2023 CT5 Blackwing engine failure

[1Evil55]

Yep, it’s Al Gore’s fault you can’t get no satisfaction.

At least we have the intarwebz. Thanx Al

 

[CT5BWenthusiast]

Final update: It took GM almost three months to supply an engine to the dealer and return the car to me. The dealer stated the failure was found to have originated with the #1 cylinder rod bearing. After a few (long wait) rounds of negotiation on the usage fee, I have now accepted an offer from GM to repurchase the vehicle. In the meantime I have been driving the vehicle and it does seem to drive OK other than an initial smell as if someone had spilled oil all over the engine (lasted a week or two). For someone who tends to drive vehicles for at least ten years and 200,000 miles, it is just too big a risk to keep a car like this that has had such extensive disassembly and re-use of components at a dealership.

On a separate note, this car has at times (maybe a couple times a week, even prior to the engine failure) failed to shift out of first gear. Shifting manually with the paddles and then going back into drive seems to correct the issue and this tends to happen most often after first starting the car up. I am not someone who tends to use the paddle shift function, so that is not the reason this is happening. Also, this is happening in the non-race, non-"V" mode setting for the car. It very well could be an control/electronics issue more than a mechanical issue.

 

[BimmerFan]

Sorry that the BW adventure has ended for you, but I'm glad they are buying it back, and best wishes for whatever comes next!

 

[vblkwng]

What are you going to buy now?

 

[CT5BWenthusiast]

What are you going to buy now?

I really don't know. I'm questioning the wisdom of buying a $100K car even though I am debt-free and able to pay cash. With four tall kids I really need something full size, unless I get a second vehicle just for hauling them. My oldest will be driving this year, so maybe he can be the one that carts the kids around and I can buy myself something lighter and simpler. Thinking a 1st gen NSX or a used 911.

 

[CBH]

The 2 car strategy is what convinced me $100 for the CT5 was the way to go. It's brand new, and still similar or cheaper than a kid hauler + used fun toy.

And you never have to drive a minivan !!

And its brand new and under warranty !! Unlike that C6 or older 911..........

 

[CT5BW757]

Final update: It took GM almost three months to supply an engine to the dealer and return the car to me. The dealer stated the failure was found to have originated with the #1 cylinder rod bearing. After a few (long wait) rounds of negotiation on the usage fee, I have now accepted an offer from GM to repurchase the vehicle. In the meantime I have been driving the vehicle and it does seem to drive OK other than an initial smell as if someone had spilled oil all over the engine (lasted a week or two). For someone who tends to drive vehicles for at least ten years and 200,000 miles, it is just too big a risk to keep a car like this that has had such extensive disassembly and re-use of components at a dealership.

On a separate note, this car has at times (maybe a couple times a week, even prior to the engine failure) failed to shift out of first gear. Shifting manually with the paddles and then going back into drive seems to correct the issue and this tends to happen most often after first starting the car up. I am not someone who tends to use the paddle shift function, so that is not the reason this is happening. Also, this is happening in the non-race, non-"V" mode setting for the car. It very well could be a control/electronics issue more than a mechanical issue.

Sorry to hear it brother. I went through the same engine replacement etc. I also had a buyback enacted and surrendered the car 2 weeks ago. The #s were way too juicy to pass up and I had 0 faith in the car long term after my experience and reading stories like yours. Went out and got a manual G80 M3 haha GL out there.

 

[BimmerFan]

Sorry to hear it brother. I went through the same engine replacement etc.Went out and got a manual G80 M3 haha GL out there.

Nice choice (I've had two G82 manuals). I would have gotten an M3 if there was better availability.

@Enthusiast, good luck getting four tall kids in an NSX. LOL. Or 911. How about a GTI?

Actually, now that I think about it briefly, four kids is a lot, it does sound like a minivan is in your future. In which case the NS-X is a viable alternative, but they (like used 911s) go for a lot of money in the used market.

I wonder, how many of us, presuming that we had issues like this and wanted to stay away from a future LT4 would still buy a CT5-V? It's a non-starter for me right now (I'm very happy with the BW) especially since it's auto only, but if it rides and handles like the BW, it's still a pretty decent car and I presume that the V6 is powerful enough for typical daily chores.

