I know this thread has been discussed, but wanted to make a point about my personal experience with the dreaded lifter failure. In 2014, at 89k miles, I had lifters starting to fail. I split the cost with GM to replace all the lifters, and this was done at the dealer I bought the car from. Fast forward to this week, 22k miles later, and the lifters are failing again. GM has refused to help in any way shape or form. What a slap in the face to the customer. A customer who helped bail them out of financial ruins nonetheless. We all did. I can't comprehend how a company can acknowledge a design flaw such as the DOD system on this engine, yet not stand behind the product and own up to it. Unfortunately for GM, I'll be venturing to other manufactures when considering the purchase of a new vehicle in the future.
With that said, I now will be utilizing one of the many performance shops who participate on this forum to rid my vehicle of this nasty set-up and give me some more HP. Excited for that. Although, I wasn't quite ready for it bank account wise, but either way I going to lose several thousand $, so might as well make the most of it right?
those lifters have been failing since 1997 on the yukons and now on the vettes with the LT engine albeit different design still flawed though ..Gm knows they are hit or miss but what can they do when they so adamantly claimed this is the next level with the gov pushing them for epa regs , in theory it works on paper...in the real world not so much...
Have them check your #2 cam bearing when they are tossing that system were it belongs in the trash ..I made a post about excessive wear on it from the dod/afm cam design ...funny how holdens dont seem to share any of the oil consumption or oil pressure issues or cam bearing wear in common with the g8 on the commodore ve without AFM and GM still says its not because of their afm system...
Thanks for the advice. I'm truly surprised there hasn't been a class action lawsuit against GM for this issue. Kind of like the oil burning issue lawsuit that Subaru went through. The gov't push for epa regs exists across the board, not just for GM, so GM shouldn't be having problems that others aren't due to epa regs. They simply are sacrificing quality and durability for their own personal gain, and ruining the brand in the process. The fact is, the money is being spent on new technology and eventually, probably within the next 20 years, combustion engines will be less and less. Electric vehicles will be the future and probably means less maintenance and more profits for car manufactures.
Man that really blows. Sorry to hear. How do you know the lifters are failing? I'm about to hit 100k miles and the car has never had the lifters replaced. No oil consumption or oil pressure issues either. It does have an occasional tick but has been doing it since I bought the car. Really does seem like it is hit or miss.
The tick is there for a lot of people. I had the tick since I bought it new. When the lifters start failing the car will run like crap and you can hear more of a knock or rattle coming from within the engine. You'll feel it and hear it at idle (especially if you rev it slowly at idle) and it'll feel like a random miss when you accelerate when driving. It's really pretty obvious. Then I had it diagnosed by my mechanic, and then officially by the dealer where I bought the car from and did the first repair. It does appear to be hit or miss, but for GM to leave that on the customer is a joke.
If yours ever do go out, I would recommend not even getting them replaced through GM. You'll fight with them and they will tell you they are able to do a 1 time repair out of warranty and might help you out with getting the lifters replaced (They won't replace them for free), but the same garbage DOD system will remain that caused the problem in the first place. There's a good chance that if it happens once, it'll do it again unless you do something to actually fix the problem. I split the cost on the first repair with GM and it was still expensive, and it got me nothing. Might as well just started a fire with my money. There's only a 1 year warranty on the repair, and they don't even fix the root cause. Your money would be much better spent by taking it somewhere to, at the very least, have a DOD delete kit installed. It was recommended to me with my mileage, which is 111k, that I also replace the oil pump and rocker arms. Just because of the mileage and the wear and tear that's on them because of this issue.
Sorry, I didn't mean that in the context that you are actually a sucker. I meant that in the context of them trying to tell you that things aren't the same once you take them apart must mean they think that their customers are clueless. With that said, the main reason I share my project is more about how simple a job it is, that's all. There is nothing complex or intricate to worry about them "not being the same once it's taken apart."
When I mention my setup using GM stuff, I am pointing out that it's affordably done with all GM gaskets and hardware. Everything in my parts list is what you're going to be using no matter the camshaft or rockers you install. The point is that this stuff is affordable over the counter, so it wouldn't cost GM a ton to do it correctly. Nonetheless, they obviously feel there isn't a business case to do so.
I take it you won't be doing the work yourself. My setup is for the DIY'er who wants to immediately improve the engine without spending inordinate amounts of money. If you're paying someone to do it then it'd be a waste to use the LS3 cam, IMO, because of the ridiculous labor rate for this job. I know there are many that find utility in paying someone to do, so that's also not a slight (I'm just an offensive jerk today, lol).
