Aftermarket C8 Grille Inserts Could Cause Overheating, Warranty Implications

Tadge Juechter himself explains why those C8 grille inserts can lead to big problems and why GM didn’t include them.

If there’s one thing we can be sure of, it’s that if someone doesn’t like something about a particular car, the aftermarket will provide a solution. And while most aftermarket parts won’t cause any problems with a car, there are many that will. Case in point – C8 grille inserts, which have become a popular modification for those that don’t like the look of the factory grille or want extra protection from road debris, can cause overheating problems and possible warranty implications, as YouTuber Rick Conti found out straight from chief engineer Tadge Juechter.

When asked if the C8 grille inserts could cause problems with one’s warranty, Juechter said “The answer is yes. We’re going for maximum cooling. We wanted to make sure the car runs robustly in all weather conditions and also on the track. The DCT transmission operates in a relatively narrow range of temperature. The lube inside the DCT needs to be held to very specific temperature windows – it’s not very tolerant of very high temperatures.”

Juechter notes that GM tested a number of different mesh configurations when developing the C8, but ultimately found that they restricted airflow. Thus, they tried to make the existing vents look as good as they possibly could, but he knows that not everyone is a fan. “I’ve heard people express the concern they don’t like the look,” Juechter says. “So we are trying to explore to see if there’s anything else we might do that doesn’t, you know, in an undesirable way reduce the cooling performance.”

While Juechter doesn’t specifically endorse these aftermarket C8 cooling vents, he doesn’t entirely denounce them, either. “For many people, honestly, if you don’t live in a real hot weather environment if you don’t track your car and you’d like the additional protection there probably are some aftermarket grille meshes that would be acceptable. However, if you put them on your car and you get overheating, that won’t be on GM.”

Of course, it isn’t news that an aftermarket part could cause warranty problems, but this one seems like a pretty easy decision, at least to us. It just doesn’t seem worth it to install an aftermarket grille mesh and risk our DCT overheating, which could lead to some pretty expensive out-of-pocket repairs, even if it isn’t terribly likely to happen.

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