2010 Chevy Camaro SS: It's baaAAAck

Had my car out of service for 30 days when it was hydro-locked and needed a new engine. The dealer comped a rental (that they then charged back to the insurance). Days out of service - 30, total cost, 8 grand, my cost $200. Comprehensive insurance is a great thing!

I'd be kicking myself for buying the wrong damn car. Seriously. I'd start counting down the days till I could get rid of it.

+1 85se. There is simply no way that this is acceptable in a damn Chevy.

and a damned expensive Chevy, at that. Epic. Fail.

Ouch! Man, that's way to long for any brand new ride. But for an SS it's really bad!! Totally! I would be so sad. If I loved the car it would have broken my heart. After that I think I would be really pissed off & my faith in Chevy would go right down the toilet. Literally. If the dealership and chevy fixed me up with a solid equal or better temp replacement & if I got the SS for an exceptional price I might be okay. Okay to press on.....The engine is there but what about the other part of the SS drive train. What went wrong with the tranny? Man....talk about bad publicity. Chevy brass need to feed you guys the real poop. Without the truth, most folks will say the worst. For this, I can hear it now - the SS stands for Shifts Like Sh--. Chevy boys need to take a couple

I would have asked them to make that month's payment.

As for the splinters in the gears ...

Jesus, 22 Days?

If I actually owned the car, I'd send Chevrolet a bill for 1 Month's worth of financing from GMAC.

This may not be a luxury brand, but it's still a premium car for its brand. If the dealer did not immediately offer a loaner in at least the same ballpark, I would put my foot down. I am not sure what the warranty actually guarantees, but logistics issues are not the customer's fault. I agree that the dealership handled it reasonably well, but the fact that the word "rental" is used means they see it as a transportation device and not something more than that, which is really missing the point of a car like this.

22 days is pretty absurd. I would also be asking GMAC to comp a month's payment.

I had a 2003 Mazda6 for a short time with the V6 and the 5MT. It was a very early build. Driving home from the dealership I noticed a metallic ringing noise at a certain RPM in the lower gears. I went back a week later and they tried adjusting a shield that was contacting the shift linkage, to no avail. They had me come back a few days later when the Mazda rep was there. They decided to replace the transmission. The car was so new that none could be sourced domestically. Mazda put me in a rental, of course, and actually air freighted a transmission from Japan. It took about 5-6 business days from the day I dropped the car off to get the transmission and complete the job. Amazing.

22 days seems excessive, for a warranty repair they should have just replaced the box (assuming that a replacement is easily available).

I would be P*SSED OFF. By the way, what did they give you to drive around while they were fixing the SS? If it wasn't another SS or a c6, then I would be even more P*SSED at paying for the SS and having to drive around a cheaper car.

I looked at a Camaro last weekend as a possible successor to my 06 GTO. While I am not convinced anyway that the Camaro is significantly better, posts like this make the decision not to buy the Camaro so much easier.

Mr. Whiteacre, are you reading this? If not, someone at GM should clue him in to every long term testing blog featuring his company's products (there aren't that many).

"I would be P*SSED OFF. By the way, what did they give you to drive around while they were fixing the SS? If it wasn't another SS or a c6, then I would be even more P*SSED at paying for the SS and having to drive around a cheaper car."

Oh please, even if you drove a BMW 760Li, your loaner car would probably be a 3-Series or maybe a 5-Series or X5. Virtually no dealership on earth gives you a service loaner that is the exact same or better as your own car. That's not reasonable to expect and you almost guaranteed won't get it anywhere.

With your case, I don't think I'd be too upset. You got a loaner car, and they did what they could to fix it as soon as they could. It's nice to see the dealer coming through, your warranty is only as good as the people who stand behind it.

I've had my Civic's clutch master cylinder greased/ replaced 5 times, and the dealer is finally getting a Honda rep involved. We'll see if they come through...hopefully they're not just putting me off until my warranty runs out.

Three weeks is a fairly long time, but not outrageous.

I was furious when Service King had my RX-8 for SEVEN WEEKS when I got in a relatively minor accident.

