Oh boy, circle the wagons, looks like we’ve got a blown LT4 motor. “Lawdogg,”a Z06 owner over on the Corvette Forum was cruising around when something went “boom,” followed by loud knocking and grinding from the blower and the number six cylinder. The car was brand new and had only 891 miles on the odometer. GM offered to rebuild the engine or simply replace it at no expense under warranty. The owner chose to replace the engine. Hopefully he’ll be back on the road soon. Ultimately, the logistics of what failed and why are secondary to the real issue with this story. We’ll break it down for you and get to what’s really newsworthy about this event.

First off, the C7 is one hell of  a car. It’s decimated Viper sales, is the 6^th best-selling “sporty” car in the U.S. and outsells snooty Porsche’s entire line up combined. GM and Chevrolet OWN the sports car market here in the most important auto market in the world, on a level playing field against the world’s finest. Corvette Racing is a formidable and winning force in autosports as well.

Secondly, after 62 years of defying the odds and surviving naysayers and skeptics, the Corvette is finally a no excuse car. No crappy Cobalt steering wheel or floppy seats. Everything wrong with the C6 was fixed and then some. Even snaggle-tooth Jeremy Clarkson thinks it’s cool.

Then comes along the engine failure in the Car and Driver test car followed by aforementioned failed LT4. Like felines to catnip, all the folks who up until now had NOTHING to squawk about regarding the no excuse C7, have slithered out of the woodwork harping on and on in chat rooms all over the internet. A terrible PR predicament for sure.

And the last thing GM needs after slogging through 30 million recalled cars last year. We’re sure there’s no lack of urgency about these events over at GM and stamping this fire out is probably of paramount importance right about now. We know that when building motors or any other extremely complicated device, there will be failure rates, no manufacturer is immune and that’s what factory warranties are for.

An unpleasant chapter to be sure and considered unacceptable by some but bad luck and manufacturing statistics aren’t brand loyal. So to the naysayers and archrivals we say “Be nice,”as your hallowed brand could be next.