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2024 Trax catastrophic engine failure

51K views 209 replies 49 participants last post by  Kathy  
#1 ·
I bought a 2024 Trax 1rs in Dec 2023. In may I had 3900 miles on it. Was driving on an express way. Went to accelerate and heard a pop bang sound in engine. Then black smoke poured out my exhaust. Everything started to shut down and the screen said to pull over. Oil was pouring out onto the pavement. I had the car towed to the nearest Chevy dealership. Here is what the service person told me:
"Hello sir per your request I put together a description of the failure that took place for the motor on your vehicle
It would seem that one of the engine piston rod bearings flew out of place and out of the motor at high enough force to create a hole in the motor causing the motor to have catastrophic engine failure. The vehicle will be getting a replacement motor covered under your factory warranty."

He told me they had one other Trax with the same problem already. He had no idea when they would have a replacement engine. A couple weeks later I went back to the dealership to get things out of my car. And it was just sitting there untouched. When I opened the door the cabin smelled like burnt oil. The car was covered in oil.
My brother who was a mechanic said the catalytic converter may need to be replaced. And probably the air filter to the cabin. When I asked the service guy about this, and asked if the car can be detailed and cleaned, he said no GM will only pay for an engine replacement.

My salesperson at a different dealership happened to call me a few days later. I told him what happened and asked if he could help. He spoke to their service manager. He said it's a minimum of 60 to 90 days to get a new engine from Korea. My salesman said they hadn't had it happen at their dealership yet, but I guess they did now since I bought from them. He said he knows all the dealerships around them had at least one with the same problem. He did say that they had another model Chevy recently have this happen on a test drive.

Has anyone else experienced this or heard of this on the 2024 Trax?
 
#8 ·
That would have been interesting, power output was about the same as the 1.3L turbo so no real gain there (153 hp/177 ft-lbs for the 1.4T vs. 155hp / 174 ft-lbs for the 1.3T). The 1.2L and 1.3L ARE reliable. They've been produced since 2019 with no serious issues reported, at least by reputable sources that is. Anecdotal "evidence" on internet forums is highly suspect and warrants a skeptical eye.
 
#45 ·
Exactly, ship a engine from Korea that's made in Mexico? Blowing smoke up the customers ass! I hope they got a loaner! This is a serious failure, if it continues to happen there will be a class action lawsuit. Kia and hyundai built bad engines for 5 years! I had one but traded it in luckily before it blew! I did get 50k trouble free miles though... Let's hope the 2025s loss all these 24 problems!
 
#12 ·
Rod and crankshaft bearings are always made of high strength steel backings with a nonferrous metal wear surface, that's not what causes them to fail and it wasn't GM going cheap. If the entire bearing were hardened steel the crank and pistons would eat the bearings and the bearings would eat the crank and pistons causing failure very quickly.
 
#14 ·
Not buying that article. Where's the picture of the hole? Video won't play. Not gonna take the word of a TikTokker. So just suddenly an engine that's been around for 5 years is having issues ONLY becuase it's in the Trax? Where's the issue in the Envista? The Encore GX? The Trailblazer? I get it, people hate the idea of a 3-cylinder, they hate it's made in South Korea....but why make stuff up? Ah, Trolls.
 
#18 ·
Exact same thing happened to me in April. Bought the 2024 Trax in December. 7200 miles. And I’ve now collected names of over 20 people where the engine sustained a huge hole blown out of the side. Super easy to find on social media. Look on Facebook, Reddit and Tik Tok. Still waiting on engine replacement almost 3 months. And NO…GM will not buyback your car. Post your incident on the NHTSA site. If enough people would post, there would be an investigation. GM is hiding the problem.
 
#20 · (Edited)
I'm gonna call BS on this whole thing.

I don't believe anything posted on social media, sorry, that's not proof. All the ones on reddit were deleted by author so that's some credibility there. Facebook is a cesspool of robo posts, fake stories and click-seeking, that's credible. How do know they didnt blow them up out of stupidity or on purpose? No car company could hide this. And yes, GM has to fix it, they do NOT have to buy it back, but I still find that hard to believe as they bought back my used Bolt EV. GM is hiding nothing. No reason the engine should take that long, it's available at GMPartsDirect to retail customers in 7 to 10 business days so I'm sure a dealer could get it faster. To anyone that has worked at a dealership it's easy to see the holes (no pun intended) in this fake story as we know how this all works and how long these things take and how they're reported up the chain to get things fixed. It costs less to fix issues than to fix bad press.
 