Front fascia needed to be replaced, radiator hoses, and some attachment points for the radiator.

Initial estimate was $2200, and 10 business days out of service. They gave me a rental for a whole 2 weeks. At five weeks the ranting and raving on the phone and in person at the shop didn't really get me anywhere except some bad marks on my service reps record (I literally never received one phone call about an update regarding anything at all ever. Not even a call back when promised) . After finally threatening to contact the BBB, it was ready in 3 more business days.

Seven weeks after being towed there, and after the repair cost ballooned to nearly $8,000, I got my car back.

The primary problem as far as why it took so long and the cost spiraled out of control was that Service King mechanics are apparently totally unaware that starting a rotary up cold, moving it 10 feet, and shutting it off 15 times a day will flood the engine. And apparently the dealership they would have it towed to to have it fixed wouldn't tell them that. Or they wouldn't listen. Just like they wouldn't listen to me about it.

I should have just sued them for a car payment and my deductible back...

/rant off

Were you ever given a DEFENITIVE explanation of what caused the transmission to fail in the first place? And to comment on an earlier post WHY ARE THEY EXPOSING THE GEARS TO CONTAMINENTS BY WORKING ON BARE WOOD!?!?!?

um yeah... so what caused the problem? is there a flaw in the design and 2nd gears are failing left and right?(causing the delay getting parts)

you guys rarely seem to use your influence with manufacturers in order to get some accurate info when you have issues with cars... especially compared with the crap info they feed to buyers like the rest of us.

There's no point in having a performance car if you have to be afraid it'll break if you drive it hard. After an unexplained incident like this, I would be very reluctant to drive this car the way it's (supposedly) meant to be driven.

Probably I'd make one more trip in it--to the Ford dealer to trade it for a new 2011 5.0.

Not a good showing for Chevy. At a time when consumers are not going to give GM the benefit of the doubt, to have a story like this being read by thousand of people on the Internet should warrant attention at the VP level. If Edmunds does not get a call from someone high up the organization on this, I would say GM still does not have all it's management ducks in a row.

This highlights that buying a Halo car form Chevy is kind of dangerous. If it your expensive Chevy breaks and is out for a long time you'll probably end up driving an Aveo or a Cobalt. Yikes! If your bimmer or MB breaks the worst you'll get is a Mini, nice well built and fun, or a C-Class, still not bad. Imagine going from a leather clad C6 to a crap box like the Aveo. For 22 days, I'd wanna slash my wrists. I had a Corolla loner once for 3 weeks because my Infiniti was waiting for parts after a rear ender, after week 2 I was ready to kill my self. Driving an econo-box is so depressing. Infact I returned the Corolla and just took my car back and drove around without a rear bumper.

A three week warranty repair is unacceptable in my opinion. It probably wouldn’t have any lasting effects if I loved the car enough, but if I wasn’t completely pleased with the car then this would probably make me want to get rid of it. If I had little problems with the car that I had shrugged off before the major 3 week repair, this would probably put me over the edge.

Also, think about buying a flashy car like the Camaro SS and then suddenly started showing up to work in an Aveo loaner for 3 weeks because the thing is broken; people are going to be making comments how “sweet” your Camaro is turning out to be. That’s something that you shouldn’t let bother you but lets face it, its going to add some additional frustration that will be directed at the car once you get it back.

So yeah, I think this would have been a pretty negative experience when it didn't need to be. Any car can have issues such as this but doing the repair in a more timely matter would have gone a long way here...

I would get rid of the junkpile that is the Camaro SS......gee where are the GM shills now? Start making excuses quickly! This is the reality of the NEW GM.....it is the same as the OLD GM. So every time someone says that reliability ratings dont mean anything they need to get very real. Squeaking seats in Caddys.....trans failures in Chevys (2)....power steering failures in Buicks, interior quality problems in Saturns. Is there anything that will make the shills believe now? We should have let it die the humiliating death it deserved.

