Engine Cradle

[Crand]

So last night I had the wheels off my car to install new brake pads. While working on it, I noticed that my engine cradle has what appears to be some welded seams that have popped and on one side it even appears like it's some minor buckling. I looked over the whole cradle and there are more than a couple places where this appears.

I went back to some pictures I took of the car in the first few months I owned it and you can see at least one point where the buckling on the seam is visible so I'm pretty sure this has always been here. The left side of the car has a dent in the same exact spot. Robot failure?

This car has NEVER seen the kind of action that would result in this sort of damage, that is, if this sort of thing is indeed damage and not just what it looks like from the factory. The only variable in the life of this car is that it has been twice on the lift at a Discount Tire and if I so much as found a scuff on a seat, I'm 100% confident they did it.

Anybody have some input on this image? Does this look like cause for attention or is this frame supposed to look like I regularly fire my car off ramps?

[sbubbaklein]

doesn't look good. would be concerned in a front end collision. Ask your dealership to inspect, get GM customer service involved.

[Ragnar]

What is the year of your car?

[Apex Motorsports]

Yeah, I would get that looked at.

[markgws6]

I doubt this would be caused from road debris, but I could see lifting the car in the wrong place might cause it. I would definitely have a GM certified person look at it. Makes me want to go out and inspect mine now.

[markgws6]

I just took a look at my car. If I look in between the wheel and the fender (the part behind the tire) I can see "notches" on both sides in this area. I see exactly the same thing on both sides (the notches). I did not take off the wheels, but from my initial inspection, it looks like it may be made that way. But your image makes it look like the seam is a bit more "open" than mine?

[Crand]

The car is a 2013 1LE and there isn't a snowball's chance in hell it's going to be covered in what's left (if anything) of my warranty.

I can't for the life of me remember whether or not they were present before last week.

If you look closely at the cradle, you'll notice that the welds don't continue all the way down the side. They start and stop. The problem is that where this gap is located is right on a bead, it should not be open unless it was welded and then had its shape set in some sort of press after the fact. I don't really know. For all I know these are made by a contractor in Idaho and delivered to Chevrolet a year in advance of production.

The cradle isn't that expensive so I'm considering ordering one. I'd just be pretty miffed if I took delivery of the new one and saw the same gaps in it. Anybody feel like going out to their car, turning the wheel all the way to one side and snapping a photo? I'm really curious.

Regarding lifting the car, within a couple days of taking delivery of it, I gave my old floor jack to my dad and bought myself a low-profile long floor jack so I could get to the proper points when I needed to get it off the ground. I read as much as I could before I ever put the jack under the car. I used the points from the following link:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showpo...2&postcount=11

Are those the correct locations? I've never had any trouble and I've always been gentle. It seems like it would be pretty difficult to buckle a steel structure like that just by lifting the car up. It corners at 1G and goes over bumps in the road without the wheels falling off. I hope that it would take more than just an errant jack to ruin that crucial of a part on these cars.

I was going to take it to a dealer to let them have a look at it but then I gathered my senses and started shopping around for the part. I'm in the greater Phoenix metro area. Dealers out here aren't like dealers in other parts of the country. Half of them don't know how to order cars for their customers or that doing so is even a thing. So if I can find pictures of other peoples' cradles without those dimples, I'm just going to swap it out myself.

[X25]

I wish you had better / more pictures. It's hard to understand from only one angle.

[Mgizzle]

Originally Posted by X25

I wish you had better / more pictures. It's hard to understand from only one angle.

There is a hole or split it looks like in his picture on the black part (craddle). I will check mine in a week or two when I do brakes for the season. I would go to dealer ASAP, show them and see what they say. Nthey should have plenty camaros to compare too.

[Crand]

I spent about two hours searching before I finally found another picture of the same spot on the cradle in a high enough resolution to determine that this is probably normal. At least I know what it costs to replace the cradle if I ever ding it up.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/attach...5&d=1306721291

[Midnight Rat]

If it helps I have a 1le and I just know looked at mine and it looks like your to the t.

[GONIF]

Looked at my 2014 1LE and it is not quite as bad ,but none to pretty either.

[Turbosaurus]

I just did a front brake job on my '14 1LE w/ 25k miles (warped rotors; thank you dealership for not torquing the wheels after inspection - but that's another thread). I have the same notches in the frame on both sides. I believe this is a register added to the frame for manufacturing purposes. This is a two-piece boxed frame, and that notch in the top rail allows the bottom rail (which fits inside) to stop at that notch, setting the correct depth prior to welding the two together. Any GM manufacturing engineers here to validate my theory?

[gajagfan]

Originally Posted by Turbosaurus

I just did a front brake job on my '14 1LE w/ 25k miles (warped rotors; thank you dealership for not torquing the wheels after inspection - but that's another thread).

Are you sure the warped rotors are from improperly torques wheels and not jus too much heat from hard braking? I do not want to hijack this thread, but I have always attributed warped rotors to heat and not improperly torqued rotors.