Another JR

Sorry, should have stated that. My description is the situation with the engine not running. The truck was last run about 6 hours prior to my verifying no free play last night.

Nice that you posted a video showing what you asked about! I have a 2021 GMC 3500 SLT gas, which has the variable assist steering system and original size 18 inch wheels and tires. It has 11,000 miles, of which half or so has been with a 2000 lbs slide in camper, a small amount of towing about 6,000 lbs, and the rest empty or lightly loaded. I do not have any free play in the steering. I can move it some with light finger force, but it’s building force immediately (tires move), and there is no discernable actual free play.

The process of running it up the point where the thermostat opens and the coolant flows is to make sure any bubbles that may be in the system due to a low coolant level are allowed to burp out to the expansion tank. If that occurs, the fluid level would drop and you would top it up to the cold line again before closing the pressure cap. If you have a slightly low level, it is very unlikely you have such bubbles in the system. With the system cold, add the amount of coolant needed to bring it up to the cold line, close it up, and drive normally. Check it again cold next time you think of it and add again if needed. You shouldn’t need to add more if there were no bubbles in the system.

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I am 60. I declined the first extended warranty offered to me at age 24 on a vacuum cleaner. I have turned down every one ever since from consumer electronics to cars. I am at least $20,000 ahead at this point. I tell the above quickly to any sales person who doesn’t accept my first “no thanks.” It shuts them up every time.

Yup. No real help whatsoever via that email contact in my experience. I find it comical to see an extended thread with multiple people having the same issue and then some poster uses a magic word and the GM customer service message suddenly offers help to that person, but nobody else. Someone denied it was a bot in the past but I don’t buy it. The GM customer service telephone line people can drive something to be reconsidered by the dealer by making sure the dealer has all the relevant GM info, but that may not change the answer you get. In my experience the thing that most reliably brings an end to the “could not duplicate” and “we don’t know how to fix it” dispositions is the expiration of your warranty.

Foil works just as well as any “Faraday” bag or box. If all you are doing is stashing a key for emergencies foil covered by Saran wrap is fool proof and essentially free. I can understand if you are using the hidden fob regularly you might want to pay for a zipper pouch. My Toyota fobs have a button push sequence to turn the fob off so it can’t be activated or used by a hacker. I don’t know if the GM fobs have a similar feature.

Just to give you ballpark axle weights you can mentally adjust based on your own configuration, here are my axle weights with full tank and 200 lb driver, otherwise empty. This is for a 2021 3500hd cc lb srw SLT gas truck with second battery and leather bucket seating. Front 4440 lbs Rear 3330 lbs Those look like they could be typos but 4440 and 3330 are correct.

Also, 60/80 psi is for carrying full rated load. If you weigh your truck you will see that, when empty, the rear axle load is quite a bit less than the front. For ride quality purposes, many operate with the rear at a lower pressure appropiate for their actual weight. I have a 2000 lb pop up slide in camper installed, which makes the front and rear loading about equal. I run the rear tires at 63 cold so they are just above the tpms warning level. It improves the ride a lot and the wear pattern after 12k miles is good. I run the fronts at 55 psi, and would run the rears at that level if the tpms alarm was set lower. I know there are ways to reset it but I haven’t bothered.

Immobilizers involve cutting into the ignition control wiring of your truck. They inherently add several failure modes both due to the cut wiring and the device itself that reduce the reliability of your truck. I use my truck for remote camping and would not want this. I’d be finding a new insurance company.

I don’t know the answer to the specific question you asked. I have a suggestion if you think it may be stuck due to the drivetrain being loaded: Try chocking a wheel on the opposite side so the truck won’t move and jacking one front wheel off the ground to make sure you relieve any loading between the front and rear axles. Verify you still are in 4 hi by trying to rotate the lifted wheel (it won’t turn freely if it’s in 4wd). With the truck running and the transmission in neutral, select 4 hi. Once it indicates it’s in 4 hi try shifting it into 2 hi. Hopefully it will shift to 2 hi if drivetrain loading was the issue.

Not quite. The transmission fluid goes through two coolers in series. The first one is inside the engine coolant radiator, and the second is a finned tube air-oil cooler mounted across the front of the engine radiator.

Was this diagnosis and replacement done under warranty?

I think the OP is going to be driven to a dually for that trailer if he wants to stay within the payload rating (as he should). The diesel reduces the payload by about 400 lbs due to the increased engine and transmission weight. My 21 3500hd SLT cclb SRW gas truck has a payload rating of 4055 lbs. I think the highest payload you will see on a 20-23 diesel crew cab 3500 is going to be around 3600 lbs. The 5th wheel hitch hardware will use a couple hundred of that. If the pin weight is 3000 lbs, just the pin weight, the hitch weight, and two people and some tools will put the combination at or over the payload limit depending on how heavy the people are.

