GM Valve Lifter Lawsuit Update, What the AFM and DFM Case Really Means for Your Truck in 2026

TL;DR

• The GM valve lifter lawsuit is Harrison et al. v. General Motors, LLC, Case No. 2:21-cv-12927, filed in December 2021 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan before Judge Laurie J. Michelson (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).
• There is no certified class, no settlement fund, and no claim form. Nothing exists to “join” yet, and the court’s own order confirms that facilitation and mediation between the parties already failed (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).
• GM has never issued a safety recall for Active Fuel Management or Dynamic Fuel Management valve lifters. The 597,630-vehicle recall people keep confusing this with, NHTSA campaign 25V-274, covers connecting rods and crankshafts, not lifters (NHTSA Part 573 Safety Recall Report, 2025).
• On 17 February 2026 the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to split the AFM and DFM claims into separate cases, keeping one sprawling case together and pushing class certification further out (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).
• A state lemon law or Magnuson-Moss warranty claim belongs to you alone, usually resolves in months rather than years, and in most states the manufacturer pays your attorney fees if you win.

What Is the GM Valve Lifter Lawsuit

The GM valve lifter lawsuit is a proposed class action called Harrison et al. v. General Motors, LLC, Case No. 2:21-cv-12927, pending in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, before Judge Laurie J. Michelson. Danny Harrison and 38 other named plaintiffs allege that the valve train systems in their GM trucks and SUVs are defective (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

Two terms you will see everywhere in this case, defined once so the rest of the article makes sense.

Active Fuel Management (AFM) is GM’s older cylinder deactivation system. It shuts down four of the eight cylinders when the engine does not need full power, which saves a small amount of fuel.

Dynamic Fuel Management (DFM) is the newer version. Instead of one four-cylinder mode, the control module can run 17 different firing patterns and switch between them in milliseconds. Picture a computer playing whack-a-mole with your cylinders several times per second, every mile you drive.

Both systems rely on special collapsible lifters. The plaintiffs call the resulting problem the Valve-Train Defect, and their complaint says it causes engines to misfire because valves fail to open and close at the right times, which makes the vehicle stall, surge, or lose power while being driven. They also point to a ticking noise from the engine, along with chirps, squeals, and squeaks, as evidence (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

The complaint filed in December 2021 was amended twice, in April 2022 and again in March 2023. GM filed two motions to dismiss and a motion to compel arbitration. The court granted each of them only in part, which is why the case survived (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

How AFM and DFM Lifter Failure Actually Happens

A lifter fails when the small locking mechanism that lets it collapse for cylinder deactivation stops working, and the failure then travels outward into parts that cost a great deal more than the lifter did.

Here is the mechanical sequence in plain language.

A normal lifter is a solid link between the camshaft and the pushrod. An AFM or DFM lifter is a two-piece part with an internal spring and locking pin. When the computer deactivates a cylinder, oil pressure releases the pin, the lifter collapses, and the valve stops opening. When the cylinder is needed again, the pin re-locks.

The problem arrives when the pin sticks, the spring breaks, or the lifter jams in the wrong position. A stuck lifter bends the pushrod. A bent pushrod stops the valve from working. From there, the damage spreads to the camshaft, the valve springs, the rocker arms, and the valve lifter oil manifold, and at that point you are no longer repairing a lifter. You are rebuilding the top of an engine.

Think of it like a deadbolt in a door that gets used a few hundred times a day. It works fine for years. Then one day it half-throws, the door slams into it, and now you are replacing the door, the frame, and the wall around it.

GM’s dealer service documents describe the underlying condition on 2021 model year trucks and SUVs as a broken valve lifter lock pin spring in the naturally aspirated 5.3L L84 V8 and 6.2L L87 V8 (GM Authority, 2021).

The plaintiffs go further. They allege the lifters were made from lightweight material that does not hold up, were installed in the wrong positions, and were designed without properly accounting for how differently the lifters and the aluminum engine block expand and contract with heat, which leaves too little clearance (CarComplaints, 2025).

Their sharpest allegation is the one owners feel most. When a lifter fails under warranty, the replacement part is the same part. Same design, same alleged defect, same eventual outcome, usually somewhere past the warranty expiration date where the bill lands on you (CarComplaints, 2025).

