The Product: Sold as a Workhorse, Built as a Liability

In 2019, General Motors rolled out the 6.2L V8 L87 engine as the successor to its L86 predecessor. GM’s own marketing language describes the L87 as “buil[t] upon the previous 6.2L L86 with Integral components for Automatic Start/Stop capability and available Dynamic Fuel Management (DFM) for even greater efficiency.” That promise of efficiency is central to understanding the betrayal. The cylinder deactivation system designed to save fuel is, according to the complaint, the exact mechanism most closely associated with the engine failures. The feature GM used to justify the upgrade is the feature that is tearing these engines apart.

The vehicles carrying this engine are not obscure. The Chevrolet Silverado 1500, Chevrolet Tahoe, Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Sierra 1500, GMC Yukon, GMC Yukon XL, Cadillac Escalade, and Cadillac Escalade ESV are the backbone of GM’s lineup. These are the trucks and SUVs that hardworking people stretch their budgets to buy. They are marketed explicitly at “daily drivers,” “hardworking professionals,” and “adventure seekers.” GM positioned the L87 as the engine for people who depend on their vehicles. It was, the complaint alleges, defective from the start.

The defect itself is mechanical and specific. The complaint describes it as “internal engine component failure” resulting from “improper installation of the wrist pin and circlip (a.k.a. retaining clip), or due to missing circlips.” When the circlip is missing or improperly seated, the wrist pin displaces. When the wrist pin displaces, the connecting rod fails. A connecting rod failure at highway speed is not a fender bender. It can mean an engine seizing mid-lane on an interstate, a vehicle suddenly decelerating from 70 miles per hour with no warning, surrounded by traffic. NHTSA itself confirmed this creates “an increased risk of a crash resulting in injury and/or property damage.” The complaint notes that “there is no detectability prior to the failure.” You will not see it coming.

The complaint states that GM has known about these defects since at least 2021. The engine launched in 2019. That means GM had years of internal knowledge about this problem while it kept selling vehicles containing the defective engine to consumers who trusted the brand’s reputation, trusted its warranty, and trusted that a company charging tens of thousands of dollars per vehicle had done the basic quality control required to make those vehicles safe. According to the complaint, GM did not disclose the defect. It continued promoting and selling class vehicles without informing buyers of the risk they were taking on.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What the Settlement Won’t Cover

Every major corporate misconduct story eventually gets reduced to a dollar figure. A settlement. A fine. A line in an earnings report. What gets lost in that reduction is the actual texture of what happened to real people. So before we get to the legal claims and the unjust enrichment counts and the breach of warranty arguments, let’s account for what money cannot fully repay.

The plaintiff in this case, Jose Ignacio Ramirez Hernandez, bought a new 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 from Andean Chevrolet in Cumming, Georgia. He was on his way to work when the engine failed. The truck had 46,397 miles on the odometer. That is not a high-mileage vehicle. That is a truck that should have had years of reliable service ahead of it. Instead, he lost the use of his truck for over two months while GM attempted repairs. Two months of not being able to get to work in his own vehicle. Two months of figuring out alternatives, burning time, probably burning money on other transportation, explaining to his employer why he was dealing with a truck situation, all because GM sold him a vehicle with a defect it knew existed and chose not to disclose.

Now consider the professional driver whose 2021 GMC Yukon XL failed on the highway in November 2024 with just 35,000 miles. That is an engine that quit in traffic, at speed, with no warning. GM replaced the engine. The replacement engine failed too, again on a highway. Then the second replacement failed. Three engine failures on the highway in the same vehicle. The driver filed a complaint with NHTSA and stated plainly: “this vehicle is not safe at all” and that “on these three occasions I have been lucky not to be hit.” Lucky. That word carries a weight that no warranty claim can resolve. This person drove through three near-death situations in a vehicle that a major American corporation told them was “rugged” and “reliable.” The stress of that experience does not appear in any actuarial table. The hypervigilance on every subsequent highway drive, the involuntary calculation of what is happening under the hood every time the engine shifts, the erosion of trust in a machine that is supposed to be a tool but has become a source of fear: none of that shows up in a diminished-value calculation.

The complaint describes another customer whose class vehicle also failed on the highway, and who, mirroring the lead plaintiff’s experience, waited two months for repairs. The service manager and mechanic revealed something telling during that interaction: they said “there was a refinement to the wrist pin retaining clip design to prevent the connecting rod from causing the failure.” A refinement. That is the language of an industry that knew the clip design was inadequate and quietly updated it. The people who bought the vehicles before that refinement were not told. They were not warned. They drove those vehicles, likely for years, with a ticking mechanical problem underneath them. The fact that a repair shop could casually mention a design refinement as the cause of failure suggests this was not a mystery to the people who work inside the GM ecosystem. The mystery was kept from the people who bought the product.

