Sonic LT 1.8 Auto - Stalling

[Poopsicle]

In the interest of public service, here's my story so far (an abbreviated version reads like this: the car stalls intermittently and Chevy service ain't great):

Mon Aug 13 - 5:30pm
My wife is driving on the freeway when all the dash lights come on, door locks cycle, and the RPM's drop to idle. She pulls off the freeway at an exit ramp, shuts off the engine, and calls the dealership. They instruct her to bring it to the dealer by trying to restart the car, which it does. She drives ~100 yards when it stalls completely and cannot be restarted. No turning over, no clicking, nothing. She uses On-Star to arrange a tow-truck. I arrive on the scene before the tow-truck, it restarts fine, I move it off the street and wait for the tow-truck for a ride to the dealer.

The Chevy service consultant says they will look it over immediately and call me with an update before they close that evening at 9pm. I take the free rental car home.

Mon Aug 13 - 9:00pm
No phone call.

Tues Aug 14 - 4:00pm
Since I still haven't received an update on the car as promised, I attempted to contact the dealer. After speaking with the same receptionist three separate times (she forwarded my call to a dead end voicemail system twice without even giving me a chance to explain why I was calling), I finally had to shout over her ramrod talking to get her attention. At long last, I spoke with a live human service consultant who fielded my inquiry and promised the proper person would be contacting me shortly.

"My" service consultant calls back 5 minutes later and says the car is ready to pick up. They couldn't replicate the stalling problem, but there unspecified communication codes stored in memory and there was a service bulletin out regarding connections to the Body Control Module. They checked all pin connections to this module and applied dielectric grease.

I returned the rental car and drove the Sonic home (~9 miles) without incident.

Weds Aug 15 - 11:45am
My wife is stopped at a light after driving a~2 miles in city traffic, and the dash lights again illuminate and the car stalls totally. She is able to restart it immediately, moves the car off the street, and calls the dealership. They again ask her to attempt restarting it and bring it to the dealership. It will not restart. No turning over, no clicking, nothing. She uses On-Star to arrange a tow-truck. I arrive on the scene before the tow-truck, it restarts fine, I move it ~20ft to make room for the tow-truck and we're headed for the Chevy dealer for the second time in less than 36hrs.

"My" service consultant says they will "for sure" call me with an update before they close that evening at 9pm. I again go through the hassle of "renting" the dealership Cruze (same one as yesterday) and go home. I get a call at 8:54pm and he says they will be replacing the Body Control Module. They still haven't been able to replicate the problem, but all signs point to a fault with the BCM. They say the part will be overnighted and installed tomorrow.

Thu Aug 16 - 12:30pm
I receive a voicemail from the service consultant who says the BCM didn't arrive overnight, and it won't arrive until Friday, or possibly Saturday. "I will for sure call you with an update on Saturday. But don't even worry about the rental, go ahead and drive it as much as you'd like." Gee, thanks.

Sat Aug 18
No phone call.

Mon Aug 20
I call the service consultant (I now have a direct number so I can bypass the blowhard receptionist) who says, yes, the BCM arrived and was install Saturday. They still haven't replicated the problem, but they are going to hold the vehicle and put some miles on it until they feel confident it is fixed. I ask what communication codes--specifically--were recorded and why does this lead them to believe the new BCM will solve the problem. "Oh, I'm not sure, I haven't had a chance to talk with the mechanic yet." So, as a service consultant, you don't do the work, you don't know why the work is being done, you don't talk with the person doing the work, and you don't call the customer with the updates you've promised them? That makes me feel great about my decision to buy a Chevy.

That brings us up to now…I'll keep you posted on any developments.

:sadbanana:

 

[ThatTmoGuy]

that sucks man! i hope they step up their game and make it right!

 

[mitdr774]

As a former GM mechanic, some issues are not always easy to duplicate. There have been times where I spent several days trying to duplicate a cold start issue with no result. the customer arrived and it suddenly wouldnt start. The service advisor does not always know what is going on with a car. They only know as much as the mechanic tells them or they are able to look up in the computer system. Sometimes DTCs will lead you absolutely no where and other times they will have a diagnostic chart as simple as "replace ______ and check for codes". Other times you end up having a shotgun specialist working on your car.

