Zig10

It's pretty much dumb luck. We bought our first 2015 GMC Yukon XL (with trailering package, so no, it doesn't make a difference) in October of '15. Within 3 days the buffetting presented itself. The dealer worked with GM for a buy-back and replacement. I test drove 5 others, including a Denali, and all of them (to me) had it to one level or another, but none were anywhere near as bad as our original. If I had bought any of those, I likely wouldn't have ever brought it back to the dealer and just assumed it was something wrong with me. We got a '16 that is 95% better, but on cold mornings and rough pavement it still has the pressure issue. Our neighbors across the street bought a 2016 LT Suburban 6 months ago and have had no issues whatsoever. Same with a co-worker that bought a 2016 Tahoe LTZ 9 months ago. Take the vehicle for a long test drive. Get it onto the highway, side roads, as many different conditions as you can find. It may be perfectly fine, and you may be someone who doesn't notice it either way. If you can find a good one, these vehicles really are great to own. We tow a 6000 lb boat with 6 people and all of our gear, and it handles it all with ease. Good luck.

Yeah, unfortunately it didn't seem to fix the issue. I think it was back around page 50-60. Cotton balls and tape over the mics helped at least one person to some extent, but the results weren't consistent. When the fuse was pulled it had no effect on the pressure sensation, if I recall.

Congratulations, Fog. I know that was a long-time coming for you. Now, GM needs to have that field engineer to train the rest of them and start putting a bigger dent in this issue. With all of this going on, I wonder what the changes will be going into the next generation. Obviously you can't rely on tire and wheel suppliers to hold the tolerances that are needed for a frame this rigid, so do they change frame mounts and dampers, or design more flex into the body to absorb some of this? I'd love to have a serious conversation with the engineering team on this, just out of morbid curiosity.

If it is the V4 mode that is causing the major issues on yours, have you ever considered testing the Range AFM defeat module? I ran one on my old Tahoe for over 3 years without issue, but that was because of the dreaded piston-slap problem that would develop on the older 5.3s. Might be worth a shot. https://www.rangetechnology.com/pages/v8

I've got 1100 miles on it now. So far so-so...

Across broken pavement, yes. Some minor booming on potholes as well. However, under normal driving on average roads, no, it doesn't buffet. If I had bought this one first I likely would've never even found this website.

My dealer explained the same situation to me. Fortunately, the one they found to replace mine was from a "cooperating dealer" that they work with often, so the swap went straight through. I definitely got lucky.

I contacted the dealer with around 200 miles on my car to let them know something was wrong. By the time they finished all of the "fixes", jumped through all the hoops, and convinced GM that it could not be repaired the vehicle had close to 1500 miles on it. The swap to the 2016 model was straight up, no money out of my pocket whatsoever. Even if they did try for a mileage penalty it would have only been charged to the initial 200 miles, which would have hardly been worth the aggravation.

Did anyone else hear back from the NHTSA from their complaint? I got an email back today (submitted back in November) indicating that they are contacting GM with my info. Don't know if that means anything, but at least they responded.

The orange arrows at the top would make more sense based on what others have written regarding the glass pulsating. With the common hinge for both the gate and glass, maybe that is tightening up the whole assembly when you put pressure there. Have you tried putting down self-adhesive weather stripping on the glass itself where it meets the rubber gasket? I bought a roll from the hardware store to test it, but I never got my car back to try it out.

Most of the ones I work with are around $250/hour, but I doubt they would be set up to work on a rolling chassis like this. Those guys usually focus on larger interior spaces like buildings, aircraft, ships, etc. The principal would be the same, but the modeling software would not be set up the same way. As an update on my new one, we took it on our holiday travels and racked up around 800 miles on it. Uneven/broken pavement still results in the booming and buffetting, but it is now transient instead of being there constantly. The 35-50 MPH range is still the worst when it occurs. Highway speeds are, by and large, pretty smooth. Not perfect, but better than the previous car by a long shot. One thing I found interesting is that on my work order from the repair attempts on my last vehicle there is a comment about "calibrating the ANC, found to be in spec." I had thought that only the Denali/LTZ/Escalade has that option, but there must be some lower-end system on the lower trims to try to help the situation.

If I walked into one of my clients offices after engineering a system that didn't work and left them with the line that "they got what they got" I am not sure I would make it out of the building with my ass still attached to my body. And I am pretty sure I would be unemployed shortly after. In fact, I would now LOVE to do one of GMs new assembly lines for them. Maybe in the installation when the car is halfway down the assembly line the jig that hold it in the air releases and drops the car on to the ground...upside down. When one of the commissioning engineers complains, I would simply shrug my shoulders and refer them to the current generation large SUV platform for reference.

I guess it depends on your dealer and how old your vehicle was when you brought it to their attention. Mine was 2 days old when I notified them of the problem. Took 6 weeks to go through all the hassle, but mine thus far is heading towards a straight up replacement. No money changing hands or anything. Keeping my fingers crossed that is stays that way.

Well, I picked up my 2016 replacement Yukon XL today, and after putting about 30 miles on it, thus far it is like driving a completely different vehicle. There is still an occasional boom across messed up pavement, and I still wish the V4 mode sounded better, but no ear pressure to speak of. Keeping my fingers crossed. We'll be racking up miles over the Christmas season, so I hope to be able to give a positive report when we return.

