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GM Refusing to Honor Warrenty

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Bought a brand new Camaro SS. A common problem that many owners are having, self included, is an issue with a bad vibration in the power-train under certain conditions (while in overdrive). Brought can into multiple dealerships to have it looked at and every time they denied making any fixes because no technical service bulletins existed for this issue for this car despite General Motors knowing about this issue and having corrections for some of their other vehicles. 6 months later GM sends a notice to all dealers saying that anyone with a 2016+ Camaro having the vibration issue to not fix it and to tell customer that it's normal. From reading articles online, the root cause here is that GM has not developed a true fix for this vehicle because some dealers accidentally replaced components in the power train which still fail afterwards. I've owned my car for 2 years and still no correction for this issue. Vibration got so bad I ended up selling that car which hurt financially because of the depreciation. Is there any case that can be made against GM for failing to correct something that should clearly be covered under the power train warranty? Maybe a class action lawsuit? Many customers are complaining online but nobody has stepped up to do a class action, not sure if it's a lack of effort or because we wouldn't have any legal grounds. I'd be more than happy to initiate something if it would not cost me anything out of pocket, but not sure how class action law suites work.
 


justalayman

Senior Member
It appears there are several similar issues. At least one of them is being repaired by GM. After reading a few gm or Camaro forums, it would appear your claim that Chevy has told the dealers to not repair vibration issues to not be true.
 
It appears there are several similar issues. At least one of them is being repaired by GM. After reading a few gm or Camaro forums, it would appear your claim that Chevy has told the dealers to not repair vibration issues to not be true.
That statement is false. Dealerships are trying to do the right thing and make repairs but when they submit the hours to GM for payment GM is telling dealers to not do the fix for this particular car. Some dealers are seeing technical service bulletins for this same issue on other cars and assuming that it's the same fix and doing the fix (which by the way doesn't solve the problem, people have the vibration come back a few thousand miles later) and GM was getting fed up with it because the solution doesn't work on this specific car so they issued a letter to all dealers to do nothing for this car and to tell dealers to lie to the customer and say it's normal. First off, how is it normal when you are fixing the problem on other cars. The ultimate issue we have here is that fine, I get it, you don't want dealers to do a fix that won't work beause that's a waste of money, but it's not okay to not solve the problem in 2 years. You either need to honor the warranty and fix it or buy back the car if you can't fix it.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
That statement is false. Dealerships are trying to do the right thing and make repairs but when they submit the hours to GM for payment GM is telling dealers to not do the fix for this particular car. Some dealers are seeing technical service bulletins for this same issue on other cars and assuming that it's the same fix and doing the fix (which by the way doesn't solve the problem, people have the vibration come back a few thousand miles later) and GM was getting fed up with it because the solution doesn't work on this specific car so they issued a letter to all dealers to do nothing for this car and to tell dealers to lie to the customer and say it's normal. First off, how is it normal when you are fixing the problem on other cars. The ultimate issue we have here is that fine, I get it, you don't want dealers to do a fix that won't work beause that's a waste of money, but it's not okay to not solve the problem in 2 years. You either need to honor the warranty and fix it or buy back the car if you can't fix it.
Did you attempt to have have GM buy the vehicle back under the VA Lemon Law? ( https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/lemonlaw.html )
If not, then you can't complain that they didn't buy it back.
How much of a loss do you think you incurred due to this problem?
How do you intend to prove that your vehicle actually had a problem at the time you sold it?
 
I called GM headquarters 3 times and they refused to buy the car back under the lemon law. I also had 4 other issues in the first 5,000 miles that they did fix. I lost $10-15k in depreciation (it's not fiscally responsible to buy a new car and sell it in 2 years), had the car not had issues I would have kept it for 10 years and the depreciation per year would have been divided up to a smaller amount and I would not have had to buy a new car. It's pretty easy to prove the car had the problem, I went to 4 different dealers and they all documented the problem and in the paperwork they gave me it clearly states, no fix available per GM.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
In other words, you didn't follow the proper steps for a buy-back under the VA Lemon Law.

As to the "depreciation" for selling it in 2 years...no, you can't sue for that.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
That statement is false. Dealerships are trying to do the right thing and make repairs but when they submit the hours to GM for payment GM is telling dealers to not do the fix for this particular car. Some dealers are seeing technical service bulletins for this same issue on other cars and assuming that it's the same fix and doing the fix (which by the way doesn't solve the problem, people have the vibration come back a few thousand miles later) and GM was getting fed up with it because the solution doesn't work on this specific car so they issued a letter to all dealers to do nothing for this car and to tell dealers to lie to the customer and say it's normal. First off, how is it normal when you are fixing the problem on other cars. The ultimate issue we have here is that fine, I get it, you don't want dealers to do a fix that won't work beause that's a waste of money, but it's not okay to not solve the problem in 2 years. You either need to honor the warranty and fix it or buy back the car if you can't fix it.
Well, since I read thirty or so situations where gm has made attempts to repair the vibration issues and has solved many of them, you can say it’s fslse all you wish but the happy consumers say otherwise.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
All cars depreciate. The issue had nothing to do with normal depreciation.

What you might be due is anynadditional loss between the depreciation and whatever discounted price you had to sell the car at due to the vibration. Did you sell the car below market value due to the vibration?
 

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