And things were going so well for the new Camaro. After years of teasing, it finally launched to critical acclaim and even outsold the powerhouse Ford Mustang in its first month. Then came the bad news. First, we heard the top-of-the-line Z/28 is likely dead and now this: GM has stopped shipping Camaro SS models equipped with manual transmissions to investigate a possible defect in the transmission.
Reports have been surfacing from owners of brand-new, V-8 and manual transmission-equipped SS Camaros that the output shaft on the transmission has been failing after repeated hard launches. The problem appears to occur regardless of whether or not the Launch Control system is activated and is severe enough to immobilize the vehicle. In fact, it's so severe that GM has put a hold on manual transmission V-8 Camaro deliveries until their engineers determine exactly what's wrong, how to fix it and how many cars have been affected.
Chevrolet sent this official statement to the new Camaro fans over at Camaro5.com regarding the issue:
"Here's our statement on the matter:
Our engineering team is reviewing data related to the performance of the manual transmission on the Camaro SS, and have temporarily stopped shipment of this model to the dealers.
This only impacts Camaro SS models with manual transmission in production. Camaro SS with automatic transmission, and Camaro LS and LT models are not affected and will continue to be shipped to dealers.
Since this is an "in production" review, we are NOT requesting vehicles be returned for any service or dealer deliveries stopped as a result of this action."
As noted, GM has not issued a recall yet and all other Camaro models, including all V-6 models and the automatic transmission-equipped V-8 models, are not being investigated and are not affected by this problem. Because the Camaro uses the same Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission as the Corvette and several other high-powered sports cars, it's likely that this problem stems from a bad run of gearboxes, not an engineering defect, and will likely only affect a handful of cars.
As Chevrolet has just begun investigating the issue, no announcements have been made yet about how to deal with or avoid the issue or how to get it fixed. Until this matter is sorted out, we'd recommend that anyone driving a manual transmission Camaro SS take it easy and avoid hard launches, just to be safe. Those who haven't taken delivery of their manual transmission cars yet will also have to wait a bit longer, but given the popularity of the car, it's likely GM will get shipments restarted as soon as possible.
Source: Camaro5.com
