was run at WOT for 150,000 miles with no failures. 5 of these were left to run a test of 300,000 miles at WOT that is about 5,000 plus hours. The other engines were run over 4 million miles before the first one went to the public. This is only an example of what they do to engines before they are sold to test them for durability. Then you can add the time used for Fuel tuning and emissions tuning.
All companies do this kind of testing and it is amazing what these engines will do.
So generally if there is an issue it is a casting issue or supplier part issue such as a rod bolt or head gasket. Rarely do a odd design issues come into play by the time they reach production.
At the moment, this is not a big deal, that’s why there is warranty. Only GM can make it into a big deal, depending on how they treat this issue. They need to do a thorough investigation, make sure that other cars unsold or on the production line are fine, and don’t let this escalate. This engine is too important to GM for them to allow too much negative publicity
And if you look at most other cars out there the percentage of engine failures are no worse.
Generally most engines if they are to fail will do so in the first 1,000 miles. We have seen it in all makes and models.
Often these things happen as a part from a supplier fails and had nothing to do with the design or assembly of the parts.
A simple bad rod bolt could do this so easily.
This is what the warranty is for and it will be repaired.
Just look back to the old days of the muscle car era as so many of the cars today do not have the original engine as they lost them in the first 5,000 miles. Some due to abuse and others just because of quality issues.
As for this car I would not worry so much about matching numbers as the owner may be long gone before it is ever a factor if he even owns the car by then.
google translate ahhaaa. sorry guys
No problem I just thought you may have not known how it was coming out on this end.
Your English good in some post and not in others so I suspected a Translator issue.
Sometimes our English is not all that good on this end either LOL!
I’ve seen videos during a comparison of a corvette and a 911 and the the turbos blew in that video during a the quarter mile does that make them cars bad? By no means..
How many Porsche engines had to be replaced as they would catastrophically blow and a couple eve burned. Porsche did a stop on production a replaced all the engines they had sold. Even Jeremy Clarkson had to let his car sit with a no drive order.
Then the many Nissan GT4 transmission that are failing outside warranty. There is a whole lot worse things going on to worry about.
Whoops forgot Ferrari, what was with them and catching fire awhile back? But those were 300,000-400,000+ cars, they aren’t possible to catch fire!
Two 991 GT3s caught fire from an improperly tightened bolt, out of 950 cars made. Thats 0.2%
I bought a 2015 Z06 last Tuesday and the dealer has had it ever since (the day after). The instrument cluster flat out died… speedometer dead, tachometer dead, gas gauge dead, heads up display dead, digital display dead. Everything was DEAD! I’m concerned to say the least. Waiting patiently on engineers from GM to find a resolution. I wish the finance company would wait for the engineers too. Such a total buzz kill!
My instrument display gets dead once in a while. did you know the solution?