Exactly how many have had HEAD/Valve Problems - Page 7

Hey, No one is allowed to mis spell words except for Mark (dilo) he is the master...

What's up the unusual amount of twits on here lately jerkin us off?  Might it be the amount of snow days due to inclement weather recently?

Add another one to the list.  New Head on order - told about 2 weeks to get in.  15,600 miles

quote:

ORIGINAL: jbiancolli

Add another one to the list.  New Head on order - told about 2 weeks to get in.  15,600 miles

 
Do you know when your Hummer was manufactured?  Month/Year?

February '06

I was told to drive my H3, it won't hurt anything, until the head comes in.  I will not drive my H3 anymore until it is fixed.  I dusted off my Jeep to drive until the head comes in.  They said it was on backorder, I expected to hear somehting like a month.  I was told it will be a week to get in.  Thats kinda weird, backordered but only a week?  Anyway, I feel like a homeless person on the road in this Jeep.  At least I can leave big oil spots on peoples driveways.  Why didn't they make H3s in 1991.    BTW date is 05/06 not 02/06

I finally got a call from my dealership a couple hours ago and they got the part in for my truck along with 20 some others BUT, here's the catch they can't do anything with it till next Wed. the 7th. I asked if I could have it towed in this week since it is not running like it should and I don't feel safe driving it they said I could but they can't give me a loaner until Tuesday evening AND can only have it for 24 hours. What kind of BS is that? So not only did they tell me it would be in "next week" it has now been 34 days and have gone through double the gas as before the problem and have been driving it less,  who knows what else is/could be wrong since I have had to drive it some, now they say I can only have a loaner for 24 hours. Dosent' matter to them that I have to drive 45 minutes just to get to them. Plus I've had a loaner from them for a week and half once then another for a week when they had no idea what was wrong with it.
I'm sorry to ramble on I didn't realize how mad I was till I sat down to type that they got my part in. I guess I should be happy about that and that I won't have to keep driving my husbands jeep

Hello all!  I had the engine head replaced on my 06 H3 a few weeks ago.  Thank you for the information posted.  GM is supposed to contact me today regarding an extended warranty.  I see there are 46 people on this forum who have the same HEAD problem. 

Hey Jenny..too bad this had to be your first post here..Welcome just the same though...Is it running OKay now?..Keep us abreast when you hear about the extended warranty..there is another thread going right now just below about this subject.

     GM never called me back.  I will give them a few more days.  I only drive my H3 about 8 miles a day.  It has only been on the highway maybe two times in six months.  It is upsetting to have part of the engine replaced at 7,000 miles.  I wish I had more time to research this HEAD\VAVLE problem.  School and work take all my time.  It is going to be some time before I investigate this.  I do know something is wrong here.  Excuse my ranting (2 hours sleep, 6 cups coffee)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fordham Law

     GM never called me back.  I will give them a few more days.  I only drive my H3 about 8 miles a day.  It has only been on the highway maybe two times in six months.  It is upsetting to have part of the engine replaced at 7,000 miles.  I wish I had more time to research this HEAD\VAVLE problem.  School and work take all my time.  It is going to be some time before I investigate this.  I do know something is wrong here.  Excuse my ranting (2 hours sleep, 6 cups coffee)

 
Sure, it is upsetting (period) - mine was replaced at 6000 miles as were quite a few others! Unfortunately, this is a situation where YOU have to take control and be persistant with calls until you get some satisfaction. GM will NOT ring your phone off the wall NOR knock your door down to offer you anything.  I am now at 4 months of constant calls back and forth and arguing with them over this and I am still waiting for it to be resolved.  Good luck.

per dennis' request i'll try to shed some light on the subject that may or may not have been covered already(haven't got a chance to read all of both the threads pertaining to the topic)
 
vehicles involved in this are- all 04-05 chevy colorado, all 04-05 gmc canyon, with 3.5L vin-6 rpo L52
2006 chevy colorado, 2006 gmc canyon, wtih 3.5L vin-6 rpo L52 and last 6 of vin less then 287698
2006 HUMMER H3 with 3.5L vin-6 rpo L52 and LAST 6 OF VIN LESS THAN 287591
 
Basically if you have an 06 H3 with the last six numbers under what i specified your problems could be due to a bad cylinder head.
 
