2SS Engine Failure
 

Hey guys, I am the proud owner of a Fifty edition 2ss stick shift, but i obnly had the car for 3 months, and 2000 miles. I bought it CPO with 5500 on the odometer from a Chevy dealer.

The motor spun a bearing and was so violent that it damaged the block to the point of needing to replace the whole motor, and that is the resolution I wanted. When the motor crapped itself, I checked the oil and there was nothing on the dip stick. I have read up on the forums here and one thing i see is that the Camaro with the 6.2 takes 10qt vs the corvette with the same motor only takes 7qt. From what I understand, the oil pumps are different, and the extra 3 qt is really only needed when "racing". Would anyone be able to fill me in on if I am correct in my understanding of this.

IF NOT, how could I be so low on oil, that it does not register on the dip stick, and the dash still show normal oil temp, and pressure.

Lastly now that the special edition Camaro I went out of my way to buy is going to be at a dealership for 2+ weeks, and take a hit in value due to the mismatched serial numbers what would you guys suggest I go to GM asking for, given this level of failure should not be happening to a performance car.

Sorry that it is so all over the place, the dealership called me in the middle of writing this saying the have to replace the motor due to cylinder wall damage, and i was writing about how to convince GM corp to drop a new motor without telling them I can tell the dealership i bought it from probably messed up the oil change and that the block will have micro fissures and thermal stress from this. I am a mechanical engineer, and have a degree in physics also so i could pull a lot of science out of my ass to compound my knowledge of cars that i have been playing dumb with.

Sorry for your troubles. I do not think the motor has any matching number to the body.

Check the dipstick after trusting anyone else to perform an oil change.

If I'm not mistaken, the dipstick only reads a quart of oil. So, if you have less than 9qts. it will be dry.

Thats exactly what i suspect that i was somewhere between the min reading, i expect to be about 9qt and 7qt that the car should be able to run on, but lets be real, its a v8, im gonna put the pedal down and my understanding is that it is fine with as little as 7qt if you arent giving it hell

I never heard of this 10 quarts is if you're racing thing. The manual calls for 10 quarts, so it needs 10 quarts.

If it had less than 9 quarts, either the engine burned it or the dealer messed up and put less than 9 quarts when they changed the oil.

Sorry for your troubles. I’ve been down a similar path with my dealership, only it didn’t involve the engine. Thank God. I still feel your pain though. Let them replace the engine which they appear to agree is due to premature failure. Have a sit down meeting with the service manager and let him know about your disappointment and worries. Document everything. And if I were you I would surely demand something in return for your trouble. Like several monthly payments on their dime, or something along that line. Don’t feel any shame doing so either.

I’ll tell you right now you’ll not get anything extra besides maybe a couple of free oil changes for your trouble. Warranty only covers repairs not diminished value or anything else. There may be no way of knowing what caused your engine failure but to lose oil pressure enough to starve a bearing you’d have the dummy light on in the cluster.

Welcome to the spun bearing club. Unfortunately I got a rebuild that took three engine pulls and 5 extra other visits with a total of 6 months to get right. Get a lemon lawyer involved, GM may throw some money at you if this takes a while.

I got this from the type of oil pump, it's s submerged pump, and 7qt is enough to do that, unless you have a hard breaking or acceleration, the fluid shift and is no longer submerging the pump. Where as the same set up in the Corvette calls for an unsubmerged pump and is fine at 7qt.

I am just pulling this from another thread I read, before my account was verified and I could comment on it

I really don't know ow if I should air my grievance to the dealership it's getting fixed at, my local dealer; the dealer I bought it from 2 hours away, or to corporate, I already started a case with corporate when they weren't sure if they would replace the motor.

As for it taking 6 months and repeated visits, if it goes that way, I will definitely involve a lemon lawyer as I have only had the car 3 moths and 2000 miles, but there is no way I will keep it then, I can't have something breaking down all the time as my daily because my alternate is a motorcycle, and I k ow for a fact sjits and Enduro bikes do not forget well together

Are spun bearings really that common of an issue, I spent a good couple weeks before buying it trying to see if there were common issues like this, and the only things I found outside of the once in a while unfortunate sole like me was exhaust rattling

From what I have seen the failures are either spun bearings or lifters.

The thing you have to consider about researching engine failures is that you're never going to read about the thousands of cars that have never had an issue.



When the engine fails folks like to vent/share their experience on forums to get advice from fellow owners and to see if they're not the only one.



I've read this board daily since 2012 when I bought my 5th gen and I can tell you that engine failures are rare.



It does suck dealing with what you're going through and I hope GM takes care of you man.

I mean that is kinda common sense. Of course nobody is going to make a post saying "hey 10k miles and motor isn't blown!". The Camaro6 forum is a very very small percentage of owners, I'd say less that 1%. So i'm sure there are many other engine failures nobody here will ever know about because lots of people don't use forums or groups online.

I agree that it's a very uncommon occurrence, expecialy given this is thier top shelf powerplant, and they have been using it for a number of years, I very much would expect that it is built very well. I have even said myself to corporate when I was on the phone I get that this was a fluke, a bad motor be it maufactureing defect or whatever, and as an engineer I k ow that shit happens.

I agree that the 99.9% of people who haven't had a failure are going to post saying "oy everyone look my motor is working as it's supposed to and isn't defective" that's just a consequence on modern society where service is expected, and I use service lossely there. But unfortunately yes I drew the Short straw and hopefully gm steps up to the plate and makes up for the now 3 weeks without my car.