The complaint makes a point that deserves to be read slowly: “[A] dead motor is just the beginning of this ordeal for many GM customers.” Even vehicles still under warranty provided no relief because GM dealer service departments had no replacement engines to give. The complaint cites a company source who confirmed that GM could not build components of its 6.2L engines fast enough to both meet demand in new trucks and fix all the broken ones. So the customer experience is this: you buy a truck. The engine fails, possibly on the highway. You bring it in under warranty. The dealer tells you there is no replacement engine available. You wait. With no vehicle. No clear timeline. No alternative transportation provided. All while you are still making payments on a truck sitting in a dealership lot. For people who depend on their trucks for their livelihoods, for contractors, tradespeople, small business owners, this is not a minor inconvenience. This is an active financial emergency, layered on top of the physical danger that created it.

The complaint underscores that Plaintiff and class members “paid more for the class vehicles than they would have paid if they’d known the vehicles were equipped with a defective engine.” That is the financial framing. But there is a dignity framing as well. These consumers trusted GM’s brand. They trusted the warranty. They trusted that a company with GM’s resources and history had done the engineering properly. That trust was extended in good faith, and the complaint’s allegations suggest it was met with a company that knew about a defect since at least 2021 and chose to keep quiet while continuing to collect full purchase price on vehicles that could strand their drivers on the highway without warning. The betrayal of that trust is not a line item. It is the whole story.

Legal Receipts: Quoted Directly From the Complaint

The following are direct quotations and specific factual statements from the source complaint, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS. These are the receipts. Nothing here is paraphrased or invented.

“GM’s new engine—the 6.2L V8 L87—is dangerously defective and has no resale value. One engine failed after four miles of driving. Other consumers have experienced ‘sudden and catastrophic’ engine failures within days of buying vehicles GM equipped with the engine. Some consumers have had the defective engine repaired only to have the repaired engine fail twice more.” Complaint ¶1, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“The problem is so widespread that GM has been telling service centers, in effect, that it doesn’t have enough parts to fix all the broken engines. This has left consumers stranded with little reason to believe that GM will rectify it.” Complaint ¶1, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“The class vehicles are subject to complete failure with little or no warning. Repairs are complex, expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes the repaired engines also fail. The result is substantial diminution in value and loss of use for the owners whose engines have failed.” Complaint ¶3, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“Customer complaints include ‘a bearing failure that may result in either engine seizure or breaching of the engine block by the connecting rod.’ For consumers, the engine failures are unpredictable: ‘there is no detectability prior to the failure.’ And these engine failures create ‘an increased risk of a crash resulting in injury and/or property damage,’ according to the Administration.” Complaint ¶11, citing NHTSA ODI Resume, Investigation No. PE25001

“One professional driver, for instance, reported that his 2021 Yukon XL failed on the highway in November 2024 with just 35,000 miles on the odometer. GM replaced the engine, but the replacement engine failed too, again on a highway. The replacement engine failed a third time, yet again on the highway. As the driver put it, ‘this vehicle is not safe at all,’ and on ‘these three occasions I have been lucky not to be hit.'” Complaint ¶12, citing NHTSA ID No. 11627117 (Nov. 23, 2024)

“GM has known about these defects with the subject engine since at least 2021.” Complaint ¶12, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“Since the Administration opened the investigation, there have been ‘more than a thousand complaints’ of ‘sudden and catastrophic [engine] failure.’ This is ‘a major quality control issue,’ ‘leaving many owners stranded with disabled vehicles and no clear timeline for repairs.'” Complaint ¶15, citing Byron Hurd, TheDrive.com (Jan. 27, 2025) and Johnathan Lopez, GMAuthority.com (Feb. 1, 2025)

“[A] dead motor is just the beginning of this ordeal for many GM customers. Even though many of the defective engines are in new models and still under warranty, that does customers no good when GM dealer service departments have no replacement engines to offer.” Complaint ¶19, citing Byron Hurd, TheDrive.com (Jan. 27, 2025)

“A company source confirmed … that right now GM can’t build components of its 6.2s fast enough to both meet the demand in new trucks and fix all the broken ones.” Complaint ¶19, citing Byron Hurd, TheDrive.com (Jan. 27, 2025); GM Customer Satisfaction Program N232413430 (Apr. 2024)