The conditions for it are, your SES,(service engine soon) light will come on with the dtc code of p0300 for a cylinder misfire.its a single cylinder fault that only happens at idle, sometimes you can feel it, sometimes you can't. VEHICLES BUILT BEFORE THE VIN BREAKPOINT MIGHT BE AFFECTED BY WHATS CALLED NON UNIFORM INTAKE VALVE SEAT WEAR. THIS PREVENTS THE INTAKE VALVE FROM FULLY SEATING THUS CREATING A POOR COMBUSTION.
 
VEHICLES BUILT AFTER THE VIN BREAKPOINT ARE EQUIPPED WITH HARDENED VALVE SEATS TO PREVENT THIS, IF YOUR H3 HAS ISSUES AND DOES NOT FALL UNDER THE VIN CRITERIA THEN YOUR PROBLEMS LIE ELSWHERE. UNLESS IT CAN BE VERIFIED BY YOUR DEALER WITH A CYLINDER LEAKDOWN TEST THAT THERE IS STILL A LEAK. I'm not saying that its not possible for there to still be a problem because its after all, still a mechanical part. and parts can and will break.
 
Other then that, i will say that our dealership sells probably 20 H3's a month and we've been selling Hummer's since the H2's release. We have to date only had one vehicle that we found with a bad cylinder head. GM declares this as a rare occurance.They kinda suck to do, i myself am not a fan of the I5's. with proper engineering the 4.2L I6 from the trailblazer/envoy could have easily fit. a little more engineering during the prototype faze could have netted the H3 with a 4.8L genIII vortec v8.
 
I'm surprised that there isn't a sticky on front/rear diffs or t-case's. maybe its a midwest thing but we've seen ten times the amount of those going bad vs. any engine problems.
hope this helps out.
Dustin
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the info Midnight.  I will have to disagree with one thing...as far as GM stating the head replacement is "rare" - look at the numbers on here of people that have had them (sure I realize there are many who have not as well as the fact that many do not fall into that "faulty vin range" so they will not suffer the problem hopefully.) Also, I have several acquaintances locally who have H3's that fall into the "vin range" who have had or are still waiting to have the replacement done.  I know one person who is now going on 2 months waiting to get hers fixed.
 
As for the mechanics who have to do them - I feel sorry for them as I hear it's a long involved repair and for the pay....

I understand where your coming from, but remember that there's over 200 thousand vehicles under that vin range though, thats a lot compared to the actual number that are being repaired under it. and in my own personal opinion i think they had a couple bad batches in there that were probably shipped to the same reigon. which would account for some places having a lot of occurances. and some places, like ours, that have very few.
 
the reason for the long wait is a few things, and i know excuses dont' justify what you as a customer have to go through, believe me; mechanics relate closer to the customers then we do to the corporation.
excuse a) gm didn't plan on having this problem thus they didn't have an abundant supply of complete cylinder head assemblies laying around
 
excuse b) because of this, when we do come across a faulty head and because they are not a common stock item, we have to open a spac case(im not a parts guy but i believe it stands for special parts aquisation claim(i know i butchered the spelling) so that we can aquire a head in a timely matter(or try to)
 
excuse c) after all this is general motors we are talking about, i would rather work on a gm vehicle any day of the week before i touched a dodge or a ford. but that doesn't mean that they do not have their faults. we have been fixing the exact same problems on cadillacs northstar v-8's for over 10 production years and they still haven't figured it out.all i can say is be patient and stay persistant in your calls to corporate hq to get them to make things right. just dont' take it out on your dealership, we only do as we are told, if we don't there will be somebody else occupying our bay by the end of the week. job security is non existant in the automotive field.

Thanks Dustin for helping with our frustrations here...A voice from the inside is a comfort, especially when they know our pain..

quote:

ORIGINAL: LawWyfe

 Also, I have several acquaintances locally who have H3's that fall into the "vin range" who have had or are still waiting to have the replacement done.  I know one person who is now going on 2 months waiting to get hers fixed.
 

 
have these indiviguals vehicles shown the problem signs that relate to the cylinder head, keep in mind this is not a recall. the vehicle does have to set a ses light with a misfire at idle and it does have to be verified by a mechanic using proper diagnosis that the cylinder head is bad. if thats all been done and your waiting that long, im not sure what to tell you, either your parts dept has not filed the spac case or they are completely out of cylinder heads. the one vehicle we did took about a week or so to get the cylinder head.
Dustin

quote:

ORIGINAL: midnight94r

quote:

ORIGINAL: LawWyfe

 Also, I have several acquaintances locally who have H3's that fall into the "vin range" who have had or are still waiting to have the replacement done.  I know one person who is now going on 2 months waiting to get hers fixed.
 

