flowbytwo

Also interesting... I pulled out one morning with a side of my trailer that had been in the sun... I got a warning that one of the tires was much hotter than the other three a few miles down the road. Seems like a super useful thing to have.

True story. The backup camera on the truck in my 19 is so good it immediately made me realize how terrible the video quality is on the trailer wireless camera... that said I still would like the trailers camera to work as it is nice to have as a way to check behind the trailer while on the road.

Clunking trans has little to do with my backup camera on my trailer (maybe my camera doesn’t work because my trans has been perfect?). I am going to push this issue with GM further. A super simple way to prove the truck is malfunctioning... unplug the trailer 7-wire plug and use a jumper with fuse between the 12v and parking terminals. The parking lights come on and the camera works perfectly... plug into truck and it flashes again. I don’t care why I only care that it is broke and they need to fix it.

I have an airstream with the review camera and I am also experiencing this issue. I had planned to see if the issue was related to ripple on the dc line to the camera by using a direct feed (tapped in at the wiring junction for the 7-wire pig tail. If that fixes it I would simply put a relay (and probably a load resister to fool the computer that the lights still work) to switch parking lights over to the constant hot DC system. If this is an interference issue then I wonder how they got approval for these components from the FCC? I mean anyone driving their new GMC past someone else with a review camera would cause it to cut out. That seems like a pretty serious issue (and I would be surprised if that is the case).

I wish there was a way to keep a mode set... while they are at it make tow/haul turn on when a trailer is connected instead of only showing a stupid alert to turn it on. Probably some gas mileage / EPA thing...

Given that rear view camera for the mirror is in the middle of the third brake light it is certain that a camper shell of any type is going to block it. Your only hope would potentially be a shell that somehow relocated that camera from the existing brake light to the back of the shell and that is not very likely to happen.

The above makes me wonder how different the inevitable larger diesel tank will be from a gasoline tank in terms of fittings, etc. If it is the same and there isn’t anything weird required to update the computer for the new size there wouldn’t be anything preventing the swap from a physical do-it-yourself standpoint. I bet that large space in front of the tank will be for DEF though... will be interesting to see what this tank looks like.

Also payload bragging rights... a bigger tank will pull a couple hundred off those metrics and also make the trucks look more like everyone else.

Titan has some nice products... but all those tanks are for diesel fuel.

Definitely something wrong with your setup. I have over 6000lbs in my trailer and properly hitched my AT4 sits a little over an inch off the stops. CAT Scale had this setup at 12360. That at said I am still tuning things and I plan to add some airbags to stiffen things up when towing as I am up near the RAWR and I could move a little more weight to the other axles with the hitch. No trouble handling this load in the 1000 miles I have over many notable Idaho and Montana passes. The 6.2L and ten speed just works great. 11MPG average with near 14 on the flat when their isn’t wind (it isn’t very flat here ;-) ). If only GM would put this setup in an HD... would probably steal too much money from their over priced diesel.

Excellent info. Thanks for the update (and saving me some scratch)

Longer term update? How have these been working out for you? Considering pulling the trigger on this same upgrade, perhaps with the auto-level sensor upgrade too.

I have said in the past I would get a custom tank made... still might happen but feels much lower on the priority list after this past weekend. I pulled my 6320lbs travel trailer from Portland back in to Montana. Overall average across 3 notable passes and despite a mild headwind on the second day was 11.3mpg at 65mph. Typical range was 11-13mpg on the instant read with a few spots where the wind and grade didn’t fight me netting 14. Near enough to 200 miles a tank. If it came to it I would dump the 5 gallons from my genny’s can. The little Honda never seems to go through it so I wouldn’t be too worried about not having a little extra.

Mine went in this past week and had the software update installed. Haven’t seen any errors in the morning since. I’m betting that probably stopped the nuisance errors and we will see if any other issues crop up. It is crazy that they have these problems at all when the obvious solution that would have been used for the last 30 years would be a trailer outlet design with a mechanical switch that closed a circuit when something was plugged in. Seems so obvious and would be super useful for these situations because it would definitively answer the question of if something was attached... then they can go about their merry way screwing with fancy software to detect wiring faults. I suppose when the wiring is so expensive to run to the trailer lights that they can put a computer in with a network serial bus to talk to it instead of half a dozen wires in a harness we shouldn’t expect them to put a 50¢ switch in the light outlets.

The feature I would expect to no longer work might be the trailer disconnected alarm... I scheduled an appt with my dealer to have the programming done... not too hopeful because the last few times it has been in for this they either leave it inside where it is warm or it hasn’t been cold enough. The service tech said that if their scan didn’t find anything they wouldn’t do anything to it. I pointed out that this isn’t a code issue and could they just right the number down from the above and check that specifically. I can even show them a video of it failing. He said that doesn’t matter, no codes in his fancy computer equals no work done unless I pay for it. I had to argue with the guy for him to even bother writing the PIT number above down for the techs to look at. GM is the worst. Everyone I talk to about this truck gets an earful about how terrible this has been. Even though GM probably won’t notice the sales difference I personally swayed two people to buy a new Ford instead of this GMC specifically because of how this has been handled.

The most surprising thing to me is that in all that fancy cold weather testing in exotic places you read about in magazines that nobody ever noticed that as soon as you need to put on a hat to go outside cause it’s a little cold the truck will go bats**t crazy with alerts and flashing screens. Some QA process these guys (either the truck manufacturers or the upstream supplies, or both) have. Doesn’t inspire confidence at all. The only way way to explain something like this in my line of work is when somebody fast tracks a change to production at the last minute with limited review.