Side note the Traverse small suv gets worse fuel economy, and is has a harder time with the slope of my driveway then the Camaro

From my research on this and other forums before buying the Camaro, engine failures were rare. I understood that early motors did have issues, but it seems that those were taken care of.

If oil starvation was an issue here, then we can't just blame the motor.

Thhis motor has been out since 2014. There should be no early issues. Probably not enough miles yet on late 2017 and 2018 models.

Camaro is only wet sump oil system and takes 10 quarts only. Maybe 7qt is the oil capacity of the dry sump Corvettes.

It's funny you mention that about the Traverse. I owned a 13' GMC Terrain (which I think is very similar to the Traverse) with the V6 in it and it got horrible gas mileage. My 6th gen Camaro easily got better gas mileage than that thing. It was also pretty gutless and I'm not sure if it was just me but the engine was louder than I would have expected.

That sounds about verbatim what I had read, I'm not well versed on oil cooling for motors so I explained it very poorly.


And yes that is my understanding that failures were marginal more common when the motor was a new power plant but now it's get it see legs so to speak and is very robust


I had a chance to see the torn down motor and there was no obvious heat stress damage to any of the other parts, but yeah it could be a combination of several things


Yeah I only mentioned it because that is the loaner I have, and the interior feels so cheap, and funny enough when my dad's SUV was in for repairs after someone hit it, the loaner the insurance company gave him was the gmc equvil you mentioned, but it's a very small for a midsize SUV and my dads SUV was a full size Lexus and they considered that a comprobal vehicle. Like the Camaro feels like a BMW or Merc, the Travers and Arcadia feel like plastic knockoffs

The terrain is one size down, but yeah the one I have feels like a 4 cyl, whith horrible tourqe steer when I lay in the throttle to merge on the highway

You sure it had the LFX 3.6 V6? My 2016 Terrain Denali 3.6 FWD will light the tires off on any kick down into first gear. I wouldn't call it fast by any means but it's a 6 second 0-60 family hauler that revs to 7k. It even has the 19's with a 235/55/19 tire and averages 21-22mpg on 87 octane, which is the same as my SS averages on 93. The engine is also very quiet. I had a 2012 Terrain the had the 2.4 I4 and it was gutless, noisy engine, but it did get good gas mileage... 24mpg average on 89 octane.

Yup it was a v6, premium trim and honestly my old accord is nicer haha.


just an update also, got it back new block, minor paint touch up in a few spots that the dealership said they will take care of.
Corporate offered me an insulting $250 in credit fro my trouble, the day and a half i had to miss work etc., and the fact the motor will no longer mat h the build sheet.

Honestly speaking if this was not the special 50th anniversary one, I would have sold it for a a Challenger by now with how they are going on the corporate side, the dealership has been amazing though.

So they rebuilt using old parts and a new block?

Your car broke, they are fixing it. Why on earth would you feel entitled to anything else? :noidea:

Numbers matching is no longer a "thing". That comes from the old days when Camaro's had multiple engine choices like 327, 350, 396, etc. Today, LT1 is LT1 and that's it. Even 50 years from now, no one is going to care if it's the "original build sheet engine".

When my motor was replaced they paid reimbursed my car payment for the time it was there. Anything past 20 days and the dealer can request GM reimburse you the money for your payment. Mine was a struggle and they ended up with mine a month the first issue and a month the second. GM reimbursed me both payments and provided a loaner the entire time. Just a heads up, so you can look into this as well.

GM
 

I had supercharger trouble after I hit 1500 miles and started tracking the car took dealer and GM 4 visits and a few weeks to get it right dealer got 2 payments and 2 full track days reimbursed by GM and threw in 2 more oil changes and my dealer is small town but great guys who always listen.

ASk for 750. No one cares if the engine # doesnt match... its not a 1932 Dueseberg....

So update for you guys, corporate never gave me anything for my trouble, citing that they gave me a loaner for the duration of the repairs, and were replacing the whole motor.

The dealership FINALLY fixed a few paint chips in December after 8+ months. I am still waiting for a replacement shift knob, as they damaged it. The part has been ordered several times now. I think i have been calling the dealership about once every other week, including actually taking time off work to go drop/pick the car with the promise of the issue being resolved.

For future reference, I am sure most of you know this but for any poor soul like mine,

If there is any damage/outstanding work on your vehicle and you have a loaner, do not sign for or accept your vehicle back because the loaner/rental cost them ~$150 a day and they will take care of it really quick when they have to foot that bill.

I see you're in NJ, as am I. Would it be out of line for me to ask which dealer?

I'm a little late to this thread but I want to clear up some of the very incorrect data that's been posted for anyone who may stumble across it in the future. First and foremost, the oil pumps in all LT1's are the same being either a single stage (used in the wet sump configuration) or 2 stage (used in the dry sump configuration). They are all variable displacement and feature a solenoid operated flow control feature. Submerged? I'm not sure what that is referencing as all Gen 5 oil pumps mount up front on the crankshaft like the previous LS series.

The primary difference from platform to platform is the oil pan. On wet sump applications it is changed for various reasons but will always maintain a pickup that is positioned at the optimal height above the bottom of the pan. This does not, however, account for the different capacities between platforms as that is driven off the depth of the pan itself.

The oiling system utilized in the Gen 5 small block is pretty robust and fairly advanced with the variable output and piston pin oilers but is still just an oiling system. OP I'm glad you got your car fixed by GM, I think these situations are a good reminder to all of us to pull that dipstick and check the lifeblood of the engine.

I've been down the bad engine road myself. It took a lot of persistence, but GM replaced the motor, and due to the other electrical issues in combination with the blown motor, GM is replacing my car with a new one. I feel your pain OP.....