I agree that you are not going to get a top of the line rental or loaner at just about any dealership, but you have to agree that the drop from a 7 series to a 3 is a lot smaller than the drop from a Camaro SS to rental fleet special.

22 days is too long, especially if this is your only car. I would have expected a loaner.

I'm still curious to know if they knew you guys were from IL or not? Did they treat you like the average Joe coming in off the street, or did they know who you were and made sure there were no arguments about warranty repair, loaner cars, etc, etc for fear of bad publicity?

"I would have asked them to make that month's payment."

+1 definitely. Thats a hell of a long time. Did they offer an explanation? Did the parts take weeks to come in? Or was it that the service techs couldn't get around to doing the work?

"I'm still curious to know if they knew you guys were from IL or not? Did they treat you like the average Joe coming in off the street, or did they know who you were and made sure there were no arguments about warranty repair, loaner cars, etc, etc for fear of bad publicity?"

Good God! If this is getting good treatment because of being writing an auto mag then can you imagine what the average Joe would have been treated like?????? Welcome to Government Motors...we cant talk to you now, we are on our union mandated break.

Everyone calm down....take it easy. The transmission broke, the dealership didnt put up any fuss, and did their job. They couldn't get parts, happens all of the time. The car is in huge demand so it takes time for suppliers to get parts. They even offered a rental. I didnt see anyone else flip out as much when the transmission in the honda crapped itself.

If the supplier was able to get parts to gm they would have fixed it weeks ago. We are in a slow economy. Companies/suppliers are not holding on to as much inventory.

Also when it comes to cars, if no one has the parts that usually means its uncommon. Its when something breaks and the dealership/parts store has it in stock that means its usually a common part that breaks.

Things happen, cars break. Almost every car edmunds has tested has broke in some way. i think they are cursed, or their 20k miles of driving is equivalent to someone elses 200k miles. They think, hey its not my car.

"Also when it comes to cars, if no one has the parts that usually means its uncommon. Its when something breaks and the dealership/parts store has it in stock that means its usually a common part that breaks."

Nice try! How about it breaks so much they cant make enough for demand? This is GM we are talking about so they get no slack with such a poor reputation for cars and service.

Fireworks/smoky burnouts are fun, but every once in a while someone loses an eye/transmission.

I was already sold on the GT-- couldn't be any worse than the SS, could it?

Part of me says that to a degree stuff just happens. Sometimes parts are had to get and repairs take three weeks. That's life.

I know IL doesn't care if they get a loaner, as they've so many other cars to drive. Was one offered? Was one asked for and denied? If a loaner was refused, then there's reason to bitch. IL, was the topic even broached?

If this were my car, my biggest concern would be is it going to break again? Do I have to play nice with it? There's a period of uncomfortableness, which is exactly the opposite of what you paid for. That complaint, I can understand. Only time (and no more problems) solves that.

Back in 2005 GM had a bulletin about a mis-machined 1st speed gear causing a blockout when shifting into 1st gear at a stop more than 5% pf the time. The solution was to replace that gear in the transmission and it applied to every car with the T-56 transmission made at that time (GTO, Vette, CTS-V). Five years later i have seen exactly two cars develop this problem, and neither car has had a repeat concern since. There is only so much GM can do, Tremec designs and builds this transmission, and they pay GM the costs to repair them in the field. A new transmission for the Camaro is an easy 6 grand, but the repair is maybe 1500$. No way is tremec going to say OK to GM billing them for a new transmission when the current one can be repaired economically. At 22 days out of service, you could get a month payment credited, i have seen it done, but saying get rid of the entire car or demanding a whole new transmission is a bit extreme.

Bodyblue, my family has owned a lot of gm cars over the years, and we have never had a problem with reliability and service from them. We have owned cars from quite a bit of companies (mercedes, lexus, bmw, ford, vw). Out of all of them VW was the worst and actually gm was the best. I understand that if you had an unreliable car from them, that you dont like them, but why do you give other companies slack, but not gm. Why is gm held to a different standard to you. If anything you should hold all companies to the same high of a standard.