 

[Poopsicle]

Good news?

I received an update from the service consultant today, and he was thrilled. The dealer was able to replicate the problem on one of their test drives. I'm not sure what it proves (other than my wife isn't part of some giant conspiracy targeted at wasting our own time), but it's something.

I do have mixed feelings that it happened to them instead of us...since we would have achieved 3 out of the required 4 service visits (75%) to qualify for the lemon law in our state. Instead we are now, perhaps, chasing the provision which requires 30 days of cumulative out-of-service time (7 of 30 days = only 23%).

We love the car, but don't have any faith in it until they nail down the problem. The dealer will keep the car for the time being and continue to poke and prod it.

 

[Eric Smit]

HOLY ****. Chevy was able to replicate the problem a forum member was having with their car?!

Just to clarify and avoid hostility, that is NOT sarcasm; it is genuine shock.


-Eric Smit

 

[Bogus]

Even though this is a crappy situation for you be happy that they found it so quick. I've seen a few Sonic owners lose trust in Sonics all together. At least now they seen the issue and have an idea of where to start.

 

[RS Turbo]

Most of the time things like this are connection issues or terminal fit problems from assembly. They cause a voltage drop in some circuits and might trip a code or cause a glitch in the computer data. Think of it as if you where using a calculator and punched in a wrong number and finished the equations now the output is not what it was expected... now the computer attempts to adjust things to compansate for the data that is wrong. Sometimes the communication system in the vehicle will short to ground or the circuit will become open from a loose terminal and data is lost. This is what sets ommunication codes. Think of it as if you were talking on a conference call with 15 people and you needed information every 5 milliseconds from several people, you stop getting the data and now you are lost for a few seconds and have to attempt to guess at what is happening. That is what happens when the vehicle sets communication codes. Any module that sets communication codes can not be the cause.... that is what happens in a nut shell.

 

[SuperFudd]

My Buick had a problem caused by a connector poorly crimped to a wire. The connector was making a good connection to it's contact but it was intermitant to it's wire. The dealership couldn't figure it out so I did it myself.

 

[Poopsicle]

Just an update...the car is still in for service (as it has been every day starting Aug 13). The service department called on Thursday to say they are preparing to replace the entire fuse block over this weekend. I then received a call from a dealership manager on Friday saying they are going to try and expedite the process of "getting you in a new vehicle." He was going to contact GM directly and have an update tomorrow.

opcorn:

 

[Eric Smit]

Good luck!


-Eric Smit

 

[Poopsicle]

Buyback

Just in case anyone is still interested, here's an update...the short version being, we participated in a GM "buyback" and are now driving a 2013 model.

The car was in for service for about 2.5 weeks and the Friday of Labor Day weekend, the sales manager (who up to this point claimed he didn't even know what kind of problems we were having or what work was being done) called to demand that we pick up the car that day, saying "We don't want that rental car leaving town for the weekend." With my wife and I working full-time, an infant in the house, the dealership being 20 minutes out of the way, and weekend plans to get out of town in a matter of hours, this posed a serious inconvenience. Anyway, I convinced them to send a "runner" out to deliver the car and take back the rental...so moving on...

At the time of my last update, the dealer had offered to get us "in a new vehicle" and sent us a few choices from similar models they had in stock (identical to our original car in every way except exterior color). However, when pressed him for details on what--if anything--we'd be expected to pay, the dealer refused to offer specifics. "You probably won't have to pay anything" doesn't fly with me, and we had a two-week conversation which went like this:

Me: Can you please put an offer in writing which outlines what we'd be responsible for?

Dealer: You have to select a car first.

Me: Why?

Dealer: It's a valuation thing.

Me: But all the choices you've sent us are priced exactly the same.

Dealer: I need to talk to GM.

Me: Ok, I will follow up in a couple days.

Dealer: I won't know anymore until you select a car.

Me: I thought you needed to talk to GM first.

Dealer: No, you need to select a car first.

Me: OK, we'll take the silver one.

Dealer: Great, come on in and pick it up.

Me: How much will we owe? When will you send something in writing?

Dealer: I can't do that until I talk to GM.

Me: OK, talk to GM. Send me your offer in writing after you do.

Dealer: I can't do that until you select a car.

