My car has been at Tim Lally Chevrolet in Bedford Ohio for over 3 weeks now. It's a Black, 2011 2LT RS with a 6 speed manual. I've had the car since April of 2011 - bought it brand new with ~250 miles on it because it was located in Cincinnati and I live in Cleveland and it was a dealer trade. It's a daily driver - v6, but still a fun car. It's by no means beat up, but I drive a lot for work and fun and it's a daily driver. It's not been glass case kept, but it's been perfectly maintained. It's got 50,000 on it or thereabouts, and I noticed some trouble engaging second gear. I took it home, called the dealership I bought it at, made an appointment and took it in.

This is where my blood starts to boil.

I feel like I got profiled - 27 year old with a nice car and a stick shift, the dealer hears it's coming in for trans problems and they assume I'm doing burn outs at every stop sign.

They had the NERVE to tell me it was a $700 tear down and they'd only tell me it was under warranty after they did. I was reluctant, but I figured why not - it's like new, never been punished in any way - it's got to be under warranty, right? wrong.

So after I'm told they'll get back to me later that day (Friday January 18) they don't call until Wednesday the 23rd. When Matt Nagy finally does decide to call - he says "It's not under warranty, but I don't know why it isn't under warranty"

When I ask for someone who does know - I never get a call back. I told them it was unacceptable and that it WILL be repaired under warranty.

My brother works final process assembly for GM - I feel like I've got an ace in the hole.

I'm told to call GM customer service - long story short with them is that they're "fighting on your side" but the real story is they call the dealership and ask them to look at it again - they never send anyone out. Of course I asked Matt Nagy at the dealership what the credentials of the tech who tore down the transmission were - how he can tell abuse from product failure, poor craftsmanship or bad design - and that goes unanswered.

Fast forward 3 weeks -I'm in the nastiest Malibu you've ever seen. Stains on the seats, filth everywhere. If this is a representation of what GM stands for - letting some crook dealer give this kind of loaner out - they need to look harder. Anyway - customer service calls back every 2 days or so - but they keep saying they "need more information" and when I ask what they've done so far - where the parts are, who has looked at it, they never know. So every 2 days they call and say they'll call back in another 2 days. I asked to talk to a supervisor, another supervisor, and another.

I've reminded them that there are videos on youtube, posts all over the internet about stick shift camaros with bad second gear synchros.

ALL my family owns is GM, I own a cobalt ss/sc and my camaro, my brother owns a 1500 and an acadia, our parents own an envoy and a 1500 sierra, our grandparents own a seville and an impalla, our step mom owns a cavalier, our other grandparents own a regal and a s-10, our uncle owns a 2500 and a vue.. I can go on and on...

I called a law firm called Girard Gibbs who says they're looking at filing a class action lawsuit - doesn't do me much good now - I might not even own the car by the time it gets settled.

I've got my own attorney now - I filed a complaint with the attorney general here in Ohio.

I told the lady from GM customer service if they're so interested in keeping my car she can arrange a new ATS or camaro get dropped off to me.. and half kidding I asked for a zr1.

I've never been hassled so bad in my whole life. They're asking for $4000 to do a rebuild. I'm not settling until I get a new transmission, a new clutch, and at this point at least 1 months car payment for my troubles.

What's the point in your 100K warranty if you don't honor it? One of my buddies got his transmission replaced at 17K in a gen 5 camaro - no questions asked. Why am I the target?

I've got the number for GM corporate and I plan on seeing how far up the line I can get tomorrow - has anyone else had this problem?

 

Hopefully someone from Customer Service will step in for you here.
According to GM's cut & dried warranty language, the dealer shouldn't be giving you the run-around:

"Powertrain:
Coverage is for the first 5 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.

Transmission/Transaxle
Transmission and transaxle coverage includes all internally lubricated parts, case, torque converter, mounts, seals and gaskets, as well as any electrical components internal to the transmission/transaxle. Also covered are any actuators directly connected to the transmission (slave cylinder, etc.).
Exclusions: Exclusions from the powertrain coverage include cooling lines, hoses, radiator, sensors, wiring, and electrical connectors. Also excluded are the clutch and pressure plate, as well as any Transmission Control Module and/or module programming".

 

Your first mistake was going to a dealer for repairs. The GM 100,000 mile drive train warranty is very limited and IMO not worth much. Your buddy's transmission was repaired under the 30,000 mile warranty terms. Once the 30,000 mile warranty is exceeded, you are generally better off taking repairs to an independent repair shop. I purchased a new 2007 Silverado 2500HD Duramax. I had a couple of minor repairs done under warranty but once it was out of the 30,000 mile warranty the truck has never been back to the dealership. Just FYI, You can buy a brand new in the box T56 Magnum 6 speed for $2895 and any competent repair shop can install it.

