GN2018

My thoughts on extended warranties has changed in my aging years. I don’t want to keep a vehicle until the wheels fall off. Been there done that but don’t want to do that anymore. Also, don’t want headache of dealing with fixing problems. So, it’s not a great financial move, but for my current life, I bought a warranty with my truck for 6 years 100K miles. Just before the warranty runs out, either miles or time, I will sell or trade in the truck and get a new vehicle. When I drove cars into the ground, I expected that I would have to deal with repairs and I took my chances with no warranty. Of course most of my cars were used, so warranties were not an option. The basic truth about warranties is, as RetChief said, the house has the advantage. However, the house doesn’t always win either so it is a gamble. I wanted mine so as to lock in the overall cost of owning my truck.

The only time I saw Uber work for a driver was when it was actually ride sharing. I worked with a guy that lived in the country and drive pretty far into the city every day. On his way to or from work, he went right by a major metropolitan airport. There was also a college town on the route. He would take people from the college town to the airport, pick someone up at the airport and take them into the city an do the reverse on the way home. He was absolutely going that way anyway and no stops were more than a couple miles out of his normal commute. So in that instance, it subsidized his normal commute so it was all gravy. Beyond that, I would drive for either Uber or Lyft. You can’t hardly pay for the depreciation on a basic car, let alone a nice vehicle like a truck and there’s no way I would drive drunks home (unless I knew them personally of course).

I'd find a way to seal it if you broke the bond between the liner and the truck. Otherwise, you'll have some rust in no time.

While unlikely, there is always the slim possibility that it came flying off the road in such a way as it pierced the bed. Can you get under the truck and see if the rest of the nail is there? Otherwise, I would take a punch and drive it back or a pair of pliers and pull it out. Either way, risky unless you can see what’s on the other side. It may be a metal shard from something hitting the bed and cutting into the metal. In that case, you could just tap it back down into place. As was said, hard to say without looking under the car and posting some pictures.

I have an iPhone 6 and it works fine without any one second skip. Given all you’ve done to isolate the problem to the truck, it will be interesting to hear what they say. That you must upgrade your phone is not an acceptable answer, but likely all you’ll get. i had a Buick once where when I upgraded my iPhone, I lost functionality. Forget what it was but I think it was in my Bluetooth functionality. They but me in touch with a special unit of Buick that handles Tech issues. They confirmed the problem and eventually, the issue was resolved. I think they had to work with Apple to get it fixed. As much as you can tolerate the BS, stay on them. If it’s actually a hardware issue, they should have no problem getting you a new head unit. FWIW, my iPhone is running software version 12.2. and it’s a 6s. It looks like I need to install the next update so I’ll soon be at 12.3. Good luck.

I realize you’ve tried two phones so it seems like it must be the software in the truck. Still, just to be sure, make sure your phone is updated to the most current version and reset the phone. Sounds like you need to discuss this with the dealer. My guess is that it’s a software issue with the truck. I have an ‘18 and an iPhone 6 and have no problem. You can can listen to music on the usb stick and still use Apple Play for the other things like Waze, but obviously that’s less than ideal and hopefully it won’t come to that. Good luck.

Now try a new cable if you have not already. Make sure it’s a genuine Apple cable if at all possible. It may not be the phone. Process of elimination but do one thing at a time. It could be the software in either the truck or the phone but rule out the easy, mechanical things first.

I don’t know how difficult it would be and as you can see, the clowns you’re dealing with shouldn’t touch your truck again, but I’d want to know what it would take to replace the entire wiring harness that that particular connector is part of. What a sad situation.

Yes, but the manual will not tell you if there are work arounds or other real world examples of things you can do to alleviate the issue. Though it is the first thing to check, it’s not as fun as talking to your buddies on the forum.

I got this off Amazon. Fits perfect. Thanks.

Do the USB ports in the glove box connect to the infotainment unit? The USB port being the problem makes sense. The two in the console would run through the same wire but maybe the one in the glove box is a different harness. One other thing you could try. Put a bunch of music on a flash drive and plug that in. Your unit will recognize it by pushing the “media” button. Doing that will take your phone and the cable out of the equation.

I was thinking the same thing. Pulling the air from the engine compartment like that seems counter productive. At any rate, thanks for the trouble to post such a comprehensive timeline with pictures. I used to wrench on cars, but I no longer can. It is great to see a job done well as you showed. Hope you enjoy it. Wasn't sure, maybe I missed it, but did you have to reprogram the computer or get a tune to handle the new equipment?

The dealership has its own body shop and didn’t want to fix it? That seems like a red flag. I think you made the right decision. Keep looking, the right one will come to you.

Did a quick Carfax search and I’m back to my original statement. To save money, I’d go for a higher mileage truck rather than a damaged one. Seems like at about 70K miles, you can get a nice truck for under $25K. I’d take the 30K extra miles but to each his own. Best of luck with your search.

I agree. I have a 2018 crew cab with leather seats, tow package, rear parking sensors, good infotainment set up, heated seats, power driver seat and a few other things. Basically a base crew cab with a couple option packages. Stickered out at $51K and I got it for $38K before taxes. If you want to drive a $90K truck, go for it. They’re sweet, no doubt. But you can get into a nice truck for a lot less. Plus, with all the leasing going on, there should be a pretty good market for lower mileage used trucks. No, not easy to find, but adjust your criteria to what you need and maybe you’ll get a few of your wants thrown in for what you can afford. Otherwise, ask the dealer what he would charge you to deliver the truck properly repaired. Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks and he can fix it and still give you a good deal. Remember, it doesn’t cost him as much to fix it as it does for you to have it fixed after the fact unless you can do the work yourself or have a buddy that can. Personally, I would keep looking.