Me too. I don’t operate above 4000 rpm, but I don’t pull even half that weight or such a huge frontal area. If I was going to pull that huge trailer more than 20 days a year or over the high Western US climbs regularly, I would buy a diesel. If I was in Jet’s position and really liked my gas truck (as I do, too), and wanted to do the travel trailer thing as recreation, I would limit myself to something within the real world operating capability of my truck based on the terrain I wanted to travel.

A video for Jettech. Even though this guy has the ten speed, he’s towing a 15k 5th wheel up grades and you can see what speeds he can hold at what rpms, and take a good guess at whether you could hold 3rd or 4th with the 6L90 at those conditions. Keep in mind though his conditions are cool day low altitude.

Another vote for “you don’t need it.” Hank is the name my granddaughter gave our 4runner. She calls our 3500hd Frederick. Our camper is “Frederick’s backpack.”

The manual covers pretty much all of this kind of stuff, but the indexing at the back is poor, making it hard to find things sometimes. Downloading the manual onto your computer or phone from the GM web site allows you to search the manual more easily.

Maybe it’s clear to most of you, but please note that crspangenberg and I are writing about different camera installations and different cable types. He is writing about the accessory trailer camera, while I am writing about a replacement for the tailgate handle camera to be mounted on the back of a slide-in truck camper.

I finished making one for my neighbor today. The pvc reducer fittings available at my local hardware store were a bit different from what they had when I made my own in 2021, so the new one is a little different. Once you see that a 45 degree 1-1/4 pvc ell is just the right size, it’s just a matter of deciding how you want to close the camera end so the camera is square with the opening and locked in, and how you want to close the camper wall end to allow you to mount it to your camper. I used a 1-1/4 inch to 3/4 inch reducer fitting, and cut it to make the two different end pieces. Here is the finished product ready to mount. Here are the fittings and how I cut the reducer on my radial arm saw. ignore the ring of pipe, which I decided not to use. The camera needs to be held centered in the pipe fitting, and it turns out a cap from a Gatorade bottle was the perfect diameter and thickness. I just had to make a square cutout with a utility knife to fit the square shoulder on the front of the camera. I used a Bingfu FAKRA Z water blue (the universal color) female to female cable. A 10 footer costs $8 on Amazon. The camera corner that has a diagonal cut goes in the lower left when facing the camera. I glued in the cut 3/4 end of the reducer fitting into the camera end of the fitting. It was cut so only about 1/8 inch engages with the ell. This allows the camera to be out enough so there is room for the connector instead the ell. I used a fender washer inside the other piece of the reducer to allow that piece to be attached to a plate or cross bar as needed to mount the enclosure. This piece can be mounted before the ell is attached with the camera. I slotted the ell and the reducer piece with overlapping slots to allow the wire to exit the enclosure. I drilled a hole to allow a screw to lock the ell to the reducer mount piece when it is finally assembled after the reducer piece is mounted on the camper. The reducer mount piece fits tightly in the ell so the screw is a fail safe. See the last picture below to see the slots. The forum won’t let me insert more pics in the body of the message. See the first picture to see the screw. I also added a pic of the camera in the Gatorade cap sleeve from the back. It has to be done just so, but the camera in the cap with the Bingfu connector attached will push into position from the back of the fitting. Once the camera is in place and at the right angle in the ell, jam it into position by filling the fitting with some firm foam or styrofoam. Then line up the slots and mount the ell on the reducer mount. After it’s all mounted up, the entire enclosure can be rotated on the single mounting screw to adjust the fitting aim. The camera can be rotated in the fitting if needed by careful use of a miniature needle nose pliers. You want to mount the enclosure at the same height as your tailgate handle camera so the views line up. The 45 degree angle is just about perfect to match the tailgate camera view. if any if this isn’t clear ask questions and I’ll try to explain better.

I have the GMC 3/8 thick rubber mat in my long bed. It cost 160 from the dealer in 2021. It fits well and was good quality with no defects I saw.

If they use an inspection record form and didn’t give it to you, it should be in their file for the sale. Maybe call the dealer’s finance department (the people you sit and sign papers with) and ask them to look to see if it’s in the file. If it’s available they should readily give you a copy.

I received an inspection checklist on all the new car purchases I’ve made, both GM and Toyota. What you don’t know is whether they really did the work. No way are they cracking open the transmission, transfer case, and differential plugs to check the fluid level, but they still check the box. My 2021 with 2 miles on it had a big dent in the oil filter I noticed the first time I slid under the truck. The dealer apparently never saw it.

I certainly could be wrong in my reading between the lines. I was seeing “living in the thing” as periods where the trailer sits in one location and he’s using the truck as a daily driver.

From what he described I’m not sure he really is going to be towing long distance all that many days a year. I had the impression he was describing a yearly North/South migration kind of thing with additional trips now and then. The rest of the time he has to live with the truck as a daily driver. If he does a lot of short trip use as a daily driver the dpf/regen behavior is a downside. I suspect that plus the extra purchase and maintenance cost is part of why he’s looking for advice on what’s the right compromise.