C6 Corvette Z06 LS7 Class-Action Lawsuit Has Been Dismissed

A C6 Corvette Z06 LS7 class-action lawsuit filed back in 2015 over valve guide issues is no more.

Way back in the fall of 2015, a C6 Corvette Z06 LS7 lawsuit – William D. Pilgrim et al v. General Motors Company LLC –was filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging that the automaker’s 7.0-liter V8 had problems with excessive wear of the valve guides that could cause engine failure. The lawsuit specifically targeted 2006-2013 Corvettes equipped with that particular powerplant and claimed that GM was aware of the valve guide issues and did nothing to rectify them. Regardless, that C6 Corvette Z06 LS7 class-action lawsuit has now been dismissed, according to Car Complaints.

This lawsuit has effectively ended after a district court dismissed it and an appeals court agreed with that dismissal. The district court granted summary judgment to GM, a decision the appeals court fully backed up after 17 plaintiffs appealed the decision. The appeals court noted that those plaintiffs “have failed to produce admissible evidence that their vehicles actually contained the alleged valve guide defects.”

The problem, it seems, is that the plaintiffs reportedly failed to produce solid enough evidence that the valve guides in the LS7 are, in fact, defective, with their only evidence consisting of “expert declarations,” according to the court. “Because plaintiffs failed to timely serve disclosure of expert witnesses as required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(2)(B), their expert declarations are not admissible. Those same experts cannot be used as rebuttal experts because rebuttal testimony refers ‘solely’ to evidence ‘intended . . . to contradict or rebut’ other expert testimony.” The court also ruled that these expert declarations were not admissible in court because GM did not provide expert testimony to rebut those declarations.

Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit originally claimed that the clearance levels of the valve guides are too far off and that some had allegedly been told by GM that the resulting valve noise is normal for a V8 engine of this type. The automaker also allegedly created a test for the LS7’s valve guides but ended that test when it realized that the results could lead to investigations and recalls. Regardless, it seems that there won’t be any legal recourse for those affected by this issue.

Photos: Chevrolet

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