Many of you are aware of the issues I've been having with my Coupe since the day I picked it up from a fellow forum member down in SoCal back in November of 2010. For those that don't, here's a detailed rundown of the ordeal to date.
There was a significant hesitation @ WOT that I noticed the minute I pulled onto the freeway to merge into traffic. Having recently sold an '07 GXP, I knew this wasn't normal behavior. Having an extra ECU on hand, I swapped it in to see if it made a difference - nope. Babying it the rest of the 1200 mile ride back home to Oregon, I spent some time in my garage going over all of the wiring/sensors, checking plugs, etc to see if it was something loose/missing/broken. The GMPP tune was installed, and the wires were crimped, so I felt confident that was the issue. Wasn't interested in keeping it, so I spent some time finding the stock 2.7bar sensors, flashed the ECU back to stock, and eventually soldered them on. Nada, still hesitating. Never a code thrown this whole time, either, making it more difficult to isolate. Finally took the car into the dealership in January, and told them what was happening and what I'd done to try and diagnose/fix. The tech hooked a Tech-II up on the road test and it was obvious what was going on - misfire in cylinder two. Left the keys with them confident the issue would be fixed. A week passes, and after going through all of the documented procedures to diagnose, still no resolution. Techline advised them to open a TAC case so that they could get involved and try to diagnose. Months later, no resolution. They pulled the head, saw some scoring on the rockers, replaced them along with the cams, valve springs, and the head itself. Along with virtually every sensor on the entire engine. And injectors. Everything but the bottom end basically. To no avail. After all of this, everybody was left scratching their heads. I decided to get customer service involved because it was becoming obvious to me that no well-defined path to resolution existed. Kudos to GM, I got a call the next morning from the district manager who laid out my options - continue to try fixing, or possibly buy the car back. Techline had one last-ditch effort in mind, so I gave them a shot. They ran redundant wiring to every sensor to try and isolate what they believed was an electrical issue. A few weeks later, the bad news came: couldn't isolate, and several sensors/connectors they needed to replace could not be sourced and no ETA on when they'd be available.
Which is where I find myself today. I just got off the phone with the district manager, and the path to resolution has been confirmed: they are buying #802 back from me
I asked earlier in the week about the possibility of getting me into another local GXP 5MT Coupe sitting on a dealer lot with 30 miles. The DM thought it was a great idea, but corporate balked, since it's been titled already and their policy prevents them from pursuing that option in this situation. Which I can completely understand, knowing it was a short in the dark to begin with.
So friends, the dream that quickly turned into a nightmare is finally coming to an end. I've had a great time around these parts over the years and am going to miss you all. It seems the Kappa platform and me just don't mix, so it's time to move on - I won't be getting another one. I'll have a part-out thread posted shortly - it will be epic. I've picked up a lot of odds and ends over time!!
Take care, happy trails, and remember to keep the shiny side up :thumbs:
Edit: for completeness and future reference, here's the original thread I started about the problems I had - http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f59/possible-engine-issue-66587/
There was a significant hesitation @ WOT that I noticed the minute I pulled onto the freeway to merge into traffic. Having recently sold an '07 GXP, I knew this wasn't normal behavior. Having an extra ECU on hand, I swapped it in to see if it made a difference - nope. Babying it the rest of the 1200 mile ride back home to Oregon, I spent some time in my garage going over all of the wiring/sensors, checking plugs, etc to see if it was something loose/missing/broken. The GMPP tune was installed, and the wires were crimped, so I felt confident that was the issue. Wasn't interested in keeping it, so I spent some time finding the stock 2.7bar sensors, flashed the ECU back to stock, and eventually soldered them on. Nada, still hesitating. Never a code thrown this whole time, either, making it more difficult to isolate. Finally took the car into the dealership in January, and told them what was happening and what I'd done to try and diagnose/fix. The tech hooked a Tech-II up on the road test and it was obvious what was going on - misfire in cylinder two. Left the keys with them confident the issue would be fixed. A week passes, and after going through all of the documented procedures to diagnose, still no resolution. Techline advised them to open a TAC case so that they could get involved and try to diagnose. Months later, no resolution. They pulled the head, saw some scoring on the rockers, replaced them along with the cams, valve springs, and the head itself. Along with virtually every sensor on the entire engine. And injectors. Everything but the bottom end basically. To no avail. After all of this, everybody was left scratching their heads. I decided to get customer service involved because it was becoming obvious to me that no well-defined path to resolution existed. Kudos to GM, I got a call the next morning from the district manager who laid out my options - continue to try fixing, or possibly buy the car back. Techline had one last-ditch effort in mind, so I gave them a shot. They ran redundant wiring to every sensor to try and isolate what they believed was an electrical issue. A few weeks later, the bad news came: couldn't isolate, and several sensors/connectors they needed to replace could not be sourced and no ETA on when they'd be available.
Which is where I find myself today. I just got off the phone with the district manager, and the path to resolution has been confirmed: they are buying #802 back from me
I asked earlier in the week about the possibility of getting me into another local GXP 5MT Coupe sitting on a dealer lot with 30 miles. The DM thought it was a great idea, but corporate balked, since it's been titled already and their policy prevents them from pursuing that option in this situation. Which I can completely understand, knowing it was a short in the dark to begin with.
So friends, the dream that quickly turned into a nightmare is finally coming to an end. I've had a great time around these parts over the years and am going to miss you all. It seems the Kappa platform and me just don't mix, so it's time to move on - I won't be getting another one. I'll have a part-out thread posted shortly - it will be epic. I've picked up a lot of odds and ends over time!!
Take care, happy trails, and remember to keep the shiny side up :thumbs:
Edit: for completeness and future reference, here's the original thread I started about the problems I had - http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/f59/possible-engine-issue-66587/