GM Stops Corvette Sales Because One Turn Signal Won’t Admit When It’s Broken

If there’s one thing that a Corvette is supposed to do, it’s move quickly. Now, plenty of examples from both 2025 and the 2026 model year are stopped dead in their tracks over a simple light bulb. Evidently, these cars won’t alert the driver when their rear turn signal bulb fails, and as such, GM won’t allow dealers to sell them until they work as intended.

That might sound like the kind of tiny software bug you’d ignore until the next update, but federal safety rules take lighting seriously. If a turn signal or brake lamp goes out and the car doesn’t tell you, it’s a compliance issue. And in Corvette-land, that means an immediate stop-sale order.

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According to the folks at MidEngineCorvetteForum that discovered the issue through GM’s internal recall search, the problem lies in the exterior lighting control module. More specifically, the rear brake light outage detection system can fail to notify the driver if one of the rear turn signal lamps stops working. That violates Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108, which requires vehicles to alert drivers when a rear turn signal has failed.

Chevrolet expects the issue to show up in 3,324 Corvettes. 2,886 of those C8s are from the 2025 model year, and a further 438 from 2026. Interestingly, the newer cars can get a fix via an over-the-air update. 2025 models will have to visit the dealer for a fix if they’re already in customers’ hands. The problem is, GM doesn’t yet have a remedy ready.

Given that the issues at hand appears to be entirely software-based, the eventual fix will likely be another OTA update or dealer flash, but there’s no timeline yet. Owners who already have a 2025 or 2026 Corvette can check whether their car is included using GM program number N252541250 or NHTSA recall number 26V213 through GM’s recall lookup tool.