How can I strip Rocker Arm bolts?

[rtaft]

I have a 2003 Alero, V6 3.4L engine. I was following a school bus, and it turned off the main road. I gave it some gas to get up to 60, and I was going up a steep hill. I don't think my RPM's got all that high, maybe 4000 at most. After coming down the other side of the hill and starting the next one, I noticed that something didn't feel right. When I got to a stop sign, I could feel it more, and noticed it wasn't firing on all 6 cylinders. I thought I had kills a spark plug or something. I immediately took it to the dealership since it was still under warranty.

They told me after about an hour of looking at it, that some bolts in the head were stripped and had to contact the warranty people to make sure they would cover this. Later they told me that 5 rocker arm bolts had pulled out stripping the threads in the head. They rethreaded all 12 of them to be safe.

What can cause this? They said a backfire could have caused this, but I don't full understand what they are saying, I mean I hear cars backfire all the time and this isn't a common automobile issue. Can someone help out out on the details?

[Ian Szgatti]

Thats a really wild story... I have never heard of that before. I mean, if you are to assume a backfire in the intake created this, it must have been one hell of an amazing backfire... something you would have heard. Its fishy.

If anything, heres what i am inclined to believe. You drive this car and lots of times you have fun doing it, cuz those 3.4's got some pep and they sound nice when you spool'em up. Some of the rocker bolts loosened under the strain of your... foot, and GM performed a bunch of shit they didnt need to because they could bill GM and get paid, rather than bullshit you and charge you a sh*t load of money and have you go elsewhere for a second opinion.
You must pound that baby sometimes. Fun costs money, thats all.

[rtaft]

I know it sounds fishy, but it clearly was skipping or misfiring, and it wasn't doing that when I started it up. With the warranty, I only had to pay $50, so it's not like they made out like a bandit doing uneeded work, something was clearly wrong. If 5 were stripped, then I would only be running efficiently on 3 cylinders at most.

I don't know that it backfired in the intake, I would think that would have taken out just the rocker arms on the intakes and not the exhaust, leaving me with 1 working cylinder...would the car even run? I should have asked to see it or get pictures of it. With camera phones now, I don't think it would be all that unreasonable to start asking for pictures.

[rtaft]

btw I hate this car. Dealership failed to replace all 12 as they were instructed to. It's happened to me 2 more times since...1 more bolt pulled yesterday.