Thanks for the clearing that up lol. I do agree with your point that it is affordable for GM to fix this. Part of why I came on the board to discuss this. It's really giving me a reason never to buy GM again. Would I have any better luck with other manufactures? Probably not. We are the last person they have in mind to please.
I am not doing the work myself. Don't exactly have the know how or tools to do the job. Or time. I know workings enough to know, but building an engine from scratch is way over my head. I can do the general maintenance just fine, and can usually diagnosis most things, but you won't find me pulling the engine part. I am taking the word of the performance shop on their recommendations of what to do internally when they open it up.
"When I mention my setup using GM stuff, I am pointing out that it's affordably done with all GM gaskets and hardware. Everything in my parts list is what you're going to be using no matter the camshaft or rockers you install. The point is that this stuff is affordable over the counter, so it wouldn't cost GM a ton to do it correctly. Nonetheless, they obviously feel there isn't a business case to do so."
Ds nailed it they think we are dumb enough to not know engines and how real life works ...
yet we bailed them out they should rightfully be ass kissing for all the money we put in to keep them afloat but instead they'd rather say too bad little fella we got what we needed so FU now
Agreed. They have no concern for the hand that truly feeds them. They'd rather try to be hush hush about it and cover it up, rather than say whoops, sorry...we'll fix it. Pathetic.
For me at least GM has had the best customer service I have seen out of anyone so I will never go to another company.
I am surprised the replacement ones were not warrantied unless they found a bunch of aftermarket stuff on your engine and denied it because of that.
People that complain about car companies not paying a couple extra cents for a part don't understand how the business works. It may look arbitrary to you but if you take 2 cents off on one lifter. And multiple lifters lifter goes into one engines. And those engines go into many different cars, over many different years... You just saved billions of dollars shaving off two cents. Personally I would rather pay more sticker price for a higher quality car, but sadly in order to compete in the car selling market they have to do these kinds of practices.
Buy a Bogati. They don't need to worry about shaving cents off of their parts so you will get a better quality car
I'm curious what the lifter failure was the first time. Was it a DOD lifter? I've seen just as many LS7-style lifter fail stories as DOD's so I wonder if people just assume the DOD lifter has a problem when they really don't, not saying that you didn't, but I don't think they are fundamentally flawed. I ran mine for nearly 100k miles with most of that supercharged with no issues and finally had an LS7 one fail. I then replaced the DOD stuff with all LS7 so I could go to a higher lift cam. The DOD's that came out looked perfect and the car was a mid-10 second 1/4 mile machine at the time.
I can't really answer that question because I didn't see them for myself, and all I knew was that the lifters were failing under the assumption that it was due to the DOD. After the 1st issue, I had all lifters replaced. I'd have a hard time believing I've had 2 non DOD lifters fail. The only explanation that it could be is the DOD.
DOD delete and a cam. Typically under $4000 and combined with a good tune will really wake up the car.
When my lifters started to fail, literally NOBODY believed me. Loud ticking came and went, but no misfires, no codes, nothing. Dealer offered to tear down the car and then if they found nothing, bill me for the cost of taking it apart and putting it back together again, about $3500.
I found a shop that would do DOD delete for the cost of the dealer's roll-the-dice approach, so I did DOD delete with LS9 cam because *someday* I might put on a blower. In hindsight LS3 cam would have been a better idea since if I'm putting on a blower and really wanted a better blower cam, that would be a better time to add that.
And I was right... 2 DOD lifters were getting chewed up. Going on what I heard/felt and my instincts may have saved the entire motor, as the cam hadn't started coming apart yet so minimal metal chips ended up in the oil. If I'd believed the several experts I took the car to while trying to decide what to do about it, I'm certain that the motor would have suffered a lot worse damage.
DOD delete and a cam. Typically under $4000 and combined with a good tune will really wake up the car.
When my lifters started to fail, literally NOBODY believed me. Loud ticking came and went, but no misfires, no codes, nothing. Dealer offered to tear down the car and then if they found nothing, bill me for the cost of taking it apart and putting it back together again, about $3500.
There's revised DOD lifters that don't suffer the same issues as the 1st gen, for them to fail after 22k, I'd say the dealer didn't put something back together right or the cam surface was chewed up enough that it should have been replaced also (you didn't mention if the cam was replaced).
As for the rockers, keep the originals, do the trunion upgrade which replaces the needle bearings and you'll be good to go, even if you replace them, I'd still do the upgrade on the new ones.
Agreed. When I built my engine I barely spent more than that.
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