None of them are your friends. They are there to make money and will stab you in the back as fast as the other one. Most companies are subsidized by the government these days. From food, to oil, to trains, to cars, to microwaves, to ovens. Do i think its right, no, but you seem to be so harsh on one company and i dont get it.

In the early 90s samsung used to make very crappy tv's. Now they make one of the best tv's. if you owned a crappy samsung tv from the 90s is that going to keep you from buying one today. My guess is you wont have a problem buying a new LED LCD tv from Samsung.

In my eyes gm doesnt have a poor reputation or service as all of our gm cars weve owned (a lot of them) have been safe, reliable, and dont give us any trouble. The Jetta we had was a pile of crap, but that wouldnt stop me from checking out the new CC.

22 days is madness. I would be asking for GM to cover that months payment at this point.

I would also start looking at other places other than a dealer to buy a replacement tranny.

I'm willing to chalk this failure off as an infant mortality; I'd be more concerned with the quality of the repair work...

Ridiculous. 22 days. Not much changed at GM.

"but why do you give other companies slack, but not gm. Why is gm held to a different standard to you. If anything you should hold all companies to the same high of a standard.

None of them are your friends. They are there to make money and will stab you in the back as fast as the other one. Most companies are subsidized by the government these days. From food, to oil, to trains, to cars, to microwaves, to ovens. Do i think its right, no, but you seem to be so harsh on one company and i dont get it. "

I give nobody but MOPAR slack (and very little at that) My family owned many GM cars the past 40 years and (mainly Corvettes) and very few were any good. You are correct that no company is your friend. GM is and was the worst of the worst of car companies...arrogent, short sighted and was not allowed to go under when it needed too. What they did to their bond and stock holders borders on criminal and was definetly immoral. They deserve nothing but total scrutiny.

Things break, I'm assuming they gave you a loaner...or at least they should have. I would EXPECT that in this case.

What they did to their bond and stock holders was forced by the government as well. Plus its also the fault of bond and stockholders. I owned stock in gm at one time. i sold it because i knew they were probably going to declare bankruptcy.

Dont get on your high horse about being immoral.
Every company and person in this world would do the same thing.

GM is not any worse than any other company. We are opposite on gm and that is fine. My family has purchased gm since the 30s and we have had great luck with all of them.

My guess is you are in the stock market. So say you have stock in company X. From your findings you determine the stock of a company is going to drop considerably, so you want to sell it. Do you think its immoral to sell your stock to somebody else knowing the stock is going to drop like a rock. Shouldn't that person know the same information as you.

I dont believe they need to know that information. if they are not smart enough to find it on their own, or they believe the stock is going to go up then they take the risk. Same as someone taking a risk on GM. The stock market is not a guaranteed market. No one owes anybody anything if a company crashes.

Its the peoples fault they didnt sell their stocks and bonds, its also people's fault if they purchased a house they cant afford, or a car they cant afford.

bodyblue: "My family owned many GM cars the past 40 years and (mainly Corvettes) and very few were any good. "

That doesn't speak well to the intelligence of your family. :)

"Its the peoples fault they didnt sell their stocks and bonds, its also people's fault if they purchased a house they cant afford, or a car they cant afford. "

I did not own stock in GM nor did I hold its bonds. Do I need to explain the difference between a stock and a bond to you? I really dont have the time. I sold all of my auto stocks long ago because I saw where things were going.

"Dont get on your high horse about being immoral.
Every company and person in this world would do the same thing.

GM is not any worse than any other company. We are opposite on gm and that is fine. My family has purchased gm since the 30s and we have had great luck with all of them. "

BS not every person in the world would do it and even if it did that does still not make it right.