Which GM Vehicles and Engines Are in the Valve Lifter Lawsuit

The vehicles at issue in Harrison are GM trucks and SUVs from model years 2014 through 2021 equipped with 5.3L, 6.0L, or 6.2L V8 engines using AFM or DFM cylinder deactivation. That model year range comes from the court’s own February 2026 order describing the named plaintiffs’ vehicles (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

This is worth pausing on, because it is the single detail most articles get wrong. A great many summaries describe the class vehicles as “2014 to present.” The proposed statewide classes in the operative complaint are built around the 39 named plaintiffs, and those vehicles run 2014 to 2021. If you own a 2023 Silverado with a ticking 5.3, you are not automatically inside this case just because a headline said “present.”

Source: model list as reported by CarComplaints, 2026. Named plaintiff vehicles fall within model years 2014 to 2021 per the court’s order.

The engines involved are GM Small Block V8s: the 5.3L L84, the 6.2L L87, and the 6.0L Vortec L96, plus earlier AFM-equipped 5.3L and 6.2L variants (GM Authority, 2025).

If you want the model-specific picture rather than the litigation picture, our breakdowns of GMC 6.2 engine problems and the 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 cover what owners report year by year.

Symptoms of GM Valve Lifter Failure Owners Report Most

The most commonly reported symptom is a ticking or tapping noise from the top of the engine, usually followed within days or weeks by a misfire code, reduced power, or a no-start. Lifter failure sometimes announces itself early. Sometimes it does not announce itself at all.

Those symptom descriptions track the language in the complaint itself, which specifically identifies a ticking noise plus chirps, squeals, and squeaks (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

Two owner accounts show how wide the mileage range is. One fleet buyer described losing a 2019 GMC Sierra Denali 6.2 to catastrophic failure at just over 30,000 miles, which the warranty covered, and a second identical truck at just over 70,000 miles, which it did not. The out-of-warranty repair ran past $10,000, and the truck sat waiting for parts.

On the other end, owner comments published under GM Authority’s 2026 litigation coverage include a 2020 Camaro SS that dropped a DFM lifter while driving and took the camshaft with it, and a 2019 Silverado 5.3 whose owner shut the engine off at the first tick, trailered it, and had the DFM system deleted rather than reinstall the same design (GM Authority owner comments, 2026).

Those are owner-reported figures, not manufacturer data. Treat them as the shape of the problem rather than a price quote.

Where the GM Valve Lifter Lawsuit Stands Right Now

As of August 2026, Harrison is still in pretrial litigation. No class has been certified, no settlement has been reached, no trial date is public, and nothing is currently paying anyone. The case is more than four and a half years old.

Here is the timeline that matters.

Sources: Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026; CarComplaints, 2025; CarComplaints, 2026.

What the February 2026 Ruling Actually Decided

The plaintiffs asked the court to break the case in two, arguing that AFM vehicles contain an allegedly defective part that DFM vehicles do not, so the two groups should be tried separately. GM opposed it, warning the court that severance would produce two sets of expert discovery, two sets of summary judgment and Daubert motions, two class certification briefs, and two trials (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

Judge Michelson sided with GM, decided the motion without a hearing, and worked through the five-factor severance test from the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Parchman v. SLM Corp. She was blunt about the timing. The court had flagged this exact issue in January 2023, told the parties to be ready to discuss severing the lawsuit by engine part, and then waited almost three years. The plaintiffs filed the motion on 15 December 2025, the four-year anniversary of the case, which is an anniversary present nobody asked for (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

The practical effect on you as an owner is small in the short term and meaningful in the long term. Class certification briefing now has to cover both engine families at once, in one case, across many states. That is harder to win, not easier.

The Detail Almost Nobody Reports

Buried in the same order is the sentence that changes how you should think about waiting. The parties participated in facilitation and mediation, and those efforts were unsuccessful (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

Settlement talks in this case have already happened and already collapsed. Anyone telling you a payout is coming soon is not reading the docket.

Why There Is Still No GM Valve Lifter Recall

GM has never issued an NHTSA safety recall for AFM or DFM valve lifters. What GM issued instead was quieter and much narrower.

In late 2021, GM released service update N212353840 for 2021 model year full-size trucks and SUVs sitting in dealer inventory, instructing technicians to replace the lifters on both banks before the vehicles were sold to customers. GM’s position was that a broken valve lifter lock pin spring is not a safety hazard, so it was handled as a service update rather than a recall (GM Authority, 2021).

Read that once more. GM told dealers to fix the lifters on unsold trucks. Owners who had already taken delivery of the same trucks were not part of the campaign.

