- A video shared online shows the moment a Corvette Z06 burst into flames while refueling.
- Gasoline vapor is believed to have been blown onto the C8’s hot engine by the cooling fan.
- GM issued a Z06/ZR1 stop-sale last month, but the E-Ray and Stingray aren’t affected.
When GM started work on the first mid-engined production Corvette, the late, great naturally-aspirated Ferrari 458 was one of the sports cars it benchmarked the new C8 against. But the Corvette has also managed to replicate one of the 458’s less welcome traits, that being its propensity to burst into flames, and new video footage shows exactly that happening to an unfortunate Z06.
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Shawn Conner was refueling his 2024 Corvette Z06 3LZ at a gas station in June when his 670 hp (679 PS) sports car suddenly caught fire. The blaze took hold so fast that there was nothing he could do to save the Corvette, which was comprehensively destroyed.
“Anybody have any experience, or ever heard of anything like this before?” he asked in a Facebook posting earlier this summer. “Car exploded while pumping gas. I have an idea, but would love to hear what everyone else thinks.”
Related: Sub-$100K Corvette Z06s Are Almost Here As Prices Keep Falling
And Conner’s isn’t the only C8 to suffer a fiery fate. Multiple posts on social media showing melted Corvettes prove the problem is not restricted to his Z06, and one of GM’s own company vehicles was also ruined, a report says.
Chevy Hits Pause On Some Corvette Sales
GM put a temporary halt on sales of certain new Corvettes last month and issued a recall affecting more than 23,000 Corvettes from the 2023-2026 model years due to a design flaw that could make refueling deadly. If fuel vapor or spilled fuel drifts towards a cooling fan located nearby, it can be sucked into the hot engine bay, causing it to ignite. Only the hot flat-plane crank Z06 and the even hotter turbocharged ZR1 are affected.
Chevy has already developed a shield to prevent spilled gasoline from being blown onto the engine, the Wall Street Journal reports, but needs to finalize supplier and distribution details before the part can be released, probably in the next few weeks.
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“The safety of our customers is the highest priority for the entire GM team, and we’re working to remedy this matter as quickly as possible,” a GM spokesperson told the WSJ.
The regular Stingray and all-wheel drive E-Ray hybrid, which use the LT2 pushrod V8 and not the LT6 and LT7 DOHC V8s in the Z06 and ZR1, don’t suffer from the same fire risk and aren’t part of the recall and stop sale order.
GM already advises Corvette owners via the C8 handbook not to pull the fuel pump handle trigger again once it has clicked off, and to always wait five seconds after releasing the trigger before pulling the nozzle out of the filler neck to avoid dripping fuel. One owner wrote on social media that the pump he was using failed to click off, resulting in his car catching fire.
Not Just A Corvette Problem
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Ferrari was forced to recall over 1,000 early examples of the 458 Italia in 2010 after several cars caught fire. The fault was traced to overheating glue used on the wheelarch liners, though Ferrari said only cars that were driven extremely hard were at risk. A few years later, both the California T and the 458’s successor, the 488 GTB, were also recalled or the subject of stop-sale notices due to fire worries.
