Z-11 Warranty Claim??

[Blk61409]

in the car business all of my life. I began with a Chevrolet dealer when the 63 Z-11 cars hit. I vividly remember whenever there was a high performance car that came in the dealership for any mechanical warranty work we had to call the Chevrolet Zone office for them to send out a guy to "inspect then deny".
I do remember in 64 we had a guy come in with a 64 SS 409-425hp that had dropped a valve, imagine that. He raised total hell when told no and when the Chevy rep showed up even more so. Anyway, they put a short block and heads on that car, I remember it s vividly because I got the warranty parts after Chevy approved the claim and let us "scrap the parts ourselves". Of course I rebuilt it and I blew it up again later, real good!!!
Back to the story....there was this guy that made an arrangement with a Chevy dealer to campaign a new Z-11 for him(some of you might know this story so feel free to chime in with better details). The racing contract called for the Chevy dealer to take care of parts and the driver would handle labor and race for the dealership. This was not uncommon, I have a copy of Frank Sanders contract for his Z-11 car and when I raced for the Chevy dealer he bought the cars and provided the parts and I supplied the labor, but I got to keep the weekly winnings.
Anyway, all went well , small parts here and there, gaskets, oil, etc, until finally bad things happened!!! The racer blew up the engine and went to the dealer, the dealer said this has to be under warranty and called Chevy and they did the "inspect and deny".
The dealer/racer took on Chevy for a warranty claim/lawsuit. Chevy stalled and motions flew and time passed. Finally Chevy decided to give him a new 427 engine. They both smiled because a lot of time had passed, the parts truck arrived along with the Chevy service rep. They opened the crate only to find a new 1966 427/425HP engine, not a Z-11. Remember, by now this was about 1 1/2 years later!!! Seems the attorneys and the bean counters agreed to a 427 High Performance engine settlement. So, what to do. Since the Z-11 was old technology they opted for the latest greatest 427!!! At that point the Chevy rep said "I have to destroy the old engine because it is a warranty claim!! Now, no one ask then had any idea what the value of ne of these would be today so they said of course.(wish I had been there). They go to the dealership shop where the Z-11 engine was stored and the Chevy rep began his work. First he took a Ball Peen hammer and could do no damage, then he asked for a heavier hammer.
Now, he gave up after what you see in the photos and gave the rest of the engine back to the dealership for their disposal. As I understand the engine went on to power another car and this is the ONLY FACTORY WARRANTY CLAIM paid by Chevrolet for the Z-11's.
Now the photos in the next message!

 

[Blk61409]

I

Ball Peen Hammer marks














I think the Z-11 car was campaigned out of St Louis.

 

[Iowa 409 Guy]

Thanks for the story Pat.

 

[1961BelAir427]

I always look forward to your posts Pat. Did they end up putting the Mark IV 427/425HP engine in the Z11 body or was it long gone after 1.5 years?

 

[mark johnson]

Here's that exact intake on the car it came from in better days.

 

[jim_ss409]

That's a great story.
It's almost a wonder that somebody saved that manifold and the broken pieces.

I've always thought it would have been great if Chevrolet would have used the Z-11 engine as the regular hi performance passenger car engine in 63, 64 and 65, but can you imagine the warranty claims.

 

[tripower]

Great story Pat..

 

[61BUBBLE348]

x2

I am sure there are guys who could fix that manifold.

was it scrapped?

 

[Blk61409]

A friend of mine has it and all the pieces. Yes it could be repaired but he has chosen to keep it as is.

 

[skipxt4]

Somebody, should have smashed the Chevy rep's balls, with that ball pein.

 

[Quickshift409]

 

[oil4kids]

That is a very similar story that Lamar Walden told me on a factory claim ZL1,,427 alum engine blew and the factory rep took a ball peen hammer to the front cylinder, I think Lamar fixed it

 

[Greg Reimer]

One dealer I worked for in the very late '70s had a service manager of miniature stature who was a notorious little thief. Zone reps used to absolutely destroy warranty parts on his watch to keep from paying for them more than once. Fraud was an art form to some.

 

[Blk61409]

Greg, I remember those days. There were "worms" like that all over car dealerships. The factory was usually lenient until they reviewed enough repair orders to give them just cause. When that happened "all hell" broke loose as it should. As you said the factory would physically destroy every warranty part and then they could even charge the claim back. I know of one dealer that got charged back over $250,000 in bogus claims!!! Those guys gave a bad name to everyone else. We always worked with the factory especially on high labor only claims such as those elusive short in electrical wires. Never had a problem.

 

[Greg Reimer]

People like that also used to get the parts off of late model customer pay jobs and submit warranty claims on the same car,sometimes sticking customers with the bill even though it was warranty. I guess they felt that there was nothing like getting paid twice. I used to see union labor assembly line workers do the absolute worst assembly work imaginable for $17-$20 an hour back in the late '70's,we had to find,fix and repair their work for next to nothing on commission,then have to eat it when the warranty claim was denied.I left the dealership world in 1980,and don't miss it a bit.That Z manifold should be fixed. A real good heliarc welder could fix it and return one more part to operational status.

 

[models916]

Back in 69 my buddy Toni would warrantee my racing damage for for a Jefferson and a signature on the paperwork. One time I drove it in on Monday morning with slicks and traction bars and the welds ripped out of the axel tubes. New 12 bolt on claim by Friday.

 

[Greg Reimer]

This same little runt service manager got a kid's warranty voided on a big block Nova claiming abuse. Also,if you want to get rough with a 12 bolt,get the axle tubes welded into the center casting.

 

[blkblk63ss]

Back in those race day's when i raced out at the{ convention} strip in great bend,ks my cousin was watching a 63 turn some what he called Hellacious time's out there and he went to the pit's to look at it and not knowing what he was looking at said it looked different than any other engine he had seen for a 63.I did not see it as i was racing my own car.Could this been the St Louis car that Pat mentioned??????

 

[Floyd Horton]

There were two Z-11's that raced out of Wichita. Bill Clay had one, and the other was raced by Schultz and Schriver. It was probably one of them.