 

[CT5BW757]

Nice choice (I've had two G82 manuals). I would have gotten an M3 if there was better availability.

@Enthusiast, good luck getting four tall kids in an NSX. LOL. Or 911. How about a GTI?

Actually, now that I think about it briefly, four kids is a lot, it does sound like a minivan is in your future. In which case the NS-X is a viable alternative, but they (like used 911s) go for a lot of money in the used market.

I wonder, how many of us, presuming that we had issues like this and wanted to stay away from a future LT4 would still buy a CT5-V? It's a non-starter for me right now, since it's auto only, but if it rides and handles like the BW, it's still a pretty decent car and I presume that the V6 is powerful enough for typical daily chores.

Not special enough for me personally on the 5v. I had a hook up to get the exact M3 that I wanted. It’s nowhere near as raw as my BW was but its still a great car when driven hard. Interior is miles better than my BW. Caddy was trying very hard to get me in another BW but I couldnt do it on principle. I firmly believe the 5BW has a very testy/fragile engine build/setup. Plus they weren’t offering me a 25 which is what I wanted.

 

[668LT4]

Not special enough for me personally on the 5v. I had a hook up to get the exact M3 that I wanted. It’s nowhere near as raw as my BW was but its still a great car when driven hard. Interior is miles better than my BW. Caddy was trying very hard to get me in another BW but I couldnt do it on principle. I firmly believe the 5BW has a very testy/fragile engine build/setup. Plus they weren’t offering me a 25 which is what I wanted.

Sorry to hear about the Blackwing letting you down, and totally understand your decision. I would do the same.

I owned a loaded 2022 M4 Comp xD before getting my Blackwing. I loved everything about that car, but man was it bland compared to my manual Blackwing. Sold it at a loss after only 2 months. I have no regrets about it. Sometimes I miss it, primarily for being such a voluptuous coupe. But for me the car is an extra, and I own it solely for driving enjoyment. In that regard, the BMW is not in the same ballpark as the Cadillac. Just a very different car with a different purpose. I guess for automatic owners, the gap is not as large. Which perhaps was my mistake in getting the M4 with an auto, but the manual offering was disappointing. I remember reading a road test of a M3 or M4 with a manual, and the reviewer said "this is not the car to save the manuals with".

But for sure, the BMW had impeccable build quality and seemed made for long term ownership. Best wishes to you, 757.

 

[CT5BW757]

Sorry to hear about the Blackwing letting you down, and totally understand your decision. I would do the same.

I owned a loaded 2022 M4 Comp xD before getting my Blackwing. I loved everything about that car, but man was it bland compared to my manual Blackwing. Sold it at a loss after only 2 months. I have no regrets about it. Sometimes I miss it, primarily for being such a voluptuous coupe. But for me the car is an extra, and I own it solely for driving enjoyment. In that regard, the BMW is not in the same ballpark as the Cadillac. Just a very different car with a different purpose. I guess for automatic owners, the gap is not as large. Which perhaps was my mistake in getting the M4 with an auto, but the manual offering was disappointing. I remember reading a road test of a M3 or M4 with a manual, and the reviewer said "this is not the car to save the manuals with".

But for sure, the BMW had impeccable build quality and seemed made for long term ownership. Best wishes to you, 757.

Thanks man. I’m going to tune my manual and get the HP up. I loved the V8 of the BW but the new M is a complete tuner special that I will take advantage of. My mega high spec M3 being 25k less than my BW helps haha Tuner fund is stocked. I was going to get a CS but I missed manual too much. And just like the BWs the manual Ms will end up being on the shorts list of the enthusiasts holy grail. BWs, 911s and Ms will hold value like a champion long term. Preciate the wishes

 

[Finally-a-V]

Not sure @Rob can do this, but it would be nice to flag these buy back cars in the registry some how in case someone here is looking to buy a BW and comes across one on a lot somewhere.

 

[CT5BW757]

Not sure @Rob can do this, but it would be nice to flag these buy back cars in the registry some how in case someone here is looking to buy a BW and comes across one on a lot somewhere.

From what I understand they will be flagged on title from GM. I know mine is going back to GM and will be LL auction

 

[BimmerFan]

From what I understand they will be flagged on title from GM. I know mine is going back to GM and will be LL auction

My limited experience with this is that if a car is bought back d/t lemon law litigation, it will be a branded title.