“The failures are mostly associated with cylinder deactivation, which was supposed to improve efficiency. That promise of increased efficiency has proven false. In fact, GM vehicles without cylinder deactivation do not have these engine problems.” Complaint ¶24, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“To date, GM has not issued a recall on the class vehicles.” Complaint ¶25, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“The class vehicles share common design, manufacturing, and assembly defects in that they are equipped with the same defective engine, which can suddenly fail during normal operation, leaving occupants of the vehicles vulnerable to crashes, serious injury, and death at highway speeds.” Complaint ¶43, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“Any attempt by GM to disclaim or limit its express warranties by way of consumers would be inappropriate under the circumstances. Any asserted limitation is unconscionable and unenforceable because GM knowingly sold a defective product without informing consumers and failed to honor its express warranties.” Complaint ¶71, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“GM has received and retained a benefit from leasing and selling class vehicles to Plaintiff and class members and inequity has resulted. GM has benefitted from selling and leasing the class vehicles, for more than they were worth because of their concealed defects, at a profit, and Plaintiff and class members have overpaid for the vehicles and have been forced to pay other costs.” Complaint ¶¶91–92, Claim 4: Unjust Enrichment, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

“GM has acted in bad faith, has been stubbornly litigious, and has caused Plaintiff and the class members unnecessary trouble and expense.” Complaint ¶98, Claim 5: Attorney’s Fees & Costs, Case 2:25-cv-00085-RWS (Apr. 3, 2025)

Societal Impact Mapping: The Damage Beyond the Driveway

Environmental Degradation

The 6.2L V8 L87 engine was sold to consumers with a specific environmental pitch embedded in its design. General Motors explicitly marketed the Dynamic Fuel Management (DFM) system and cylinder deactivation capability as tools for “even greater efficiency.” In a climate where consumers are increasingly aware of emissions and fuel consumption, and where federal fuel economy standards carry real regulatory weight, this was not a neutral engineering choice. It was a selling point. GM told buyers: this engine is better for the environment because it can deactivate cylinders when they are not needed.

That promise collapsed. The complaint establishes that the engine failures are “mostly associated with cylinder deactivation.” The DFM system, the feature that justified the efficiency claims, is the mechanism most directly linked to the catastrophic failures. This means that in nearly 877,710 vehicles, the cylinder deactivation technology is actively unreliable. Owners and mechanics who understand this will disable or avoid conditions that trigger deactivation. That behavioral response eliminates whatever marginal fuel economy benefit the technology was supposed to provide. The net result is a fleet of nearly one million large-displacement gasoline V8 trucks and SUVs running without the efficiency upgrade consumers paid for and GM advertised, burning more fuel over the life of each vehicle than the stated specifications suggested.

The environmental accounting also includes the waste generated by failed engines themselves. Catastrophic connecting rod failures and engine seizures do not produce repairable units in most cases. They produce scrap. The complaint describes engines that have failed multiple times in the same vehicle, requiring full replacements. Each destroyed engine represents the raw materials, manufacturing energy, and logistics of a complete engine assembly. Multiply that across the thousands of failures already documented by NHTSA and the thousands more that have almost certainly gone unreported, and the material waste is substantial. These are not small components. These are full-displacement V8 engines, heavy assemblies with aluminum blocks, steel internals, and complex electronic management systems, going to scrap at low mileage because of a circlip.

Public Health

The public health dimension of this defect is immediate and visceral. NHTSA’s own documentation states that the engine failures create “an increased risk of a crash resulting in injury and/or property damage.” The complaint reinforces this with real-world data: a professional driver experienced three separate highway engine failures in the same vehicle over a short period. Each of those failures was a potential multi-vehicle crash. An engine that seizes at highway speed does not coast gently to the shoulder. It locks up. It creates a sudden and unexpected deceleration event in a large, heavy vehicle surrounded by other drivers who have no warning that a 5,000-pound truck is about to stop moving at 70 miles per hour.

The vehicles involved in this defect are not small sedans. The Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon XL, and Cadillac Escalade ESV are among the largest passenger vehicles on American roads. An engine failure at highway speed in any of these vehicles is a mass-casualty risk event in the wrong circumstances. The complaint confirms that consumers have already experienced these failures on highways, that some have “been lucky not to be hit,” and that NHTSA received more than one thousand complaints of sudden and catastrophic failure after its investigation opened. These are not edge cases. They are a pattern, and the pattern involves the most dangerous possible failure mode: sudden, unpredictable loss of propulsion at speed with no detectable warning sign beforehand.

Beyond the acute crash risk, the stress dimension of living with a vehicle known to fail without warning carries its own public health weight. The complaint describes owners stranded for weeks, unable to get to work, without replacement vehicles, without clear timelines for repair. The working people who depend on these trucks for income, contractors who haul equipment, tradespeople who travel between job sites, people who commute long distances, are not experiencing a minor inconvenience. They are experiencing sustained financial stress, logistical disruption, and the psychological burden of knowing their vehicle may fail at any moment. That sustained stress has measurable health effects, and it was imposed on these consumers without their knowledge or consent.