have these indiviguals vehicles shown the problem signs that relate to the cylinder head, keep in mind this is not a recall. the vehicle does have to set a ses light with a misfire at idle and it does have to be verified by a mechanic using proper diagnosis that the cylinder head is bad. if thats all been done and your waiting that long, im not sure what to tell you, either your parts dept has not filed the spac case or they are completely out of cylinder heads. the one vehicle we did took about a week or so to get the cylinder head.
Dustin

 
Yes, they were all diagnosed and some have already been replaced and the one in particular I was referring to has been waiting for all parts to arrive and get in (there was SEVERAL ahead of hers.) Last time I had mine in for a week for a minor repair I asked my service writer for an approximate number of these they had seen thus far and he said close to 20.
 
In regard to your previous post -  sure I agree with everything else you have said...I am just MAD MAD MAD  (or as Dennis might say PMSing LOL) with GM right now as they have been jerking me around for 4 months now.  I also realize that any employee has to do what they have to do at their job if they don't wish to be replaced.  Unfortunately non of us is expendible (even if we like to think we may be lol)  I also empathize with the mechanics, service writers, etc. - as they have to experience the wrath of those of us who are displeased (and it really isn't their fault at all - they just happen to be the ones we get to see to chew the ears off.)

i'm not sure what i can tell you, where do you live? is it always that far out to get work done? unless we have to order parts we can usually get a vehicle done within the same week that it comes in, if not in the same day(parts granted). i'm not sure how far we could extend loaner vehicles but if anyone is close to sioux falls sd it might be worth a trip. or at the least a phone call to see what our service dept might be able to do.

Mid, I am in FL. Apparently my dealership has been inundated with this problem (last I heard the count was up over 20 and that was a couple months ago.) I do have an acquaintance who has been waiting at least 6 weeks for parts to come in and there are several ahead of her to be done. Perhaps as someone stated previously - maybe many in that vin range were shipped to the same areas/regions which could account for the large numbers we are seeing here and the lack of parts. ?? I know I would be LIVID if I were one of those who had to wait weeks and weeks.

FYI..
I just called my dealer service writer buddy (I've known him a long time after having a POS Land Rover)
He said, to date, only 8 H3s has came in for this problem....It is an entire head assembly..Complete with valves, cam, all the goodies...Just a simple remove the old head and replace with new head..
 

Well then I don't know what the problem is Denny..she said they told her "they were waiting for a gasket and then there are 4-5 ahead of her to be done 1st." All I know is what she tells me they tell her, and that she has for a fact been without her H3 now for about a month and a half (she is currently in a loaner CTS) Again, perhaps we got many of those bad vin range H3's down here?

Sarah, I didn't ask about the gasket...It probably is another parts maker that makes the head gasket set...And yes, that would hold up reassembly if they didn't have that one simple part...Figures, a dollar waiting on a dime..

if it were only that simple...but yes it is a complete unit.. you do need a couple extra bolts for the cam phaser and such parts that have torque to yield bolts. they are a one time use item. along with the head bolts and headgasket. all in all it only took 6 days including a weekend to get the parts for the only h3 our dealership has serviced.i suspected there were a bad batch that went to the same area. i would open a poll on location of all the registered h3 owners on the site that have had this problem. that might show where the bulk are coming from. granted flordia sells a lot more cars then south dakota does.
 
lawWyfe, i would have them check their  next closest hummer dealer, even though they are a gm dealer they will want your business. if you provide better service then customers will continue coming to you for vehicle service. and when it comes time for them to buy a new one. they'll look to you first.
 
there is one other alternative. gm dealerships are rated on whats called a customer satisfaction index. CSI score> after your vehicle is in for service you should get a little survey card asking for you to rate the service. too many bad scored sends a flag to gm. or so they say. im willing to be the csi score of those dealerships isn't too great.

Well I am nervous after reading all these post.  I have a 2006 H3 date of manufacture 06/05 it falls in the VIN range with a 6811 number.  I have 15600 miles on it and no problems at all.  Is this a for sure problem that will happen due to the VIN range or not.  It is covered under warranty correct up to 50,000 miles?  And if this happens does it have to be fixed at the Hummer dealer or any GM dealer.  My Hummer dealer is 450 miles away. 

Not every H3 in that VIN range is gonna have the problem..as this was told to me by several Hummer techs here on this board and my dealer's service writer told me the same thing today...kinda like a throw of the dice is what I'm hearing..