[snowwy66]

Haven't seen anybody speak up about lube stickers yet.

See many free stickers though

 

[Ma v e n]

@Ma v e n , do you have any idea what the ratio of cars sold to pistons broken is?

Are we talking 1%, 5%, less than 1%?
And how many of them have stickers from quick lube shops on the windshields?

The last numbers I saw, that I'm not supposed to...I'm nobody to be clear. I want to recollect that it was something like 1800 sets of pistons had been replace, and a smaller number if engines. Maybe the total population repaired was 2500? Now this is across all application of the 1.4 and 1.5 SGE, as they use the same pistons. Regardless, that puts the warranty rate below 1%, perhaps even below 0.25% across all SGE engines

Haven't seen anybody speak up about lube stickers yet.

See many free stickers though

in my experience, none of the cars I've done have held rigorously to the required maintenance schedule. I personally haven't seen an SGE go when on a verifiable diet of name brand full synthetic oil changes before 7500miles. 90%+ of the cars I've seen involved had aftermarket filters as well, I'd say none had ACD filters, but that's not true because one of the first Malibus I ever did hadn't even had it's first oil change.

 

[Taxman]

90%+ of the cars I've seen involved had aftermarket filters as well, I'd say none had ACD filters, but that's not true because one of the first Malibus I ever did hadn't even had it's first oil change.

Was the oil life at 0%, or was it not yet time for its first oil change?
I assume that car was built before the oil meeting 2nd Generation Dexos requirements was used in the factory?

Can you estimate how many you've personally worked on?
It seems like dozens of cars repaired would mean thousands of cars sold, but I have no idea how many Malibus and Cruzes your employer sells.

Was there any pattern to which piston failed first?

We had one member here who claimed that two out of two failed in his family, using more than one quick lube shop and always with Dexos oil specified. Brand of quick lube wasn't mentioned.

I bought a jug of Pennzoil Platinum last month, it's first generation Dexos1, and SN, not SN Plus. I looked it up on Pennzoil's web site and the Platinum was reformulated in May 2018 to make it meet SN Plus, and mine was more than half a year old when I bought it. It seems like any Pennzoil linked oil franchise wouldn't have been able to supply good oil until this past summer.

I checked Valvoline, found a press release from early March 2018 claiming that Valvoline was the first to address LSPI and meet the not yet official SN Plus standard, but nothing to suggest any of their oils met that standard before March. At least Pennzoil recognizes old oil might be on the shelves and specifically tells us which products are safe. It's entirely possible that Valvoline Instant Oil change was using unsafe oil before 2018, even if you paid extra for synthetic.

My 2016 was built in May 2016, with dealer oil changes in February and November of 2017. I assume that it always had ACD 5W30 Dexos1Gen2 in it before this month (now has 0W20 M1 EP Dexos1Gen2 in it). The Gen2 oil was in the factories 2-3 months before my car was assembled, right?

 

[CruzinMN]

Just to add to the previous couple posts. I have a 2016.5 and had one piston fail. The dealer replaced all 4 pistons.

Regarding oil changes - mine were all done at the dealer and at around 20-30% oil life.

Sent from my RS988 using Tapatalk

 

[Pegasus]

A while back, someone (I don't know who) posted this:

I'm sure there is a calibration that was released to reduce e the likelihood of piston damage due to LSPI/stochastic preignition.

It wouldn't have been "offered" to you because it wasn't part of a recall or service update program. It was only I stalled in cars that had piston failure, or were ECM programmed for some other reason following the release of the calibration. It's a not an update that was released to all cars, and GM doesn't instruct techs to program modules just to make sure they are current anymore. You could ask them to see if there's an updated calibration next time youre in for service...Your relationship with your service dept will determine how that request is handled.

Does anyone (maybe the original poster perhaps?) know what it is to specifically ask for? Or just ask about "updated calibration"? The last time I ever asked service writers about anything I've heard on the internet they act like they have no idea what I'm talking about and the question usually is "Do you have a TSB number?" I gave them a TSB number on something once (a Silverado) and he acted like he was sorry he asked because he wasn't actually expecting I'd have it I guess. Or is this issue with the Cruze even part of a TSB anyway?

 

[FrankVWTDI]

I don't think I've read of any instances where it WASN'T the #1 piston that bit the dust.

That seems to be the case. Is there some way to turn off the auto start?

 

[jblackburn]

That seems to be the case. Is there some way to turn off the auto start?

L6

 

[cp-the-nerd]

A lot of people seem to be put off by the cost of using premium as a preventative measure. Just use premium in the hot summer months when the weather is by far the most abusive on the turbocharged engine. The odds of pre-ignition from heatsoak is basically nonexistent for most of the year.

Without fail, if my wife runs 87 octane too long into may/june, the engine starts to bog down from a stop and fuel economy drops 2-3 mpg. So from mid May to September we run premium and the car is perfectly happy. I think we're around 40,000 miles now.

Basically once you start hitting 80-85 degrees, use premium. Maybe that's 6 months of the year down south, but that still cuts the added cost of premium in half.