Separately, GM’s guidance to dealers gave them the option, for customers with prior valve lifter failures, to replace a bank of lifters and issue a 60-month, 100,000-mile Powertrain Component Coverage Letter, replace the entire engine, or escalate to a District Manager of Aftersales (GM Authority, 2021). That extended coverage is a real benefit if you have it, and it is worth confirming with your dealer in writing. It also only helps owners who failed early enough to be inside the original warranty. GM’s standard powertrain warranty runs five years or 60,000 miles.

The plaintiffs’ central complaint about all of this is that a recall should have been issued years ago, and that in its absence, owners have been paying for a defect GM knew about (CarComplaints, 2025).

Is the L87 Engine Recall the Same Thing as the Valve Lifter Lawsuit

No, and this is the confusion costing owners the most time.

They involve some of the same trucks and one of the same engines, and that is where the overlap ends. Different part, different failure, different court case.

Sources: NHTSA Part 573 Safety Recall Report, 2025; NHTSA Recall Query RQ26001, 2026; Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026.

The rod bearing story is moving faster than the lifter story. NHTSA opened Recall Query RQ26001 on 16 January 2026 after 36 owners reported engines that failed after the recall repair had already been performed. By the time the agency sent GM its formal information request on 17 February 2026, that count had grown to 139 reports, and NHTSA specifically asked GM to hand over every test and study validating the oil viscosity change as an effective remedy (NHTSA Information Request RQ26001-01, 2026). A separate Engineering Analysis, EA25-007, covers roughly 286,000 additional trucks built outside the recall window (NHTSA Engineering Analysis EA25-007, 2025).

If your engine is a 6.2L L87 and the failure involved knocking from the bottom end, metal in the oil, or a seizure rather than a lifter tick, read our full breakdown of the GM 6.2L L87 engine lawsuit and recall 25V-274. It is a different claim with a different and much better documented paper trail.

How to Check If Your GM Vehicle Is Affected by the Valve Lifter Defect

There is no VIN lookup tool for the valve lifter lawsuit, because a lawsuit is not a recall and no class has been certified. What you can check is whether your vehicle matches the class definition and whether your repair history supports an individual claim.

Work through these five checks in order.

1. Confirm the engine before anything else. Model name alone tells you nothing here. Look for RPO code L84 (5.3L V8), L87 (6.2L V8), or L96 (6.0L V8) on the label in the glove box or driver door jamb. A 5.3L truck without cylinder deactivation is a different animal.
2. Confirm the model year sits between 2014 and 2021. That is the range covered by the named plaintiffs’ vehicles in the operative complaint (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).
3. Run your VIN through the free federal recall lookup at gov/recalls. This will not show the lifter lawsuit. It will show any open safety recall on your specific vehicle, including 25V-274 if you have an affected L87.
4. Pull every repair order. Ask the dealer’s service department for a printed history under your VIN, including visits where they found nothing. In most states, a no-fault-found visit still counts as a repair attempt.
5. Look for the words that matter. Lifter, valve lifter, valve lifter oil manifold, camshaft, pushrod, misfire, P0300 through P0308, DFM, AFM. Those are the entries that turn a stack of paperwork into a claim.

If your dealer told you the ticking was normal or within specification and sent you home, write down the date and the advisor’s name. That conversation is evidence, and owners report hearing it often (CarComplaints, 2025).

What Compensation Is Available in the GM Valve Lifter Class Action

Right now, nothing. There is no settlement, no fund, and no per-owner figure, because the class has not been certified and mediation failed. Any site quoting you a dollar amount for this case is guessing.

That is the honest answer to the question people are actually asking, and it points to the more useful question. A class action and an individual claim are different tools that solve different problems.

A few things worth understanding before you decide to wait on anything.

Staying inside a certified class can limit your right to bring your own claim for the same defect, and opt-out deadlines in class notices are real deadlines with real dates. Our guide on how to join a GM class action lawsuit explains the mechanics using GM’s transmission litigation as the example.

The federal lemon law, formally the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, applies in all 50 states and can reach used vehicles still covered by a written warranty. If GM issued you a 60-month, 100,000-mile Powertrain Component Coverage Letter after a lifter repair, that letter is a written warranty.

State lemon laws are usually stronger and faster where they apply. Thresholds vary, and our overview of how many repairs it takes before lemon law applies covers the differences. A GM lemon law buyback refunds your down payment, monthly payments, taxes, registration, and related out-of-pocket costs, minus a mileage offset. You can estimate the range with our lemon law buyback calculator.

Where to File a Claim for GM Lifter Failure Right Now

You cannot file a claim in Harrison because there is no claims process. What you can do today is build the record and pursue an individual claim, in this order.

