Few QC issues?
This is not meant to rain on anyone's parade, but I am just getting around to completing the post I had not previously.
When my wife went to pick up her 1LT 1.4 turbo manual Sonic at the dealer a week ago this past Wednesday, she suffered a engine problem returning home. The dealer is some 80 miles away, and its necessary to drive over some significant grades on I-70, just west of Frederick, Md. In doing so, she heard a bang, then a loss of engine power and a check engine light icon lit up. She did limp home the remaining ten-fifteen miles. Needless to say, she was not pleased to already have a situation like this develop immediately after picking up the car.
So, she went to work the next day in a different car, and I had a chance to look it over. I thought that maybe something had gone awry with the turbo plumbing, and yes, the first place I looked was the rubber plenum hose on top of the turbo unit itself, it pulled off the housing easily. In tightening it back on, I thought that might solve it, but no, the engine still ran badly. So, I had to look again, and this time, I saw the lower connecting rubber hose and pipe had in fact blown off the lower housing of the turbo itself, no big surprise then that it still ran so badly. Its a bit of a fuss to replace this and tighten, but its possible without removing anything else from the engine compartment. Then, I isolated the electrical system to remove fault codes, and tested the car. At that point, it was running smoothly and correctly again.
Oddly, you will use a 8 mm socket/wrench to tighten the upper clamp, and a 7 mm socket/wrench to tighten the lower clamp. In thinking back, she claims she did hear a small air leak sound driving back home, but was not really familiar with the car yet to know what it might be.
I told some people at work about all this, and their immediate reaction is that they would have returned the car and asked for their money back. To me, that is too severe, but yet, it is the sentiment of the people who responded. I guess they still have strong reservations concerning the quality of a American produced car.
May I suggest all you turbo owners go out and check the tightness of your your turbo clamps?
We intend to contact GM to point this out, the responsibility has to rest with the manufacturer, not the lame dealer, as who would count of them to check these things in their so-called PDI?
Jay
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