NHTSA complaint #11511632

Owner complaint summary

Clutch blew two holes through my transmission. I was driving home from skiing. Early that morning an error code came on stating my clutch was getting too hot. I was in stop and go traffic for like 15 min when it happened. I mostly kept my car in neutral and only used the clutch when I needed to move forward more than my car could roll on its own. Driving home from the mountain I was on the freeway when an emblem turned on with a Sterling wheel and and exclamation point. Right soon after that as I was getting off the freeway I downshifted to 3rd gear and my car shot up to 5 rpm’s so I shifted to 4th gear and my car shot up to 5 rpm’s so I shifted to 5th gear and my car shot up to 5 rpm’s so I shifted to 6th gear and my car shot up to 5 rpm’s and then I head a loud explosion and my car and I hurried and pulled over. I had two other cars pull over because they saw my car of fire. They yelled at me to get out of my car and then quickly checked everything and found the fire had put itself out. I had my 6 year old nephew in the car and I was worried about his safety if the car was on fire but also the safety of having his outside of the car on a major highway. We determined the car wasn’t at a full engulfed in flames risk so I kept him in the car. I then towed my car to the dealership who misdiagnosed it so I towed it to a clutch shop when showed me there were actually two holes through my transmission. My warranty wouldn’t cover it and the recall refused it because they had “don’t the recall” aka looked at it and did a software update and said that’s all the were required to do. I ended up finding a used transmission and was able to get that installed as well as a clutch. I was out of a car for 6 weeks and the emotional stress of being jerked around and not being helped when it’s clear with the recalls this is a huge issue that is getting ignored. The GM of the dealership is now involved and trying to help me get this solved.