Step 1. Report the failure to NHTSA. File a Vehicle Owner Questionnaire at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem. It is free, it takes about ten minutes, and it creates a timestamped federal record tied to your VIN. Complaint volume is the mechanism that opens investigations, and the L87 rod bearing recall exists because enough people filed.

Step 2. Get every repair back in writing. Every dealer visit should generate a repair order stating your complaint in your words, the cause, and the correction. If a service advisor tells you the noise is normal, ask for that on the repair order.

Step 3. Track days out of service. Loaner agreements, rental receipts, and tow invoices all count toward the days-out-of-service tests most states use. Our guide on how long a dealership can hold your car for repair explains why this number carries weight.

Step 4. Confirm what your warranty actually covers. AFM valves, lifters, and the oil manifold sit inside GM’s powertrain coverage as internally lubricated engine components. Our page on what a manufacturer warranty covers walks through the categories.

Step 5. Have the file reviewed before you sign anything. Goodwill offers, extended coverage letters, and repair authorizations sometimes come with release language attached. Review comes first.

My 2019 Silverado 5.3 Started Ticking, and the Dealer Says It Is Normal, What Now?

Get the word “normal” written on the repair order, then get a second opinion at a different GM dealer within the same week. Two documented visits for the same complaint is where most state lemon law timelines begin. A ticking 5.3 with cylinder deactivation is a known pattern, not a personality quirk, and the difference between a covered lifter job and a $10,000 out-of-pocket engine is frequently a matter of weeks.

My Lifters Were Replaced Under Warranty and Failed Again, Do I Have a Case?

A repeat failure of the same defect after a warranty repair is the strongest fact pattern in this entire area. It is also exactly what the complaint alleges happens, since replacement lifters carry the same design (CarComplaints, 2025). Keep both repair orders together. That pair of documents is the case.

GM Fixed My Truck Out of Warranty as Goodwill, Is That Still Worth Anything?

Often yes. Goodwill repairs still document that the defect existed and that GM attempted a fix. Whether that helps depends on your state, your mileage, your warranty status, and what you signed. Have someone read the paperwork before you assume it closed the door.

Which Law Firms Are Handling the GM Valve Lifter Lawsuits

The Harrison docket shows plaintiffs represented by attorneys from Capstone Law APC and Berger Montague, among others, with the court appointing interim class counsel in May 2022 (Harrison v. General Motors, LLC docket, E.D. Mich.). Capstone Law APC publicly identifies itself as counsel litigating the case.

Worth separating two very different jobs here.

Class action counsel represent a proposed class as a whole. Their client is the group, their strategy serves the group, and individual owners do not direct the case or approve settlements. That is not a criticism; it is how Rule 23 works.

A lemon law attorney represents one owner and one vehicle. The remedy is a buyback, a replacement, or cash for your specific truck, and under most state statutes and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, the manufacturer pays the fees if you prevail. Our page on what lemon law attorneys cost explains how that fee shifting works, and how long a lemon law case takes covers realistic timelines.

Lemon My Vehicle handles individual claims against GM nationwide, including Chevrolet, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles.

Mistakes GM Owners Make After a Lifter Failure

• Waiting for the class action to finish. Four and a half years in, with mediation already failed, waiting has cost some owners their warranty coverage and their state filing deadline. Nothing in the Michigan case pauses your clock.
• Letting the dealer verbally dismiss the noise. If it is not on a repair order, it did not happen. A visit with no paperwork is a visit that cannot be counted later.
• Using an independent shop for warranty diagnosis. Independent repairs are sometimes the right call mechanically, but they do not create the warranty repair records that lemon law claims are built on.
• Assuming a recall lookup covers everything. The federal lookup shows recalls. It does not show service updates, special coverage programs, or pending litigation, and the lifter issue lives entirely in those categories.
• Signing a goodwill or coverage document without reading the release language. Extended coverage is worth having. Signing away claims to get it is not.
• Confusing the L87 recall with the lifter case. They are separate matters with separate evidence. Filing the wrong story wastes months. Our GM 6.2L L87 engine lawsuit guide covers the other one.

Frequently Asked Questions About the GM Valve Lifter Lawsuit

What is the status of the GM valve lifter lawsuit in 2026?

Harrison et al. v. General Motors, LLC, Case No. 2:21-cv-12927, is in pretrial litigation in the Eastern District of Michigan before Judge Laurie J. Michelson. No class has been certified. On 17 February 2026, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion to sever the AFM and DFM claims into separate cases, and the same order confirms that facilitation and mediation between the parties were unsuccessful (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

What compensation is offered in the GM valve lifter class action lawsuit?