Economic Inequality

There is a specific class dimension to this story that deserves direct attention. The complaint notes that the defect is “especially dire for people who need their trucks for work.” These are not luxury consumers who can absorb the disruption by calling a car service. These are working people who purchased heavy-duty trucks and large SUVs specifically because their livelihoods depend on reliable transportation. A contractor cannot haul materials in a truck sitting in a dealership service bay with no replacement engine available. A tradesperson cannot get to job sites. A small business owner cannot fulfill contracts. The income loss that flows from a two-month repair wait is not theoretical. It is real money, coming out of real people’s pockets, while GM continues to sell new vehicles with the same defective engine.

The pricing of the affected vehicles adds a sharp edge to the inequality analysis. The Cadillac Escalade, one of the class vehicles, is a flagship luxury SUV with a base price well above $80,000. The GMC Yukon XL and Chevrolet Suburban are not cheap vehicles. Even the entry-level Silverado 1500 and Sierra 1500 represent significant financial commitments for most American families. When a consumer stretches their budget to purchase a flagship vehicle and that vehicle’s engine fails catastrophically within tens of thousands of miles, the financial damage goes beyond repair costs. The complaint makes clear that these vehicles “have no resale value” as a result of the defect. A vehicle that is widely known to have a catastrophic engine defect cannot be sold at market rate. Owners who need to get out from under the financial burden of a broken truck face a market that has already priced the defect in. They absorb the loss.

The unjust enrichment claim in the complaint captures the core economic inequality at work: GM sold these vehicles “for more than they were worth because of their concealed defects, at a profit.” The company collected full price. The consumers got defective products. And while GM’s supply chain buckles under the weight of its own quality failure, the company has not issued a recall. The financial consequence of a recall, including the cost of replacement engines and the logistical infrastructure to execute it, sits on GM’s balance sheet. Without a recall, that cost gets distributed onto individual consumers through stranded vehicles, lost work, repair delays, and depreciated resale value. The corporation keeps the margin. The working person absorbs the risk. That is the economic inequality map of this story, drawn in the plain language of the complaint itself.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now: Names, Watchlists, and Next Steps

The complaint was filed by attorneys at Cheeley Law Group, LLC in Alpharetta, Georgia. The legal team includes:

• Robert D. Cheeley (Georgia Bar No. 122727)
• Andre T. Tennille III (Georgia Bar No. 940510)
• Gabrielle D. Gravel (Georgia Bar No. 449376)
• McKenzie R. Nadel (Georgia Bar No. 251909)

The defendant is General Motors LLC, a Delaware limited liability company with its principal place of business in Michigan. Its parent structure: General Motors Company owns 100% of General Motors Holdings LLC, which owns 100% of General Motors LLC. All entities incorporated in Delaware.

Corporate roles that carry accountability for this product defect, based on the complaint’s allegations about design, manufacture, distribution, marketing, and sale:

Regulatory Watchlist

FTC — GM marketed these vehicles as “rugged” and “reliable.” Allegations of concealing a known defect while continuing to advertise a product with false

hernandez-v-general-motors-llcDownload

Explore by category

01

Antitrust

Monopolies and anti-competition tactics used to crush rivals.

View Cases →

02

Product Safety Violations

When companies sell dangerous goods, consumers pay the price.

View Cases →

03

Environmental Violations

Pollution, ecological collapse, and unchecked greed.

View Cases →

04

Labor Exploitation

Wage theft, worker abuse, and unsafe conditions.

View Cases →

05

Data Breaches & Privacy

Misuse and mishandling of personal information.

View Cases →

06

Financial Fraud & Corruption

Lies, scams, and executive impunity that distort markets.

View Cases →

07

Intellectual Property

IP theft that punishes originality and rewards copying.

View Cases →

08

Misleading Marketing

False claims that waste money and bury critical safety info.

View Cases →

Post Views: 155

Related posts:

How to Steal a Cadillac in 30 Seconds. Ford Sold Broncos & Mavericks That Were “Deadly Crash Risks”. Did Ford Know Its Hybrids Could Catch Fire Before Selling Them to Your Family? BMW knew their plastic oil filter housing was defective in 2015. Owners found out when their engines failed.

Aleeia

I'm Aleeia, the creator of this website.

I have 6+ years of experience as an independent researcher covering corporate misconduct, sourced from legal documents, regulatory filings, and professional legal databases.

My background includes a Supply Chain Management degree from Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business, and years working inside the industries I now cover.

Every post on this site was either written or personally reviewed and edited by me before publication.

Learn more about my research standards and editorial process by visiting my About page

Articles: 1893