Camaro team's response to concern about transmission output shaft failure
12-03-2009, 04:11 AM
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Location: Camaro chick in WI
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Camaro team's response to concern about transmission output shaft failure
A message from Mr. John Fitzpatrick regarding the community's concern about potential output shaft failure:
Thank you John!
I understand over the recent Thanksgiving holiday, the Camaro output shaft topic heated up. We understand the members' passion and concern for this issue as it involves a major powertrain component. Rest assured, everyone on the Camaro team takes these issues very seriously, but there is some confusion regarding this matter that we would like to try to clear up.
As many of the members know, we started to receive warranty claim reports in June of this year regarding output shaft failures on Camaro SS models with manual transmissions. When we noticed a spike in claims, a review was initiated to determine the root cause for the failure. This review is common practice for us, and usually takes a number weeks to complete. Since we did not immediately know the root cause, we did slow the shipments of Camaro SS models from Oshawa for a couple of weeks until the review was completed.
At the end of the review, we concluded the probability of a customer experiencing an output shaft failure under normal driving conditions are very low (or - if you are into engineer speak, "below tolerance"). In fact, even in the most extreme driving condition, the probability of failure does not significantly change.
Ideally, we would like to say that there is no chance a failure under any driving condition will occur. We know this is not possible since every car - regardless of manufacturer - has some probability of a part failing. In the case of Camaro, we believe the probability is very low. We have such confidence in the low probability that we back it up by providing the industry best's powertrain warranty - 100,000 miles or 5 years, which includes roadside assistance and courtesy transportation. If the powertrain part fails due to a defect in our workmanship or material, we'll correct the issue regardless of the number of owners a particular Camaro may have during that period.
Hopefully this will provide a little more insight from our perspective on this topic.
Sincerely,
John Fitzpatrick
Marketing Manager - Chevy Performance Cars
As many of the members know, we started to receive warranty claim reports in June of this year regarding output shaft failures on Camaro SS models with manual transmissions. When we noticed a spike in claims, a review was initiated to determine the root cause for the failure. This review is common practice for us, and usually takes a number weeks to complete. Since we did not immediately know the root cause, we did slow the shipments of Camaro SS models from Oshawa for a couple of weeks until the review was completed.
At the end of the review, we concluded the probability of a customer experiencing an output shaft failure under normal driving conditions are very low (or - if you are into engineer speak, "below tolerance"). In fact, even in the most extreme driving condition, the probability of failure does not significantly change.
Ideally, we would like to say that there is no chance a failure under any driving condition will occur. We know this is not possible since every car - regardless of manufacturer - has some probability of a part failing. In the case of Camaro, we believe the probability is very low. We have such confidence in the low probability that we back it up by providing the industry best's powertrain warranty - 100,000 miles or 5 years, which includes roadside assistance and courtesy transportation. If the powertrain part fails due to a defect in our workmanship or material, we'll correct the issue regardless of the number of owners a particular Camaro may have during that period.
Hopefully this will provide a little more insight from our perspective on this topic.
Sincerely,
John Fitzpatrick
Marketing Manager - Chevy Performance Cars
Last edited by Outrun; 12-03-2009 at 04:15 AM.
12-03-2009, 04:02 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 72
Now, in August, the story was:
**********
According to The New York Times, General Motors now says that a problem which stopped production of one of its hottest models has been fixed. As we reported first last week, a number of 2010 Camaro SS owners were experiencing failures related to the Tremec six-speed manual gearboxes in their new muscle cars. And while company officials are declining to reveal what the actual cause of the defect was, what we do understand is that something untoward was going on with the output shaft of these vehicles. The defect manifested itself in the form of a debilitating mechanical failure when the affected vehicles were launched aggressively with the engine turning 5,000 rpm or more.
It appears that the model's production hold has been lifted, although some vehicles have been held back for inspection, just to make sure. GM's Adam Denison reports that about a dozen owners had problems, and hopefully the problem with remain isolated, with no further cases coming out of the woodwork. In the meantime, GM has apparently decided that no recall action is warranted.
************
So, Adam Denison acknowledged that about a dozen owners had problems, and now Mr. Fitzpatrick says that the probability is below tolerance.
I haven't seen any new stories of output shaft failures, have y'all? They mentioned a "spike" of warranty claims, serious enough to constrain production for a time. Haven't been any, lately, that we've heard of. What made the difference, I wonder? I used to do reliability testing, and it seems like the Mean Time-or-Miles Between Failures of the output shaft is stretching out to be quite long, although it looked sort of short, in late summer. The "we've got a really good warranty" bit doesn't really account for anything.
On the other hand, I'm not one bit less eager to get my 2SS out of the dealer's body shop. It's been in there longer than I drove it. (I hit a deer, parts are tough to get.)
**********
According to The New York Times, General Motors now says that a problem which stopped production of one of its hottest models has been fixed. As we reported first last week, a number of 2010 Camaro SS owners were experiencing failures related to the Tremec six-speed manual gearboxes in their new muscle cars. And while company officials are declining to reveal what the actual cause of the defect was, what we do understand is that something untoward was going on with the output shaft of these vehicles. The defect manifested itself in the form of a debilitating mechanical failure when the affected vehicles were launched aggressively with the engine turning 5,000 rpm or more.
It appears that the model's production hold has been lifted, although some vehicles have been held back for inspection, just to make sure. GM's Adam Denison reports that about a dozen owners had problems, and hopefully the problem with remain isolated, with no further cases coming out of the woodwork. In the meantime, GM has apparently decided that no recall action is warranted.
************
So, Adam Denison acknowledged that about a dozen owners had problems, and now Mr. Fitzpatrick says that the probability is below tolerance.
I haven't seen any new stories of output shaft failures, have y'all? They mentioned a "spike" of warranty claims, serious enough to constrain production for a time. Haven't been any, lately, that we've heard of. What made the difference, I wonder? I used to do reliability testing, and it seems like the Mean Time-or-Miles Between Failures of the output shaft is stretching out to be quite long, although it looked sort of short, in late summer. The "we've got a really good warranty" bit doesn't really account for anything.
On the other hand, I'm not one bit less eager to get my 2SS out of the dealer's body shop. It's been in there longer than I drove it. (I hit a deer, parts are tough to get.)
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