While driving at highway speed, the factory-installed serpentine belt on my 2023 Chevrolet Express 3500 (6.6L V8, approximately 24,000 miles, purchased new, factory-maintained per schedule) failed suddenly and without warning. The belt on this engine drives the water pump and other critical accessories, so the failure caused immediate loss of engine cooling and rapid, severe overheating while the vehicle was in motion in traffic. It also lost power steering assist, making the vehicle significantly harder to control at highway speed. The Vehicle was Brough to a stop manually to the shoulder and it was towed from the scene. The overheating caused internal engine damage, including melted plastic components in the intake tract, and the engine requires complete replacement. An independent repair shop inspected the vehicle and attributed the damage to the belt failure and resulting overheat, not to operator misuse. The vehicle has complete maintenance records. I am reporting this because a sudden serpentine belt failure at 24,000 miles on a nearly new commercial vehicle is a safety hazard: it disables engine cooling and accessory functions without warning while the vehicle is at speed, and in this case destroyed the engine. The servicing Chevrolet dealership advised me that replacement engines for this powertrain are on national backorder with roughly 4,000 units on order and only about 20 available nationwide, which suggests this failure mode and engine damage may not be isolated. The vehicle has been out of service since the incident. The dealer is attmepting to pin blame on me instead of properly fixing & addressing the situation.

Source: NHTSA complaint ODI #11756539 · view all complaints for this vehicle at nhtsa.gov