GM is worse than many other companies from suing the US government over damage done to Opel factories during bombing in Nazi Germany during WWll to snooping on weirdos like Ralph Nader for trying to expose the cover up on the unsafe Corvair to the terrible X-cars of the early 80's...there is plenty of things to talk about with them. Now they take taxpayer money and are closing US plants and opening new one in Canada and China. So stop being a whore and an shill for a giant company that cares nothing for you. :)

"bodyblue: "My family owned many GM cars the past 40 years and (mainly Corvettes) and very few were any good. "

That doesn't speak well to the intelligence of your family. :)"

That is what my dad told my uncle as be went through vette after vette and watching them fall apart in his driveway. You are an idiot to keep buying things that treat you like crap. But back then there was not nearly the choice of cars to buy....this was the 60's and 70's and car makers just rammed crap down your throat and Americans just kept on thinking there was nothing better.

Reverse went out in my VW Jetta @ 95K miles (back when they had 100K/7yr standard) -- they dropped a new A/T in it, and I had it back pretty quickly ... 22 days is INSANE!!!

22 days is too long w/out a fleet of other (free) vehicles to fall back on.

now, get back to driving it hard and breaking things again.

bodyblue, quick question.

What do you think about your great chrysler then? They have taken 2 bailouts, they have closed tons of plants, fired lots of people, moved production away from the US, and is now owned by the italians.

What about the german and the japanese automakers. They are subsidized by their own governments, taking their peoples money away, they have closed lots of plants, and also moved production from japan, germany to china, mexico, and the U.S. This is a global economy these days so even though it happens in a different country it still affects us.

Also 99.99% of the population in this world would screw each other the first chance they can. This is nature of the human being.

Not a good wrap Gm!!!

Whenever the A4 is in for service, oil changes, or a detail, I always get a shiny new A4 with a few thousand miles on it.

exnevadan: "now, get back to driving it hard and breaking things again."

No worries there. A nice thing about not actually owning a car is the willingness to beat on it right after you get it back from the shop.

"What do you think about your great chrysler then? They have taken 2 bailouts, they have closed tons of plants, fired lots of people, moved production away from the US, and is now owned by the italians.

What about the german and the japanese automakers. They are subsidized by their own governments, taking their peoples money away, they have closed lots of plants, and also moved production from japan, germany to china, mexico, and the U.S. This is a global economy these days so even though it happens in a different country it still affects us. "

It is not my great chrysler, my friend....I am not anybodys fanboy. When it was bought by the Germans they were raped, period. Take a look at these articles then get back to me on that

http://www.allpar.com/i/search-results.html?cx=partner-pub-7826641504095217%3Atqi1v7-o3ef&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=daimler+takeover&sa=Search&siteurl=www.allpar.com%2Fcars%2Fstories%2Findex.php&siteurl=www.allpar.com%2Fcars%2Fstories%2Findex.php#1162

Then when purchased by Cerberus they were starved of capital and left out to dry. So I have some sympathy for what they went through. NOBODY should ever get a government bail out...EVER. It ruins the vital nature of our economy and encourages industries and behaviors that hurt our country. The death of one company means the chance for another to begin...it is the circle of capitalism, Simba.

Your other question is nonsense.

Now back to the Chevy.....I wonder where 1487 is???? It is no fun to beat on the Camaro without him to say how unfair it all is!

I agree that no company should get a bailout. If you believe this is true, then chrysler should have died in the 80s. Also almost all large corporations get bailouts. It might not be as public as gm's, but the government is constantly bailing out or helping large corporations.

We do not have a capitalism. Our industry is far from being a capitalism.

When the government gives large companies big tax credits, or paying people off not to produce an item, or setting duty taxes at different rates, then its not capitalism.

I work for a company that imports a lot of products from china, germany, uk, and taiwan (im not happy that we do, but its life). When the government says that product x you want to bring in has a duty tax of 1.5% but product y has a duty tax of 110% then you dont have capitalism. The duty tax of 110% is there to protect a large corporation and keep competitors from beating them. The government is helping and protecting companies all of the time. Why do you think we have so many lobbyists.

You say no one should get a government bailout, but all of them do. You just dont see it in front of your face. So you are mad that gm got a bailout, but it isnt any different. When the company i work for cant sell a part in the US because the duty tax to bring it in is 110% then its not capitalism. That 110% duty tax is there to protect a large company guess what that is a bailout.

Next you are going to tell me our government is a democracy hahahahahahahaha.

