Another LLT engine blown up....

[GretchenGotGrowl]

Great news!

[jkchambless]

Wow...great news.

[slotwheels]

Originally Posted by NoItsOnlyAV6_ButItRocks

GM has come through!!!!

I was going to hold off on the announcement until I actually had my car again but I figured I better let all know now so that they can be relived as much as I am and put their faith back in GM.

I swung by the dealer late Friday morning and as luck would have it the DMA was there to. The Service Manager, the DMA and I went into the Service Managers office and sat down. I went through the whole story of the day I bought my car. I suppose I really should have started out with the day I saw the concept car but that may have been a little too far back.

I explained how I had measured the oil the morning before going to Jiffy Lube and it was full. I then explained how I made a point of assuring my engine was good and warm and pulling right in to get fast service and get a good drain on the oil. Then how going forward just over 3000 miles those 6 quarts of oil that were put in at Jiffy Lube had gone done to 2 quarts left in the pan when they dismantled the motor at the dealership.

The DMA listened to all of this and said that did not change what he is seeing in the damage in the engine. That the damage was caused by lack of oil. But with that said he did have an option for me. He asked that if I was willing to pay for 1.5 to 2 hours labor, the shop techs could pull the head off and inspect the valves and pistons to see if there was evidence of oil consumption. At first I was a bit hesitant thinking that I better save up my money to get the engine repaired or replaced instead of paying anything to get it torn apart further but then I figured it was a safe gamble since I know that I had measured a full dip stick on this engine quite a few times over that 3000 mile period.

Once I agreed, they said that they would start looking at it that afternoon and should have an answer in a few hours. I told them that I was heading up to Canada immediately after our meeting so I gave the service manager my cell phone number.

at around 4:45 pm my cell phone rang while I was up in Canada and immediately cut out. It rang again and cut out. I tried to call the Service Manager back but kept getting his voice mail. The wait was agony since I was sure I was going to miss him as he left for the weekend. Finally at 5:25 pm I got a hold of him.

He said that they pulled apart the valves over cylinder 1,3 and 6. The valve guide tolerance should have been .001 to .0015 and it was .006. On Piston 3 the Cylinder ring gap was lined up. I believe there were other oil consumption issues that he had located but I could not hear due to the connection on the cell phone. The Service manager had taken pictures and forwarded them to the DMA. He agreed that this should be covered under warranty. I instantly had my permagrin.

I then asked how long it would take to get the motor ordered. It turns out that they already had it since PCQ (Parts Control Quality @ GM) had already worked through the rebuild / replacement steps a few weeks back so the engine was already ordered and delivered to the dealer.

The engine should be installed and ready to roll by Thursday or Friday.

What would cause the valve guide tolerance to be .006 and not .001 to .0015? Is this something we all should be concerned with?

[guapo]

Glad to hear it all worked out...

[shrinkdoc]

Great news! So is it possible that the oil pressure is the culprit on some of the cars that had engine failures. Is it possible because the ring gap was letting in oil into the cylinders causing not enough pressure to oil the timing chain properly. Just a theory.

[TooCool5]

Ring gap lined up on the cylinders?

[Mean Green Z28]

Wow those two together would def eat oil like it was thanksgiving Turkey! Glad it worked out for you in the end!

TooCool5 ... the rings gaps need to be staggered 180 deg. Between each ring. Having them all lined up reduces compression and also increases the amount of oil that could get into the chamber

Id doubt it would cause timing chain issues though since there's no pressurized oil galeries opening up into the sleeves. The piston is purely oiled by splash lubrication or oil squirting

[NoItsOnlyAV6_ButItRocks]

Originally Posted by slotwheels

What would cause the valve guide tolerance to be .006 and not .001 to .0015? Is this something we all should be concerned with?

Well that is the interesting thing. I would think the fact that it had that much wear could have gone in my favor or not in my favor. What I mean by that is with that much wear, it would consume "too much" oil and that allowed this to be covered by warranty but one could also argue that it had that much wear due to lack of oil.

Originally Posted by TooCool5

Ring gap lined up on the cylinders?

They only inspected cylinder 1,3 and 6 and it was only cylinder 3 that had the gaps lined up. I did a lot of reading on ring gaps and most every site I went to said you install them 180 degree opposite. But then about 70% of the sites said that once installed, they will freely go wherever they want and whenever you pull apart an engine it would not be uncommon to find them lined up in some cases.

My personal thought on it would be that yes they are free floating so it would be possible to line up. But once they line up ,there would be nothing to encourage it them to un-align themselves and the gap would stay. You would loose power on that cylinder, you would have power loss and oil loss. Then over years of use the rings on the other cylinders would be ever so slightly moving around and then another one might line up. Just my theory...Maybe far fetched but with the oil being able to flow through the gap with ease it would be encouraged to stay like that.

Originally Posted by shrinkdoc

Great news! So is it possible that the oil pressure is the culprit on some of the cars that had engine failures. Is it possible because the ring gap was letting in oil into the cylinders causing not enough pressure to oil the timing chain properly. Just a theory.

Yeah it could be. While searching for theories on my car I found this PDF about 40 reason for too much oil consumption

http://www.amsoil.com/techservicesbu...onsumption.pdf

It has all sorts of things that could be causing issues.

[unscathed]

Awesome news man!!! A little perseverance goes a long way!

[PieNsky]

I admire that you didn't lose your cool and stayed respectful.

[NoItsOnlyAV6_ButItRocks]

Originally Posted by PieNsky

I admire that you didn't lose your cool and stayed respectful.

Thanks! I think this was a very big part of why thing went the way they did. Not to mention that the service manager at the dealership is awesome and a very straight shooter. The DMA thanked me for not yelling at him. I am sure he has gotten many an ear full over the years.

One more little detail...

On Friday when I got the good news from the service manager I asked him for the name of the tech who has been working on my car. He told me his name and yesterday I swung by with 3 Garlic Jim pizzas at lunch for him and the others in the shop and thanked him for all the work he has done so far. I know if must be frustrating that he has had to stop and start on my car at least 3 times and I am assuming that they had to put the font end back on at least once so that they could take it off the lift and roll it out of their way while I was contacting GM.

He was completely floored and thankful. I told him that if it was a Ford Escort I probably wouldn't have bought the pizzas but this is my Camaro we are talking about here!!!

[BlkMamba1Ls]

same thing just happened to my 2011 LLT last week spun rod bearing GM approved to fix it but they are only rebuilding the bottom end parts have been ordered new crankshaft and rod bearings service rep says ill have my car back next week sometime

[NoItsOnlyAV6_ButItRocks]

Originally Posted by BlkMamba1Ls

same thing just happened to my 2011 LLT last week spun rod bearing GM approved to fix it but they are only rebuilding the bottom end parts have been ordered new crankshaft and rod bearings service rep says ill have my car back next week sometime

Ugghhh. How much metal was left behind? Hopefully they are feeling good that there isn't much. To be safe I would change your oil every 500 miles at least for the first couple times to make sure everything is out of there.

[BlkMamba1Ls]

i was told that there was metal shaving found in cylinder #3 im not feeling too good about a rebuild....but the moment i hear a noise or if it starts to consume oil im taking it right back to them