Engine Failure

[Dragon]

Engine failure ? I am after some information

For the Australians on the forum the car is a 2011 6.2 litre E3 GTS 63,000 klms.
The car was purchased second hand 3 months ago so one cant be sure of it?s previous life however it looks like it has been looked after, a scan of the computer revealed it is all as original GTS of that model and year.
The engine dropped a rod/ broken piston it seems (hole through the block cruising at 110 ks top gear (auto) just prior threw up an engine warning light, the stability control and auto brake warning 30 seconds or so before failing.

History: Prior to this on a cold start 2 to 3 weeks previous the owner revealed the car showed an engine check light a stability control and auto brake warning and was running rough as on 6 cylinders ? it was shut down immediately.
The owner did a restart and it ran fine no engine warning light nothing.
Shut it down and restarted again and same all fine.
Drove the car around locally no problems ? took it to be serviced accordingly no faults,
Did a short country run open road speeds no problems until this 2 weeks later.

The question is can the computer be faulty, and can the computer contribute to the failure.

Any advice or previously experienced be appreciated.

[5FDP]

Unless something was totally obvious through data logs and actually viewing the tune file, I'd say that the computer is a non factor. Something would royally have to be messed up to cause a rod to poke out of the block.

Sounds more like mechanical failure at this point.

[Dragon]

Thanks for you comment, I sort of feel the same and unfortunately we cant get any data logs - the concern is the random issue weeks prior,, in hindsight suggesting something was wrong, but then the vehicle being able to be driven with no problems till now. seems a little off in some ways.

[matty b]

Check over the engine harness, might be melted/shorted which could cause all types of fun failures to happen. What codes set in the PCM and ABS? That will tell the story if it was mechanical or if the engine died due to controls. Ive seen in person a motor throw a rod due to a shorted injector driver and hydrolocked. Sent it out the pan as I watched it being fired up.

[10_SS]

miss fire will usually cause the ABS and brake warnings.. at least they do on other GM platforms. Most likely the check engine light was on for miss fire before it broke the rod.

It seems you need to try to figure out why it what caused the missfire. Whatever caused it could have caused the failure I suppose, like a missfire due to lean condition, etc.

I personally had a loose spark plug boot, ran fine for 2-3 days at a time, then suddenly will miss fire for a bit, then clear up. A bad spark plug or coil could do the same thing. Although rare.

[Dragon]

Update: the engine is being replaced under warranty - the report to-date was a broken valve hence the damage to piston etc -- no report of broken valve spring -- I'm thinking the rough running he experienced (like running on 6 cylinders his words)weeks prior might have been a valve sticking open (dont know if that is likely) perhaps it did again on the cruise and a piston kissed the valve.. would a mechanical failure cause the engine warning light and the associated warnings I listed come on and then be all clear on a restart? would that be because there is no DTC error for the failure?

I'm waiting to hear from him once the new engine is in but I thought I would mention the situation to date.
I will try to collect some data once he gets the vehicle back - I'm not sure if anything is likely to be apparent.

[10_SS]

like I said.. missfire. Missfire causes all of those DTC?s and symptoms. The valve probably stuck, it can happen. Had a Saturn that had a sticky valve.

[s57_s2k]

check engine light May be from low oil pressure.