 

I realize this is an older thread, I was curious if the GM rep would respond. The original situation was not uncommon even back in the 80’s. GM always saw the manual transmission like it looks at brakes. “The issue is cause by the driver until proven otherwise”. Anything to do with clutch or sync is considered a drivers issue unless there is an oil leak or some other failure that caused the issue. I remember I saw it so many times in the 80s I use to advise friends to buy automatics just to avoid the issue. You could pound the crap out of an automatic and there was just no way to tell for if it was abuse. I can only remember one automatic being turned down for warranty do to abuse, that was a dually used at a rock quarry and it ripped the center support right out of the case of a Th400.

I remember one customer that was a 67 year old man, he burned up a clutch in his 88 full size pickup at 12,000 miles (a little over 1 year old). He had bought a new truck at the dealership every 2 years for at least the decade before. They were always sticks and he never had an issue. He said he never let anyone drive it but him. Service manager can approve something’s but for repaired for clutch he had to call for approval, he was turned down for the repair. The dealership owner agreed to do the repair “at cost”. The customer complained to GM. That complaint hurt our CSI (customer satisfaction index) even though the choice not to cover the repair was GMs. It is kind of funny to read the report because the operator takes down exactly what the customer says. It was something like this, “My problem is not with the dealership, my problem is with GM’s policy with clutches” Just under that statement the form said “you must contact this customer within 48 hour and attempt to resolve the situation. Failure to do so could further hurt your CSI index.” I don’t think anyone at GM even read what was written.

 

I'm interested to hear the rest of the story. I see it's an old post but now I am intrigued on what ever happened to your car? Did you ever get it fixed or given back to you?

 

It was about 2 months in and I'm sure the dealership was tired of having the car on it's rack by then and pushing to get this done, tired of having an employee and his family blasting them on every GM message board[because I know they pay people to look at these] and tired of lawyers calling them - there's a firm in California monitoring these kinds of claims and were considering a class action suit. I know I was sure tired of driving the most disgustingly kept dealer-owned gold Malibu - but that's another story.

What ended up happening was a divisional level warranty/quality claim inspector was sent out - really nice guy. The claim was by then being handled by his boss, and she wanted him to put eyes on the parts. GM ended up replacing rings, synchros, seals and replacing the gear. I wished they would have replaced the trans or done a full rebuild. The tech that did the job I must give credit to - when I got it back it was silky smooth. Nowhere near as nice as new but certainly acceptable. I'm sure the guy at the customer service counter wanted him to dump a case of BB's into it. In the end, GM paid to make the transmission right but what bothered me was they said they wouldn't do any of it unless I paid for a new clutch (I'm no rookie at driving stick - at 50K it had some life left in it) but they said it was green - I asked them for it when I picked the car up and in my opinion - it was fine, but I understand that when you have the transmission off, especially for warranty work, you don't want to put the old clutch back in because it would be the weak link/ source of frustration/point of contention - whatever you want to call it. I ended up having to replace the clutch, and it had to be with OEM parts - so I got stuck for a $1,000+ for the slave/master throw-out, clutch, flywheel, etc. I didn't think that was right because if they agreed they were at fault with the transmission they should've been the ones buying the clutch too - whether a warranty covers it or not, but it was still better than letting the bank take it back or paying for the rebuild myself.

I agreed not to blast them on the satisfaction survey they send out after you've been in for service (GM takes those very seriously I'm told) and they offered me a year of OnStar for free.

The end.

 

Wow. That is a cluster if I have ever heard one! I see where they got ya. The clutch. I was going to post something earlier about if they did the work then would they replace the clutch with it? Even though it was probably fine I can understand WHY you would do the clutch. It's RIGHT THERE and you might as well. And probably for the better. But jeeez 1k for those parts? I am sure they found a way to jack the price on that to try and stiff you for as much as they could. In hindsight, was it REALLY worth it? It seems like it would have been easier to either 1. Find a good mechanic you trust to do the job, or 2. Do it yourself. lol. Yeah would have been a lot of work. But jeez. Now I am glad I have never bought a new car/truck in my life. Personally I don't trust mechanics. Just never have. I was never professionally trained in a school or anything about working on cars. I just watch thousands of videos, and started collecting tools over my lifetime. I studied many shop manuals and once you start down the path of wrenching it starts to become second nature.

Anyway, I am glad at LEAST you got your car back. such a bummer you had to go thru such HELL to do it though. I bet you learned a lot from this though, and I bet you are telling everyone you know about how to go about fixing these types of warranty problems whenever you can. Chevy really should step up to the plate on this one. Maybe they should really start scrutinizing the dealers they give authorized dealership licences to.

Thanks for the follow up dude.

 

Tired of all the games and milking that dealer shops do to customers -- it is so difficult to get quality service and not get surprised by the greedy service department trying to pull a fast one. In my case they could not even find a broken alternator which had one of three bolts missing to replace under extended warranty. Incompetent!

So if the clutch is not covered by warranty, then I guess you could have had that work done beforehand and handed them a copy of the receipt for parts and or labor, then just had them do the other work, right?