If it is bought back for customer satisfaction (I forget the term that they use) that may be listed on Carfax, but I don't think it's on any title work. Natch any prospective buyer can and should get service history from Cadillac and that should show the detail.

I know that my wife's BMW recently had the engine replaced under warranty, and the carfax shows that as "R &R valve cover, replace spark plug, changed coolant." I swear, that's all that they show after a $10K+ engine replacement. It had dropped a valve. Like 757, that was the final straw for her and she traded it in on a Porsche Macan. There was no buyback opportunity from BMW because to their credit they had it done inside of a week, and they did, technically, "fix" the car. But all trust was lost.

 

[CT5BW757]

My limited experience with this is that if a car is bought back d/t lemon law litigation, it will be a branded title.

If it is bought back for customer satisfaction (I forget the term that they use) that may be listed on Carfax, but I don't think it's on any title work. Natch any prospective buyer can and should get service history from Cadillac and that should show the detail.

I know that my wife's BMW recently had the engine replaced under warranty, and the carfax shows that as "R &R valve cover, replace spark plug, changed coolant." I swear, that's all that they show after a $10K+ engine replacement. It had dropped a valve. Like 757, that was the final straw for her and she traded it in on a Porsche Macan. There was no buyback opportunity from BMW because to their credit they had it done inside of a week, and they did, technically, "fix" the car. But all trust was lost.

So I’m not sure of the hair split, but my Offer from Caddy officially was Lemon Law Buyback in the title. I know they do other types of buybacks and trade assists as well that the dealer has the option to retail the car. But I was told mine would be ineligible and have to be picked up by Cadillac and resold by GM. If any of that matters.

 

[CT5BWenthusiast]

I know that my wife's BMW recently had the engine replaced under warranty, and the carfax shows that as "R &R valve cover, replace spark plug, changed coolant." I swear, that's all that they show after a $10K+ engine replacement. It had dropped a valve. Like 757, that was the final straw for her and she traded it in on a Porsche Macan. There was no buyback opportunity from BMW because to their credit they had it done inside of a week, and they did, technically, "fix" the car. But all trust was lost.

Similar experience here… my BW which is the subject of this thread shows similar minor comments on the Carfax and so far it is completely lacking anything close to revealing a total engine replacement

 

[Mikep]

I did eventually get Orr Cadillac to provide a rental, but no amount of nice logic in the world would sway them, and ended up having to get ugly with them and demand it. They are still trying to skimp and only give me $40/day for the rental when you can't rent a full size (Toyota Camry) here for less than $47.50/day. I have four tall kids so we can't fit in a compact. And I know GM covers $60/day, so who knows why they would do this to me.

I'm not sure what happened, but my Cadillac Customer Care rep (Tyler) apparently is no longer with the company, and my new rep said what he told me (my engine will be the prioritized to front of line at factory) can't actually be done (I bet they would if I were a celebrity). He also says they don't even have the ability to contact the factory, and they can't tell me when my replacement engine is going to be built or shipped. He claims they can only work through the 3rd-party dealer, which makes zero sense. The new Cadillac customer care rep blamed the delay on Orr Cadillac not submitting the engine order as an "expedited" order, which I have discovered is not at all true since the dealer has provided documentation showing it was.

No teardown has been done to determine what caused the failure. The placard on my failed engine says it was built by Morgan Beachboard. And I suspect the failures of these LT4 engines are far more numerous than anyone here suspects.

Morgan Beachboard name tag is on my 23 BW LT4 also! I have 9800 miles and zero issues so far. Sorry to hear your having engine issues, my V-3 LT4 was a rock star, Zero issues! Hope all works out in the end!

 

[Firefrog]

It's early, and my car just left on the tow truck to the nearest dealer two hours away, but my 2023 CT5 BW started making ticking and clacking under the hood this morning in the school drop off line. When in drive there also was a fairly loud bearing failure type sound coming from the direction of my foot petals. The exhaust note was normal and no check engine light was on, which is hard to believe. The oil pressure and temperature appeared normal. The engine oil fill and color/clarity looked very good on the dipstick. My last fuel fill-up was last night about 4 hours south of here (93 Oct) and I had about 57-ish miles of fuel left according to the dash. Tow truck driver said it sounded like a timing chain, but to me it sounded like an engine with lifter or valve ticking and a bad bearing, possibly on some belt-driven accessory. Turning air conditioner and interior fan off made no impact. 21,000 miles and 10 months old (purchased new). I've just used it as a daily driver and it has never been driven particularly hard, as evidenced by the original set of tires still being in reasonable shape.