After several repititions of this stupid conversation, I told the dealer I couldn't treat his "offer" as sincere because he was simply talking in circles and refused to put anything in writing. When asked a direct question like "Will we have to re-pay for registration", his reply was "Probably not." Sorry, that doesn't work for me.

Anyway, while this was going on, I had been talking with a representative at GM in their Business Resources Center about my problems. Low and behold, when I told her I couldn't take the dealer seriously with his non-offer, the rep suddenly approved a GM direct buy-back of the vehicle. Within a couple days, I had a written agreement outlining our responsibility for a new 2013 Sonic.

Still there were problems. The purchase agreement listed a specific VIN for the new vehicle...a VIN I had never seen before. Furthermore, the agreement--for a vehicle which I've never seen or heard of--stated that it needed to be signed and returned within 48hrs to be valid. After some more conversations with some more people at GM, they assured me that it wasn't a firm date, the vehicle was one the dealer had just taken delivery of, and we'd have time to review it. So I made one more trip to the dealer to check it out...exact same car we bought except it was a 2013 and had a different radio. We'd owe a total of ~$325 (~$235 for the upgraded radio in the new vehicle, ~$80 for usage of our current car, and ~$10 sales tax for the difference). I didn't care for the new "My Link" touchscreen radio (with NO CD player--a lovely feature coming to all GM vehicles by 2015, according to the sales people), but whatever, it's a "year" newer and it may restore my confidence in the car.

I signed the agreement and scheduled a time with the dealer to go make the exchange. Even though they were adamant that we schedule a specific time to sign the paperwork, it still took them an hour to put it together after I arrived at the agreed upon time.

So finally, after about a month of problems, I drove off the lot in another new Sonic.

So far, so good...however...has anyone else experience problems with their doors not closing properly? What I will call "average" force previously required to close doors on our 2012, only results in a bouncing effect on the 2013 (specifically on the passenger side). Unless you are quite direct with closing them, they usually only catch on the first latch.

Anyway...perhaps a topic for another thread.

 

[sx sonic]

WOW that's very depressing you had to jump thru hoops to get things right.

Glad to hear you finally got things settled and eneded up with a year newer car for the inconvience.

The door problem is likely an alignment issue that the dealer can fix.

-tyler

 

[Bogus]

Your issue with the doors, I've seen this a lot but on older cars. After a while of opening and closing and people hanging on doors the hinges sag.
The way to fix that is to slightly open the door, maybe a couple inches from being closed, grab the bottom corner and pull the door up to bend the hinges back up.
But this being a new car I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Chevrolet Customer Care]

Just in case anyone is still interested, here's an update...the short version being, we participated in a GM "buyback" and are now driving a 2013 model.

The car was in for service for about 2.5 weeks and the Friday of Labor Day weekend, the sales manager (who up to this point claimed he didn't even know what kind of problems we were having or what work was being done) called to demand that we pick up the car that day, saying "We don't want that rental car leaving town for the weekend." With my wife and I working full-time, an infant in the house, the dealership being 20 minutes out of the way, and weekend plans to get out of town in a matter of hours, this posed a serious inconvenience. Anyway, I convinced them to send a "runner" out to deliver the car and take back the rental...so moving on...

At the time of my last update, the dealer had offered to get us "in a new vehicle" and sent us a few choices from similar models they had in stock (identical to our original car in every way except exterior color). However, when pressed him for details on what--if anything--we'd be expected to pay, the dealer refused to offer specifics. "You probably won't have to pay anything" doesn't fly with me, and we had a two-week conversation which went like this:

Me: Can you please put an offer in writing which outlines what we'd be responsible for?

Dealer: You have to select a car first.

Me: Why?

Dealer: It's a valuation thing.

Me: But all the choices you've sent us are priced exactly the same.

Dealer: I need to talk to GM.

Me: Ok, I will follow up in a couple days.

Dealer: I won't know anymore until you select a car.

Me: I thought you needed to talk to GM first.

Dealer: No, you need to select a car first.

Me: OK, we'll take the silver one.

Dealer: Great, come on in and pick it up.

Me: How much will we owe? When will you send something in writing?

Dealer: I can't do that until I talk to GM.

