How is it a leasing company issue? It's their car that's having the mechanical issues...
How is it a leasing company issue? It's their car that's having the mechanical issues...
In reply to docwyte :
Sounds like he is looking to get out of the lease if the engine isn’t replaced? I’m guessing once he asked out of the lease they punted. It’s still hard to imagine they won’t just fix the problem. I’ve had good luck with warranty and recall work on GM vehicles we purchased new, but sounds like the dealers in his area may be a little lacking.
I'm confused. What does leasing a vehicle have to do with warranty work? Last I heard GM warranties were fully transferrable, as long as the work is initiated before the warranty expires. I've never had a problem with getting warranty or recall work done on any GM vehicle I purchased new or used. Who cares what you do once the lease is up, the car needs to be fixed now, under warranty. Even if he wants out of the lease, they still need to fix the car. What am i missing?
Unless the warranty is to the leasing company you are getting the run around. Is the warranty in your name? Actually thinking about this more who is on the title? Since it is leased then it is not you. There for the leasing company may actually have to initiate things since you are in effect only renting the car from them. I suggest you hunker down and read the fine print of your lease.
Are Canadian leases different than United States leases?
jumping ahead. Yeah the only complaint at this point should be about the service centers lousy coffee. The first dealer sounds like the Hennessy Honda of the GM world. 
Reading back through a page I'm thinking a chop shop would give you a line from the movie 'New Jersey Drive'. Don't bring me no E36 M3 boxes. God man turn it over to a lawyer and get on with your life. All this code stuff is getting arcane. 
I'm taking my first experience with GM customer care with a grain of salt, I presume what they told me was just bs. They insisted it wasn't their problem from either a warranty work perspective or a lease perspective. The person who I spoke checked with their supervisor, but let's be honest, phone support people aren't known for the highest level of awesome. I'm going to try again. I also spoke to someone from GM financial and they gave me the number for gm financial leasing customer care. I'm going to try them when they're open.
I'm not aware of any substantial differences between us/canadian leases as would relate to this matter. There could be differences when it comes to trying to get out of the lease, but that's pure speculation.
What is the last thing the service department told you?
^ They said they're going to fix it. The service manager seemed genuinely committed to fixing the problem.
Are they giving you a decent rental?
In reply to Snrub :
I am concerned that you are muddy-ing the waters by mixing issues.
Issue #1 is that you have a car under warranty that is not running correctly.
Issue #2 is that you have entered the idea of "getting out of lease." This has then given the customer service of "warranty" the ability to brush you off with, "you'll have to speak to the lease holder." Sure, it happens that the lease holder is a division of the seller but they will likely treat them as completely separates. Leasing is just how you are financing the purchase. This could also be leasing or straight financing through Scotia Bank or other.
Stay the course and stay the single message which is, "my car under warranty is not running correctly."
No rental. No loaners were available either.
Spoke to GM financial leasing care. The person was sympathetic to my situation, but indicated there was nothing they can do. They strenuously disagreed that they were under any contractual obligation to provide any level of service.
Perhaps bringing up the "get out of the lease" things is muddying the waters, I don't know... if we assume for a moment that GM customer care, "cares" about how this affects me, bringing up the financial impact of this issue is germane. I would argue I'm directly out ~$4k because of this, more if you consider expected cost over 10 years. Plus the delta for a new set of run flat tires to return the car, brake pads refresh, etc. Perhaps it's worth rolling the dice on the engine continuing to work in the future and sticking with the plan to buy out the car at the end of the lease. car-part.com lists 5th gen camaro engines for $5-7k. Where I'm sitting right now, it's difficult to buy into the argument I just wrote.
I’m kind of confused. I thought the issue was a misfire. It needs a new engine now?
Cotton said:I’m kind of confused. I thought the issue was a misfire. It needs a new engine now?
I think that's what happened to GM as well. The OP is so transfixed on running his own codes and diagnosis and getting out of the lease that they have no idea what's happening.
He should have just kept bringing in the car with the simple words "it doesn't work" and then called GM with "my car doesn't work and they can't fix it please help". All of this talking around in circles about misfire counts and codes scanned and new engines is just confusing and frankly hurts the OP a lot. At this point his VIN and name probably have notes galore in the system so he's already signed his own warrant.
Does Canada have a Lemon Law? Sounds like a lemon.
At least in the US, it's not a lemon. A lemon can only be a car that is currently owned by its original purchaser. This was a used car, so it's not a lemon.
Saying anything about trying to get out of a lease or even mentioning anything about your financial interest in the car whatsoever is doing nothing to help you at all. Same with any of the self-diagnosis. Either you fix it or you let them fix it, but this is really one of those things that is best to NOT do by committee.
Your conversation needs to revolve around one single solitary subject: "This car, which is covered by the Chevrolet warranty, does not run properly. Please repair it for me". You can elaborate on how it feels or acts, but keep your grubby mitts off the diagnostic tools and let them do their thing without any outside influence. When they give it back and it doesn't run properly go back to them and say "This car, which is covered by the Chevrolet warranty, is continuing to not run properly. Please repair it for me". You don't need to show them how smart you are and demonstrate your car guy-ness to them. Just continue repeating that phrase over and over. If they remain unable to repair it, re-engage with GM customer service. Don't talk about leases, buy-outs, values, or anything else. That will just get you the run around because they won't really be sure exactly how to help you. Again you want to use simple phrases: "This car, which is covered by the Chevrolet warranty, does not run properly. Two dealerships have attempted to service the car but they are unable to make it run properly. What can you do to help me get my car repaired under the warranty that you've provided me?"