Just took my 23 into the dealer for the second time. First time they said it was just over full of oil and it vented during an HPDE. I said ok. Drove it a few times before heading back to the track. Upon completing another day at the track, getting home, checked the oil. Low by at least a quart. Figured this wasn’t normal so I took it back to the dealer. I received a call yesterday. Cracked block and will require a new motor. No error lights warning etc while driving the car. Now I push the car pretty hard and have heard that Cadillac wants owners to push their cars so I’d be curious to hear back from them directly. Luckily it’s under warranty but still, kinda disappointed.

 

[Firefrog]

Just to provide an update on the original post-- my CT5VBW has now been at the dealer 65 days and they still have not received the replacement engine. Around a week ago, as I was dialing the number for a lemon law attorney, GM called and offered a trade for a new vehicle minus a devaluation for the mileage. The representative could not provide clarity at that time regarding whether the mileage deduction was in relation to use tax or depreciation. I declined the offer and requested a buyback instead. Yesterday that same GM representative called back and offered a buyback with a mileage deduction. She again was not clear on what the mileage deduction was based on, but said exact numbers would be provided by the "buyback team" at a later date. She did say she though the deduction was a simple percentage based on the mileage the problem started at (21,716) divided by 100,000. So what I take from this is GM is wanting to discount the buyback of my 10-month-old car by 21.7%, which comes to about $24,000 when multiplied by the sales price. In no way is this acceptable to me! Once I get the official offer, if this is not negotiable, I will contact a lawyer. I am curious if such depreciation offsets are commonplace in lemon-law buy-backs.

Keep us posted. I’d be curious in a buy back as well

 

[CT5BWenthusiast]

I did end up negotiating a buyback without the help of a lawyer, but understand GM will draw it out for months and tell you forever and ever that none of the terms are negotiable and the law is what it is.

Keep us posted. I’d be curious in a buy back as well

My experience of the buyback process without a lawyer is this:
1.) Fairly quickly after you file a lemon claim with your state's attorney general or the BBB (I did both), and after they have taken longer than the allowed amount of time to repair your under-warranty car (30-45 days in most states, no need for multiple attempts), GM presents an unreasonable buyback offer.
2.) The unreasonable buyback offer uses a 100K useful life assumption to determine how much to deduct from the buyback offer for usage. Useful life should at a minimum be 200K miles in my opinion and I eventually negotiated 240K miles useful life based on my two previous (2009) GM V8 vehicles I owned as evidence. Some states' lemon law guidance also has unreasonably low useful life guidance in their lemon law formulas. Texas was 125K miles and in Louisiana (where I live), the statute just states "a reasonable" usage deduction. No matter what your state's lemon law guidance says, this usage deduction should be negotiable so it is reasonable. Nobody buys a car expecting a 100K or 125K useful life.
3.) You then spend months and months of back and fourth, all the while GM reps telling you in no circumstance will any of this be negotiable, that your states lemon statutes define in concrete what is offered, and in no circumstance will they ever negotiate what has been offered. They intentionally slow walk each written email response for a week or two and make you relent into accepting the terrible offer. No one you speak to is authorized to negotiate and they will not even run it up the flag pole to a person who can.
4.) Then eventually they tell you if you want to be able to negotiate you will have to close this claim and start all over again and file it a different way so it is negotiable. Bull. They are just trying to make it seem like you will never get what you are owed and that you should just accept what they have offered.
5.) Then after two or three months or so and much back and forth with zero progress, they finally ask what it will take to settle this and they rapidly begin to negotiate. I think it took two rounds of negotiating to get them from 100K useful life to 240K useful life on my usage deduction in the buyback. In many states there is no usage deduction if you let them provide you with a replacement vehicle, so you don't have to battle this if you go that route.
6.) An one last thing... you can accept the vehicle back after the repair and continue negotiating with no negative consequence. I think I ended up having my engine fail in February, got it back in May and continued driving it until they bought it back a couple months later.