Me: OK, talk to GM. Send me your offer in writing after you do.

Dealer: I can't do that until you select a car.

After several repititions of this stupid conversation, I told the dealer I couldn't treat his "offer" as sincere because he was simply talking in circles and refused to put anything in writing. When asked a direct question like "Will we have to re-pay for registration", his reply was "Probably not." Sorry, that doesn't work for me.

Anyway, while this was going on, I had been talking with a representative at GM in their Business Resources Center about my problems. Low and behold, when I told her I couldn't take the dealer seriously with his non-offer, the rep suddenly approved a GM direct buy-back of the vehicle. Within a couple days, I had a written agreement outlining our responsibility for a new 2013 Sonic.

Still there were problems. The purchase agreement listed a specific VIN for the new vehicle...a VIN I had never seen before. Furthermore, the agreement--for a vehicle which I've never seen or heard of--stated that it needed to be signed and returned within 48hrs to be valid. After some more conversations with some more people at GM, they assured me that it wasn't a firm date, the vehicle was one the dealer had just taken delivery of, and we'd have time to review it. So I made one more trip to the dealer to check it out...exact same car we bought except it was a 2013 and had a different radio. We'd owe a total of ~$325 (~$235 for the upgraded radio in the new vehicle, ~$80 for usage of our current car, and ~$10 sales tax for the difference). I didn't care for the new "My Link" touchscreen radio (with NO CD player--a lovely feature coming to all GM vehicles by 2015, according to the sales people), but whatever, it's a "year" newer and it may restore my confidence in the car.

I signed the agreement and scheduled a time with the dealer to go make the exchange. Even though they were adamant that we schedule a specific time to sign the paperwork, it still took them an hour to put it together after I arrived at the agreed upon time.

So finally, after about a month of problems, I drove off the lot in another new Sonic.

So far, so good...however...has anyone else experience problems with their doors not closing properly? What I will call "average" force previously required to close doors on our 2012, only results in a bouncing effect on the 2013 (specifically on the passenger side). Unless you are quite direct with closing them, they usually only catch on the first latch.

Anyway...perhaps a topic for another thread.

I do apologize for the negative experience you've had. If the door continues to behave awkwardly, I would encourage you to take it to the dealer and have them correct the issue. Please send us a DM if this issue can not be resolved with the VIN#, your name, and situation. I hope this taken care of quickly for you. Keep us posted.

Matt,

GM Customer Assistance

 

[gcd55@hotmail.com]

stalling problem

I too had a one time stalling problem on the 1.8 ltz at the service station to get fuel on a road trip 800 miles from home. Was just moving the vehicle around the fuel pumps to get the fuel door to the pump side basically at idle and it just stalled but quickly restarted and has not done it again so far . Had the dealer check it out at the first oil chg and was told nothing found at the memory fault codes and could not b duplicated. So we will see.

 

[Mcoss80]

In the interest of public service, here's my story so far (an abbreviated version reads like this: the car stalls intermittently and Chevy service ain't great):

Mon Aug 13 - 5:30pm
My wife is driving on the freeway when all the dash lights come on, door locks cycle, and the RPM's drop to idle. She pulls off the freeway at an exit ramp, shuts off the engine, and calls the dealership. They instruct her to bring it to the dealer by trying to restart the car, which it does. She drives ~100 yards when it stalls completely and cannot be restarted. No turning over, no clicking, nothing. She uses On-Star to arrange a tow-truck. I arrive on the scene before the tow-truck, it restarts fine, I move it off the street and wait for the tow-truck for a ride to the dealer.

The Chevy service consultant says they will look it over immediately and call me with an update before they close that evening at 9pm. I take the free rental car home.

Mon Aug 13 - 9:00pm
No phone call.

Tues Aug 14 - 4:00pm
Since I still haven't received an update on the car as promised, I attempted to contact the dealer. After speaking with the same receptionist three separate times (she forwarded my call to a dead end voicemail system twice without even giving me a chance to explain why I was calling), I finally had to shout over her ramrod talking to get her attention. At long last, I spoke with a live human service consultant who fielded my inquiry and promised the proper person would be contacting me shortly.