By the way im done with this.. Both Bodyblue and I had a great coversation. It never went personal, we never called each other names. We acted like adults. A very uncommon thing on the internet. Lets get back to talking about cars.

I love my camaro SS lol.

"1.5% but product y has a duty tax of 110% then you dont have capitalism. "

Oh yes we do have 'a capitalism', where a company is basically free to offer a product that others in the system are free to buy. What people are NOT free to do is to undercut the economy that exists in the market in which they sell their products, for this represents a threat to said economy, the people in it, and the government. You are by the way totally high off your lolbertarian goofballs if you think socialist, capitalist, communist, and totalitarianist entities around the planet don't use the same tactics to prevent the same economic undercutting from happening to them.

A large company producing large amount of product here provides for large amounts of positive economic activity in this country and we have every right to protect and defend that from others that would come in and undercut it. Thats not a 'bailout' genius, thats called 'Doing out damned jobs."

"WHY ARE THEY EXPOSING THE GEARS TO CONTAMINENTS BY WORKING ON BARE WOOD!?!?!?"

To answer this question: because its not going to matter. Wood is less dense than the metal of the gears, so even if a chunk went into the transmission, it would cruch before the gear was damaged. Second the transmission is placed upright during assembly, so anything on the gears can fall free and be removed prior to the case being slid on. Additionally, it is not uncommon for a manual transmission repair procedure to call for using a peice of wood to aid in assembly or disassembly. Finally the wood is probably cleaner than the workbench under it.

"Now back to the Chevy.....I wonder where 1487 is????"

Well ochalon tried to replace him, but to no avail, quite a failure. LOL !!!!
Just kidding.

Anyway, another GM tranny failure, with this one you got 22 days out of service and you didn`t get a new one, just a repaired one.

Would that make me happy in a brand new car with less than a year and with so few miles?

I don`t think so.

My Car wouldn't be out for 22 days... Cuz I would would be driving a Dodge Challenger instead of that dumb Camaro. Atleast your long-term Challenger hasn't had any days out of service.

cr_driver, i could never reach the status of 1487...lol.

"And while we can't be thrilled we lost our car for three weeks, the process was as un-infuriating as is really possible. But it begs the question: if your car was out of service for three weeks, what would you do?"

The real question should be: if you spent $40,000 on a brand new sports car and it was your only car, and the transmission crapped out on you in less than a year, and the dealer took more than THREE WEEKS to fix your transmission without an explanation of why it broke down in the first place, while offering you a Cavalier as a rental car, what would YOU do?

"all the people here who own Fords please step out of the room" F&^@# Chevy with this F&^*% transmission leaving me stranded driving a F*(^73 Aveo!! i mean look at this crap!!! I waited, bought my Camaro over invoice god&%^ and look at this!!............I should have bought a Mustang....But this looks like F^@#ing Bumblebee from Transformers!! F$%îng Chevy, no wonder your bankrupt! I cant believe my tax dollars are subsidicing this bullSh@#!!

You get the idea, for 22 days...Just look at Hitler when he granaded his GTR's Transmission and ull get the point.

Even 1487 cant begin to defend the Camaro and its time out of service.....this Camaro is like the new 1982 model.....sold like crazy with the new styling and then crapped out when the quality problems surfaced. I remember the C/D long term article wrap up entitled "A 25,000 Mile Tale of Woe" Garbage is as garbage does. GM has just not changed enough to survive on its own.

honestly, seeing this makes me a little happy. growing up just outside of lansing, mi- all you hear is how great gm is, was, will be. im one of the few who go against the grain and say no, not really. they have opened up so many doors of opportunity for themselves only to hold themselves back again either by poor quality ( which normally in my opinion its not just the quality of materials but poor quality of design, perfect example look at the dash of your traverse and look at the gaps between the passenger side and the driver side where the two silver trim peices come together over the radio ). honestly i think it was one of the worst decisions to take pontiac out of the picture, but apparently it was more important to push this pos on the american public. gm still has alot to prove to this consumer.