None at this time. There is no settlement, no approved fund, and no per-owner payment figure, because the class has not been certified and settlement efforts already failed. If a class is later certified and a settlement is reached, class members would receive notice with an opt-out deadline. An individual lemon law or Magnuson-Moss claim is available now and can produce a buyback, a replacement vehicle, or cash.

Which GM vehicles are covered by the valve lifter lawsuit?

Chevrolet Silverado and Silverado 1500, Tahoe, Suburban, Camaro and Camaro SS, Corvette, and Avalanche; GMC Sierra, Sierra 1500, Yukon, and Yukon XL; and Cadillac Escalade and CTS-V, equipped with 5.3L, 6.0L, or 6.2L V8 engines using AFM or DFM (CarComplaints, 2026). The named plaintiffs’ vehicles range from model years 2014 through 2021 (Harrison v. General Motors, Doc. 127, E.D. Mich., 2026).

Has GM issued a recall for valve lifters?

No. GM has never issued an NHTSA safety recall for AFM or DFM valve lifters. In late 2021, it released service update N212353840 directing dealers to replace lifters on 2021 model year trucks and SUVs still in dealer inventory, and it authorized dealers to offer a 60-month, 100,000-mile Powertrain Component Coverage Letter to some customers with prior lifter failures (GM Authority, 2021).

Is the GM lifter lawsuit the same as the 6.2L L87 engine recall?

No. Recall 25V-274, issued 24 April 2025 for 597,630 US vehicles, addresses connecting rod and crankshaft manufacturing defects in the 6.2L L87, not valve lifters (NHTSA Part 573 Safety Recall Report, 2025). That recall has its own consolidated class action and its own open federal investigation, RQ26001 (NHTSA Recall Query RQ26001, 2026).

How do I check if my vehicle is included in the GM valve lifter litigation?

Confirm your engine RPO code is L84, L87, or L96 with cylinder deactivation, confirm your model year, then pull your complete dealer repair history under your VIN. Run the VIN at nhtsa.gov/recalls for open recalls. There is no VIN lookup for the lawsuit itself, because no class has been certified and no claims process exists.

Where do I file a claim for GM valve lifter failure?

There is no claim form for the class action. File a Vehicle Owner Questionnaire with NHTSA at nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem to create a federal record, collect every repair order and days-out-of-service document, and have an attorney evaluate an individual lemon law or Magnuson-Moss claim, which runs independently of the Michigan case.

Does the class action stop my lemon law deadline from running?

No. State lemon law and warranty deadlines run on their own schedule regardless of what happens in Harrison. A pending class action in Michigan does not pause your state’s clock. Deadlines vary by state, so check yours, starting with our guide on how lemon law works.

Can I disable AFM or DFM to prevent lifter failure?

Aftermarket disablers and delete kits exist, and some owners use them. GM does not endorse them, and installing one can jeopardize warranty coverage on related components, which matters a great deal if you are building a warranty claim. Talk to an attorney before modifying anything you may later need GM to cover.

What Matters Most for GM Lifter Owners

• The valve lifter case is Harrison et al. v. General Motors, LLC, Case No. 2:21-cv-12927, filed December 2021, and it is still in pretrial litigation with no certified class.
• Mediation in that case has already been attempted and failed, so a near-term settlement is not a reasonable thing to plan around.
• GM has never recalled AFM or DFM valve lifters, and the widely publicized 597,630-vehicle recall covers rod bearings and crankshafts on the L87, a different part and a different case.
• The named plaintiffs’ vehicles run model years 2014 through 2021, which is narrower than the “2014 to present” range most summaries repeat.
• Your individual lemon law and warranty deadlines keep running while the class action does not move. Repair orders, days out of service, and a filed NHTSA complaint are what turn a bad experience into a claim.

If your Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, or Buick V8 has been in the shop for lifter noise, misfires, or engine damage, contact Lemon My Vehicle for a free case review. We handle GM claims nationwide, and in most cases the manufacturer pays the attorney fees.

This article covers pending litigation and open federal investigations. Case status changes. Verify current filings through the [Harrison docket](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61620076/harrison-v-general-motors-llc/), the [February 2026 opinion](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/michigan/miedce/2:2021cv12927/358783/127/), and the [NHTSA recall lookup](https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls) before relying on any detail here for a legal decision