Yeah, that's really frustrating. I'm also amazed that you can have a problem like that with a car and the dealership service department's whiz-bang diagnostic software can't solve it in a single trip. But, hey, that's technology for you. Warranty law in Canada is likely different from the law in the US, but you probably have some variation of our Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act which is I think where you'd stand, being a second owner of the car. They have an obligation to honor the warranty, but it isn't as cut-and-dry as under the Lemon Law and they have the right to jerk you around a bit. It sucks, but you've either got to play the game and get it fixed, live with it, or find someone to buy out your lease.
Worry about unloading the car and what you do with the lease later. Right now, laser focus on getting the car fixed under the warranty. Repeat after me: "This car, which is covered by the Chevrolet warranty, does not run properly. Please repair it for me".
only other choice is to park it somewhere and drop the keys nearby and let some kids steal it... Seriously, Do as Wae is saying. Act stupid, don;t bring up codes or anything like that. "it's not running right"
I'm discussing codes and diagnostics on here, not so much with the dealership. If I'd been able to figure out a clear cause, I would have tipped them off. I've actually played it as "car needs to be fixed" with trip 1, 2 at dealer 1. I mentioned other stuff with dealer 1 only when they clearly failed to provide the service they committed to and ripped me off. They disputed my info and that there was any problem. With dealer 2, I mentioned nothing other than the car needed to be fixed. Yesterday, the service manager did press me as to how I knew the issue wasn't fixed and when pressed further I admitted that I saw OBDII misfires, but nothing more. His reaction was positive and very different from the first dealership (who knows what he actually thought).
Yes the issue is still misfires.
Simply saying "please fix my car" hasn't been working. In between I have to drive the car to get it into a bad enough state that the dealer can see something (eg. CEL, fuel trims, etc). It's really not fun doing this, while causing who knows what damage. I don't honestly believe any of you would sit back and not do any investigation while this dragged on for weeks. :)
I mentioned the new engine/get out of lease stuff on the phone to GM customer care. Maybe that didn't help, but I'm taking it up the butt no matter what happens here. I will try a different approach with the next phone flunky. Let's be honest, the odds of them doing anything are low. There's no benevolent corporate giant fairy.
In reply to NickD :
All Direct injection engines need a oil vapour separator.put many on customer cars,it does help alot, but go back to gm get it fixed.
Meet a local tv station at the dealership.that might stir things up a bit,who knows,they might fix it,or replace it, just bring All your paperwork so the tv folks can look at it
No one else seams to want to help you
I would not be to worried about actual damage to the motor from misfires. This could be as simple as something has gone wrong in a harness. Mice, a frayed wire to a sensor, a pinched ground. Any of these could be causing intermittent resistant variations that the ecu is trying to correct for but eventually runs out of scale in the tables. If they can figure it out the car should be good to go.
Just for fun have you run the vin on the car? Was it bought back previously? Mfgrs do this to prevent a car from being branded a lemon.
Misfires generally don't damage engines, they damage catalysts.
We still don't know what is causing the misfires.
Car was at the dealer for a week (visit #5 total, visit #3 to dealer #2). No progress was made, no issues found. They said basically the car was running as a Camaro should (which is to say rough idle) and there was no issue/cause they could point to. I discussed the issue at length with the shop foreman. He agreed that the OBDII logs showing the misfires 25-50%+ of the time on a given cylinder for 2 minutes pointed to a problem and that the long term fuel trims were indicative of a problem too. He asked for my printout of the data to discuss with a GM drivability engineer. He basically said if their tool doesn't show an issue, they can't do anything. He said their tool basically only shows useful data when there's a CEL, I'm guessing mode $02 data. No CEL, nothing they can do. He said my logging was far more detailed and in depth than what they could get from their tool (wow...). As messed up as this sounds, I believe they are making a sincere effort to solve the problem.
On the drive home I realized the car would misfire badly with 1/3+ throttle at 1500-2000rpm. I'm not positive, but I think I heard knock. This happened severely on one of the cylinders where the replaced a fuel injector. So there was an obvious driving method to get the CEL on. Took it out for a 5-10 minute drive that evening and got the CEL back on. P0430, but again for some reason the codes I see and the ones they see are different.
I called GM customer care again. They sent me to my case "ambassador's" voicemail (the guy who said GM warranty was not applicable to my car because it was a lease). They didn't call me back so I called again and spoke to someone else who opened a new case. I explained my car had a problem the dealership was unable to solve. They said there was nothing they could do until they knew the cause. I tried explaining it a few different ways, but it didn't help. This person seemed a lot better, but my expectations are low. They transferred me to the dealership to make an appointment. They said they'd follow up.
I'm stuck in a circular logic trap.
I'll give it one more go around and then I'm starting the CAMVAP binding arbitration process (similar to lemon law). At a quick glance there is nothing that states that lease takeovers make this invalid.
Are you getting charged for the service visits? If not, then they seem to know they can charge this to the warranty.
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