Just 100 miles past its unofficial break-in period and this C8 owner noticed a viscous, oil-leak substance building up on the metal undertray of his LT2.
GM knew this was coming, new C8 owners fiddling and nit-picking to their heart’s content with a handful of serious and not-so-serious issues popping up, but this one has the potential to be a real mess if it spans across many LT2+Tremec units. According to new C8 Corvette owner Kenneth Jackson on a short video he posted up to Facebook earlier yesterday (Mar. 23, 2020) he suspects his LT2 is slowly, yet surely, leaking oil or DCT fluid from both sides of the power unit.
Check out his video below to see what I mean.
Kenneth says he’s a certified GM auto tech, knows what he’s doing, and already cleared with his dealership what is and isn’t against his warranty. Opening up his engine cover and poking around is supposedly fair game, as it should be.
We can see Kenneth’s removed all the inner carpeting in the rear of his trunk to access maintenance items like the air filter and, presumably, some important lubrication points.
On the underside of the engine cover itself there’s a buildup of oil, large enough for him to swab the stuff with his finger. And, on either side of the engine, there’s a small buildup of lubrication of some sort dripping on the metal aero under trays.
Kenneth mentions that, if he had the right tools, he would’ve unbolted the metal undertrays for a better look.
Your guess is as good as mine where this oil is coming from. According to a post on CorvetteForum.com highlighting the various issues new C8 owners found, there is at least one C8 with some a transmission leak from the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission.
These Tremec eight-speeds are mechanically complicated engineering marvels that contain multiple moving parts under high pressure thanks to forced lubrication throughout the entire unit.
Thankfully, this is an issue that warranties can fix.
According to Kenneth in the comments of his Youtube video,
“I have a 72m 100k warranty. Being a mechanic I wanna see for myself and if it’s something small I won’t have the dealer do anything… especially now dealers being shut down and parts not being available.”
A small door ding is one thing, but oil is the lifeblood of an engine and leaks from the factory should be looked at A.S.A.P.
My C8 is heading back to the local GM Dealership a second time with Trans Axel oil leaks.
I only have 1000 km/600 miles on the car.
The Dealership has already replaced the Trans Axel gasket once at 600km/400miles.
This dream car is off to a bad start.
John D
I have 3 actual miles on the one I ordered as a collector and came in the end of September, Trailered it to it home and there she sat until I noticed oil speading out from under the car today! Yes, looks to be about a quart on the floor. I have no idea where its coming from but you must not have to even drive the car for it to happen! I called the dealer and they were great, said they would send a truck to pick it up Monday! Fingers crossed
Thanks for the comment, Keith. Wow, I’d love to hear an update via these comments when you hear the entire story of what’s up. Hope it’s nothing serious and they work it out with you.
My C8 Convertible 2021 is with the dealer for the Valve cover gasket leak, with just 417 miles on the car. Not a good experience so far with my first ever corvette.