Absolutely. Thanks again for pushing this through. Wonder if another mag would pick up the story now that it is in print?

How were you able to arrange that with GM? The people I have been dealing with (arguing with) have been incredibly difficult. Instead of acting like they are doing the right thing here, they seem to think they are making some grand gesture by replacing this car, and expext me to cough up more money to do it. The replacement vehicle is an exact clone of my current one (minus the buffetting, I hope), and mine only had 200 miles on it when this whole thing began. It's not like I am asking for then to trade me up to an Escalade here, I just want what I paid for. Did you end up having to go through a lawyer to get out of the situation, or did the dealer work with you on getting into the 2014?

That's how I understood it, but I thought I may have missed something when Frank wanted to read it before going back to the dealer. Sorry for the confusion.

Not to be negative, but do you think it'll have any info in it that we don't already have? Or, more to the point, that it would give any leverage to negotiations for buy-back? If this was a mechanical issue that an updated part could fix, or a software issue, I would feel a lot better about a solution being forthcoming, but this appears to be something endemic in the design of the vehicle. If there is a magic bullet, I hope they find it soon and it is an easy fix, but you'd have to think they would've found it by now and wouldn't be spending 40-50 man hours per vehicle trying a bunch of fixes that don't fix anything...

My bad, man. I hope I don't have to do this again when (if) I get my new '16.

My dealership has also been working hard on the buyback / swap out, but GM has dragged their feet and decided to try to put their foot down on this one. The dealer is still pushing, and I believe it will get resolved. HOWEVER, why should it have come to that? The issue is known. If they want to test the car for the next three months, so be it, but replace it first. This is not anyone's fault but GM's. When I called to get the case number openend, the GM rep I eventually spoke to told me first that they didn't have any engineers at GM (I laughed out loud), then she qualified and said she didn't have any that I could talk to, as the dealership technicians were GMs engineers as far as they were concerned. So, the dealership "engineers" decided the vehicle couldn't be fixed, and now GM decides that it isn't good enough, they must be wrong, so they want to send someone out to look at it. You can't have it both ways... By the way, I just filed a complaint with the NHTSA. The vehicles are all on the list, but you have to scroll way down to get to the 2015 Yukon XL for some reason.

You have far more patience than I. Of course, when the sales manager and the dealership owner drove mine, both said they had to get out in less than 10 minutes because it was making them physically ill. Maybe mine is worse than some others, but I couldn't see spending one more day with that thing. Can't call it a home run if they have the kinds of issues we're discussing here. More like someone hammered the ball and it went just barely foul. Close doesn't count. You also must have far flatter terrain where you are, because I only got 20 MPG on nearly all highway driving on the one trip I tried to take with that car. To be fair, that is around 2.5 MPG better than my old 2010 Tahoe got, so there is an improvement. Now I am very interested to see what this article has to say. I hope it mentions GM jerking their customers around instead of just replacing what they can't fix. It'll be 21 days without my vehicle (hopefully) by the time I get my replacement. THAT, more than anything, pisses me off. They know they have issues, they know the fixes rarely work, and they're still stalling with dealers and end-users over doing the right thing. I would be out of business in about 6 months if I handled issues with my clients in that fashion.

While I didn't know about this issue with the pressure before I bought, I feel the same way. By far the most expensive vehicle I have ever purchased, and with it the biggest headache and most frustrations. Then to have GM balk at replacing them when it is a known issue is just unconscionable. Where the hell was the NVH team during the design of this vehicle? I can't believe I am about to say this, but I should have bought the Ford... To answer your previous question, the diff was all in spec, so they did not replace the rear. I forgot to mention they also changed out the prop shaft, but that obviously didn't help either. By the way, why the heck does it matter if you are in Canada, and why haven't you gone after them via a Lemon Law case? EDIT - I just read about how car companies divide support between Canada and the US. I think it's BS that they won't respond to you because you're North of the border. What a crock.

That is exactly what my current Yukon has going on. Buffetting only. Also got the work order today to see what they tried: Roof bow bulletin Rear differential, including pinion bearing and gear lash adjustment Road force balance all tires Remove, "relax", reinstall exhast system "Performed cabin mount settling procedure and clear codes". I would love to know how you relax an exhaust system. Some nice wine and a full body massage? I would also love to know what was entailed in the last item as well. In any event, none of it fixed the problem.

It's the first Yukon they have used it on, but they seemed to have extensive experience with it on the current generation Sierras. I had no reason to believe they didn't understand the issues. Today at lunch I met with the sales manager and test drove an SLE with 20" rims and a Denali with 22"s, both 2016. Neither of them had the buffetting / pressure issue. Both had some of the "booming" across rough pavement, but nothing that I would have considered a problem. So, the dealer is arranging a buy back for a new 2016 clone of mine. They will let the tech who confirmed my issue test drive it before I come pick it up. Still sucks that it's gone this far, but at least it looks like there is an end in sight.

Interesting update from my dealer... The rear differential showed no signs of abnormal wear anywhere. Further, all of the tires were shown to have low road force issues. The picometer results also indicate that the vehicle should be fine. With all that said, they drove 4 other Yukon XLs on the lot, from SLEs to Denalis, and confirmed that while all of them have some distortion between 30-50 MPH, mine has the buffetting noise significantly worse than any of the others. So, the $70,000 question is, where do you from here?