I filled out an online safety complaint with the NHTSA after the distraction almost caused me to read end someone. I hope if others do the same GM won’t be able to just ignore this thing for a few months. On the clean/dirty sensor thing... Today I drove over Teton pass... heavy wet snow. Incredibly bad conditions. Some of the worst I have driven through in a couple years. The truck was fantastic, the tranny did exactly the same ‘holding gears and soft up shifting’ to hold downhill speed as I would have done with a manual. I haven’t had a trans that doesn’t slam gears with a manual up shift when the rpms are high during grade holding before this one. Truly impressive. Front wheel drive cars in the uphill lane headed towards Jackson couldn’t even get up the grade due to ice. (I hope they like their ticket for ignoring the 4x4/chains conditions in effect signs). The trucks was totally composed through it all mostly around 20-30mph. Anyways, back on topic. After 200 miles in heavy freezing slush my truck was encased in tons of ice. The running boards were full to the bottom of the doors (might be a design issue there— at least something to watch for). The sensors front and rear had at least a half inch of ice. Putting the truck in gear made it pretty unhappy for a bit with the buzzing seat until I got moving. All that time though the trailer thing did not go off. To me this means the issue is strictly the trailer connection system and not the parking sensors. The alerts about disabled parking sensors and rear traffic are probably just what it does when it thinks there is a trailer connected.

I filled out an online safety complaint with the NHTSA after the distraction almost caused me to read end someone. I hope if others do the same GM won’t be able to just ignore this thing for a few months. On the clean/dirty sensor thing... Today I drove over Teton pass... heavy wet snow. Incredibly bad conditions. Some of the worst I have driven through in a couple years. The truck was fantastic, the tranny did exactly the same ‘holding gears and soft up shifting’ to hold downhill speed as I would have done with a manual. I haven’t had a trans that doesn’t slam gears with a manual up shift when the rpms are high during grade holding before this one. Truly impressive. Front wheel drive cars in the uphill lane headed towards Jackson couldn’t even get up the grade due to ice. (I hope they like their ticket for ignoring the 4x4/chains conditions in effect signs). The trucks was totally composed through it all mostly around 20-30mph. Anyways, back on topic. After 200 miles in heavy freezing slush my truck was encased in tons of ice. The running boards were full to the bottom of the doors (might be a design issue there— at least something to watch for). The sensors front and rear had at least a half inch of ice. Putting the truck in gear made it pretty unhappy for a bit with the buzzing seat until I got moving. All that time though the trailer thing did not go off. To me this means the issue is strictly the trailer connection system and not the parking sensors. The alerts about disabled parking sensors and rear traffic are probably just what it does when it thinks there is a trailer connected.

Mine was at the dealer yesterday but it decided not to throw the errors when the tech tried it. According to the engine hours on start up they only ran it for 0.1hrs so they must not l have tried very hard to see if it would fault. I suspect it was simply plugged in to read codes and there weren’t any in the computer.

If they even let you actually turn the system off when it freaks out that would be a huge help. The switch to disable the lane keeping system has no effect on the constant stream of flashing alerts on all the screens... I might have to try putting some sort of trailer light plug with heavy resistors in it so the truck can pretend there is a trailer back there and shut the heck up about this garbage so I can actually drive the truck safely. It’s bad enough that NHTSA should be engaged about this type of driver distracting behavior and strongly encourage automakers to take action.

I’ve had mine updated and it was fine for a few days. Today at 20F it’s back to the same crap. Off to the dealer tomorrow to see what can be done. And yes the displays flashing are almost useless and extremely distracting while driving.

These wheels might be my new favorite of all the options out there.

The update stopped the errors but my GMC logo is flashing on start up again which is what it did before. We haven’t had any good cold weather spells since the update to be sure it is really working right though.

One more thing... I just crawled under my truck and measured the size of the current tank and the clear space in front of it. The current tank is about 48” long and there are 28” of clear space to the front cross member. With some quick volume calculations it would seem that a 36 gallon tank would fit in there without going any wider or deeper than the current one. Given that is about what all the rest of these trucks are offering I wouldn’t be surprised to see that option show up in the 2020 trucks. Even if it doesn’t I’m going to TIG up a stainless replacement that is full size for my truck this spring.

I don’t disagree on the tank size but on the axle ratio thing I am not convinced. These deep gears on the new 10 speed change the game significantly. After watching the IKE towing test from TFL where they ran a 9000lbs trailer up the pass at a consistent 60 mph (the speed limit) despite the high elevation and the naturally aspirated nature of the 6.2L. They noted the truck held around 4500 rpm which seems good. Compare that to the poor dodge hemi that was wound tight at 6000 something. That same test showed the Ecoboost doing a fine job pulling as expected with the turbos giving a massive advantage at elevation. What they didn’t spend enough time on in my opinion was talking about how the trucks handled the trailer from a stability perspective. I am pretty sure I saw some serious sway on the ford in the couple seconds they showed from the chase car. Also not surprising given the heavy squat on the Ford and what that does to unload the front. With the ford being top of the heap and a game changer for a half ton tow vehicle 3 years ago and now being last in the comparison it seems to me that all these trucks are getting damn good. If you have typical towing needs of less than 10k lbs and tow less than half time it seems like there is hardly any justification for a 3/4 ton anymore.