"My" service consultant calls back 5 minutes later and says the car is ready to pick up. They couldn't replicate the stalling problem, but there unspecified communication codes stored in memory and there was a service bulletin out regarding connections to the Body Control Module. They checked all pin connections to this module and applied dielectric grease.

I returned the rental car and drove the Sonic home (~9 miles) without incident.

Weds Aug 15 - 11:45am
My wife is stopped at a light after driving a~2 miles in city traffic, and the dash lights again illuminate and the car stalls totally. She is able to restart it immediately, moves the car off the street, and calls the dealership. They again ask her to attempt restarting it and bring it to the dealership. It will not restart. No turning over, no clicking, nothing. She uses On-Star to arrange a tow-truck. I arrive on the scene before the tow-truck, it restarts fine, I move it ~20ft to make room for the tow-truck and we're headed for the Chevy dealer for the second time in less than 36hrs.

"My" service consultant says they will "for sure" call me with an update before they close that evening at 9pm. I again go through the hassle of "renting" the dealership Cruze (same one as yesterday) and go home. I get a call at 8:54pm and he says they will be replacing the Body Control Module. They still haven't been able to replicate the problem, but all signs point to a fault with the BCM. They say the part will be overnighted and installed tomorrow.

Thu Aug 16 - 12:30pm
I receive a voicemail from the service consultant who says the BCM didn't arrive overnight, and it won't arrive until Friday, or possibly Saturday. "I will for sure call you with an update on Saturday. But don't even worry about the rental, go ahead and drive it as much as you'd like." Gee, thanks.

Sat Aug 18
No phone call.

Mon Aug 20
I call the service consultant (I now have a direct number so I can bypass the blowhard receptionist) who says, yes, the BCM arrived and was install Saturday. They still haven't replicated the problem, but they are going to hold the vehicle and put some miles on it until they feel confident it is fixed. I ask what communication codes--specifically--were recorded and why does this lead them to believe the new BCM will solve the problem. "Oh, I'm not sure, I haven't had a chance to talk with the mechanic yet." So, as a service consultant, you don't do the work, you don't know why the work is being done, you don't talk with the person doing the work, and you don't call the customer with the updates you've promised them? That makes me feel great about my decision to buy a Chevy.

That brings us up to now…I'll keep you posted on any developments.

:sadbanana:

We are having same issues, we bought a new battery, didn't fix it. We had a new alternator put in, didn't fix it. Actually, now it is worse. Load tester said " failed voltage regulator " . Today , it shut off. Steering locked up, no brakes. It did restart. It seems it's a bigger problem while running A.C.

 

[ToddlyTuesday]

Anyone know what actually fixed this original issue? I’m having the same problem on my 2015.

 

[Captandave]

I have a 2014 sonic LT 1.8l with similar electrical problem. When this stalling began it would drive for 10-15 minutes then stall. Now it will only run for 30 seconds or less before stalling. I've been at this for a year now and trying to sell it as a mechanic special. I replaced the engine fuse box based on incorrect diagnosis from a shop. My P/T relay rattles or chatters after it stalls which is why the shop thought it was a bad fuse block. I have checked fuses and relays, replaced both variable valve timing solenoids, both camshaft position sensors, I also replaced the ignition switch because that was one of the likely culprits according to the codes it threw.
This car is the worst car I have ever owned which includes 2 Chevrolet Vegas and 3 Fiat x-19s. Those were bad cars but at least you could find and fix their problems as opposed to this computer operated junk.

 

[Briguy60]

My 2013 Sonic started having the same issue as of yesterday. Does anyone know what electrical circuit was the issue?

To bring everyone up to speed I have 423K on my now reconditioned 2013 1.8 Sonic LT. At 409K I basically all but seized the engine from massively overheating it. Since then I acquired an LKQ 97K engine and replaced all seals, timing belt and hardware, all the engine sensors and solenoids also a 36K trans from a local recycling yard. As well I replaced the following with new: intake assembly & throttle body, exhaust/1st cat, not to mention other parts such as new rack, KYB shocks and front struts, fuel pump, starter and alternator.
I've spent the last 12K sorting through various issues. The car has been running better and better with each solved issue. That is until now. Appreciate any insight anyone could offer to this 'dare I say' INCREDIBLE issue with the dancing dash and door locks followed by a shut down engine.