A number of 2020 Corvette Stingray owners are reporting that the frunks of their cars are flying open while driving – which certainly is not the best, or safest, experience you want to have behind the wheel.
Reports of C8 Corvette frunks opening unexpectedly seem to have started back in June over at the Corvette Forum. At the time of writing, this thread had reached 39 pages, with several owners claiming that their hoods popped up while driving. This has prompted a number of Corvette owners to rig up simple carabiners that will make it impossible for the frunk to open.
As noted by Corvette Blogger, the C8 has three different positions that the hood can sit. It can be either fully closed, half-open, or fully open. The hood can be opened by the key fob or pressing a button on the driver’s door.
We have stumbled across a handful of videos captured by the car’s Performance Data Recorder showing the frunk popping up. However, some 2020 Corvette owners have highlighted the various warnings the car gives off when the hood is open, saying that it’s simply not possible for the hood to open up by itself, with YouTuber Chevy Dude saying in one video that it is “100% user error.”
NHTSA complaints
Nevertheless, there have been eight (at the time of writing) separate complaints about the issued filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), where various owners have detailed their experiences of their frunks opening up and causing damage.
Here are some of the complaints filed with NHSTA over the past couple of months:
“I proceeded to drive down the canyon and within 15 seconds I heard the front hood latch click/thump (same sound you hear when you press the button to pop the hood) right before i saw the hood fly up and heard a snap. Sudden loss of visibility almost caused my car to go off the cliff as i couldn’t see the turn,” wrote one owner in a complaint filed August 2, 2020. He added that a GM spokesperson “blamed it on user error”.
“The front trunk lid (the lid) opened at a speed of about 40mph on a city street. The warning light was not lite prior to this incident and nothing activated the lid door switch. This incident bent the lid hinges and dis-aligned the lid resulting in the damaging of the corners of the quarter panels,” said another C8 owner in a complaint filed on July 17.
“I was pulling out of the driveway and onto the city road driving about 30-40 mph and my front trunk opened on its own. I had no warning signs or got no audible alerts when my front trunk opened on its own. I’ve been in contact with my dealership and they said GM warranty will not cover the problem or fix my damages, that my insurance needs to cover that”, wrote another owner.
The complaints go all the way back to April 17, 2020. “While driving the 2020 Corvette at a low speed, the front hood flew open and impaired my visibility. This is Chevrolet’s first attempt at a mid-engine car. So the front hood is actually a trunk. They failed to engineer the appropriate safety latch features into the hood that would prevent this from happening. Hoods are required to have a secondary latch that must be physically operated to open completely,” noted another complaint.
While it is still unclear if users are to blame or not, it is possible that the issue only impacts select C8s and not all VINs, hence why some owners have been unable to replicate the issue.