GM Recalls 1.4M Cars

That's right, another recall. According to reports, in cars with the GM 3.8 V6 known as the L36 (but not the supercharged L67?), a valve cover gasket can degrade over time (no surprise), allowing oil to seep out. Under hard braking, oil can drip onto the exhaust manifold and catch fire.

Frankly, this is normal for just about any engine and the valve covers exhibiting issues nearly 20 years after manufacture is not surprising. The fire part is not acceptable, just the stuff wearing out over time issue. Unfortunately, most of these cars are not seemingly old enough (that would be sarcasm, there) to be displaying this behavior and so people are up in arms and something must be done, thus the recall.

Note that this recall does not impact the LS4 cars that were recently featured here on REVolution. What's extremely odd is that there are plenty of other models that use this same engine but aren't included in the recall (more Buicks, several Oldsmobile models, the Firebird and Camaro....?).

Here's the current list of the affected vehicles; buy s'more makings or get your car to a dealer pronto.

• 1997-2004 Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick Regal
• 2000-2004 Chevrolet Impala
• 1998-1999 Chevrolet Lumina and Oldsmobile Intrigue
• 1998-2004 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

If you have a vehicle with the L36 or the L67, I'd recommend calling your local stealership.