#22 ·
Fake story??? JFC….
Call Janzen GMC in Enid Ok. Service manager is Mark Janzen. (580) 366-1905. Ask them if they have a 2024 Chevy Trax awaiting engine replacement since April 13. Ask them how many holes are blown through the engine block due to sudden catastrophic engine failure.

I thought this forum was for people to share information and learn. I joined to search and see if anyone else had the same problem. It’s not fake just because you don’t want to believe it. I’m glad it was under warranty. But I don’t want the car anymore. It is definitely a much bigger problem than people think. And it is a real problem. Be careful about spreading fake information. That doesn’t benefit anyone.
 
#46 ·
It's hard to say these days, everything is built cheap, even the food we eat! It's really profits before people, worse than ever. The almighty dollar will be mankind's demise! Sorry to say, The new Trax, I hope it's not the new cream puff and goes the way of the Vega! Look that GM baby up! I have had about 6 new Chevys from cars to vans to trucks, they all had little quirks but nothing major that couldn't be fixed. I have a idea, start checking your oil when you get gas, look for any metal shiny silver grayish looking on your dip stick, wipe it with a white paper towel for best results! If you do, head to the dealership immediately!
 
#25 ·
Hey mbb. Thanks for posting. Yes we need to get the word out. I will post to the nhtsa site. I don't understand awhodens motives? I'm glad I am leasing. I really loved the car and told everyone about it. Now I'm so embarrassed I told friends to look at buying one. When I turn it in in 3 years it will have very low milage since I have been driving a rental paid for by GM and will prob be driving it for a while. Still no word on my engine arrival. I attached a pic of my car with oil leaking out on the side of the road.
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#48 ·
Too late now, we all own it if you bought. Check your engine oil for metal. This may help to prevent a total blow out, or it's just a defective part that let's go, or it's bad labor. Mexico isn't known for building quality engines. **** shame, I have a 25 so hopefully all these 24 problems are being addressed. I never buy the first run of any new vehicle...
 
#39 ·
I have almost 2000 miles on my 24 Trax and wife is right behind me. I'm really scared. Is there a chance that gm could deny the warranty and try and weisel their way out of engine replacement? What do you do if you are on the interstate going somewhere and the engine explodes going 75 mph and if a piece of the engine internals goes through the firewall and hits a passenger or driver?
 
#42 ·
I was going 70-75 mph. The car started to lose power so I was already moving across traffic lanes to the shoulder when there was an explosive bang and black smoke. Power continued to decrease but I was able to get to the shoulder safely. I don't know if that's been the same experience for others. Hopefully you won't have any issues.
 
#50 ·
Update: the Chevy dealer, after initially dragging their feet re a loaner, called a couple hours ago and said they were sending an Uber for me and were giving me a loaner. When I got to the dealer the service manager said there was a hole blown out of my engine. He said it will take 3-4 months to get the new engine (should I count on at least 6?). They are going to warranty the new engine for 100k miles.
I asked, "This is a problem with these cars, isn't it?" And he said, "Yes."
 
#52 ·
It will all come out no hiding this major malfunction. I was hoping for bad labor VS cheap parts. Over 100 years building old tech engines and this is what we get? Unreal in this day and age for a new engine to blow up? This is bad, very bad, does anyone have 10k miles yet? Being a year old for many some should have 15 plus...
 
#53 ·
I've seen a few people who are around 25-30K in a couple different Facebook groups, but the engine isn't necessarily a new design. It's been in use for the nearly 5 years now in the Chevy Trailblazer and Buick Encore GX front wheel drive models, and there's been little to nothing reported there and my last check of the NTHSA website showed i believe 5 engine failures reported (picture below). The real count should be 4 on there since the last one is someone complaining that the engine turned off after 15 minutes while they locked their dog in the car in the Florida sun and the keyfob was still on their person in a store. They even admit that the manual says that it will only run for 15 minutes with the fob out of the car.

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Roughly 300,000+ of these engines are currently on U.S. roads alone, so if we bump up to say 25 total failures it's still less than 1% of all currently running. If there were major problems with the engine we would have known for the past few years.
 
#55 ·
Could be a parts issue, it could be an issue with a specific assembler taking a liquid lunch, it may have been tied to the spark timing recall currently in effect across the engine line. When i bought my 2019 Trax there was an active recall on models assembled in Mexico for the lower control arms separating while driving due to a malfunctioning robot welder, despite having no issues the previous 6 years of the vehicle. Luckily I had a Korean model that had no issues with their control arms, which i think is why GM limited the production lines to Korea due to quality control issues with Mexico. Now all the engines are produced in Mexico, so that's really the only common thread in it all.