MaverickZ71

Don't necessarily trust the instant or average fuel economy numbers as shown on the screen, as they can be overoptimistic to give the owner that warm fuzzy feeling. Hand calculate your fuel mileage for a few tanks and then you'll know exactly what you're getting.

And you have to become a University of Texas, Dallas Cowboys, Houston Astros, Dallas Stars, and San Antonio Spurs fan. Oh, and a fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker.

Oh, I know it’s not hard to check the oil. Good thing, because the frakkin built-in GM AFM oil usage problem has forced me to check it about 1000 times. It’s a wonder the damned hood hinges aren’t worn out. The point is, GM manufactured millions of vehicles with problems and won’t accept full responsibility, so they have been sued. Don’t like the lawsuit and/or never check your own oil or named your kids Dale and Jr? Don’t participate. But don’t tell us there’s no problem. We know better!

For the wiseguys saying "check the oil" and "low oil warning", there is a reason why GM says to in the owner's manual to check the oil at every fuel stop--they knew all about the problems and spent years trying to act like there were no problems, trying to sandbag us with insane "oil level monitoring procedures" until we were off of warranty. They would overfill the oil level on purpose to try to hide how much oil it was using. Threats of class-action suits like this current one finally got them to abandon that crap and come out with some TSBs back in about 2010-11 that never did entirely fix the problem. There is no "low oil warning" message, at least not on a 2009 LC9. You can drive it until it's 3 quarts low (6 quart capacity) and until the oil pressure goes down, you'll never get a warning of any kind. This is the reason they went to 8 quart oilpans on the next generation--you could be down 2-3 quarts and still have some oil left. I wholeheartedly support any class action suit of this type, knowing full well the lawyers will get rich and the vehicle owners may get a $20 check if they're lucky. But I'll gladly take the $20 and put it towards a jug of oil. Lord knows how many barrels of oil our 2009 LC9 has burned through, even after the TSB work was performed. Before the TSB work was done, at highway speeds, it was burning at least a quart and a half of quality Dexos1 oil every 100 miles. Nothing quite like having a new 2-3 year old truck and not daring to leave home without a case of oil in the truck. All of this for a system that was supposed to save 7% on fuel economy. And when most of us finally used a programmer or Range AFM module to turn off AFM, we saw no difference in fuel mileage, but instead got increased drivability in the form of smoother shifts, no more fart-can exhaust sound with aftermarket exhaust, etc.

Looks like they got the years messed up. Should be 2007-2013s with AFM, not just "2010-2014s with LC9 engines". LC9s weren't the only ones with AFM, and 2014 was the next generation. The 2007-2009 models had more problems than the 2010-2013s, which supposedly had the TSB "fixes" installed at the factory.

I am not a lotto winner, don't have a trust fund, don't rob banks, and am not a Democratic cabinet secretary. In our household, we have to work for a living and our vehicles do the same. So we usually keep 'em in the family as work trucks or backup vehicles until there's not much left to trade in. Last 5 trades have averaged 14 years old. 6 current family vehicles average 18 years old, and that includes everything from a '79 Pontiac to an '18 GMC. We do all of our own maintenance where possible, using the OE recommended intervals. Our fleet vehicles at work get traded every 75K miles, which is about every 3-4 years.

Drive it like you stole it from day one. On my last 3 personal GM vehicles, I very carefully followed the break-in period instructions in the owner's manual. And I still had just as many or more powertrain and brake issues as our fleet vehicles, which typically get the "hammer down" treatment as soon as they leave the dealer lot.

Hey Grump, whatever happened to ol Cliff aka Cowpie?

Rear receiver hitch with clevis and Bubba rope or log chains and a tractor?

Looser? Oh, I see--a Willie Brown reference to the "VP-Elect" (aka POTUS on day 2) on the Joe and the Ho ticket.

CR definitely seems to be fanboys of their favorite brands. For years, they worshipped at the Toyota altar. Now they love all things Subaru. And Conti tires, which have sucked donkey on our fleet cars. And they'd rank a Flintstones car with stone wheels higher than anything with a Jeep label, for some strange reason. Our family has subscribed to CR print or online for the last 25 years, but increasingly I find myself reading their rankings, shaking my head, and then going to purchase what I want as opposed to what their picks say.

Also check your brake fluid level. The master cylinders have been known to have a seal leak that will suck brake fluid from the booster into the intake manifold. If the brake fluid level gets below half, it will throw a code and show those warning messages, but the vehicle will stop fine. If the level is borderline to trip the sensor, it will do it on cold mornings.

You know what burns my ass? A flame about 4 feet high!

Looks good. But be prepared for flak back from the "I spent $10K extra to get a Trail Boss and then immediately spent 2 days removing all of the Trail Boss emblems from it" crowd on here.

Check fuel pressure and scan for oxygen sensor/other codes?

And this relates to future vehicle speculation how?

Yes, indubitably. BUT GM keeps changing the name of the system, possibly in an effort to hide any potential problems from new buyers. Whether they call it Displacement on Demand, Active Fuel Management, Dynamic Fuel Management, or whatever they will call it in the future, nobody can deny the complicated systems have not had their problems. My GM service manager refuses to own one. And Lord knows how many powertrain tunes/modules have been sold to turn the cylinder deactivation feature OFF. GM is not totally alone in this, as Honda's and FCA's similar systems have had some problems, perhaps not as widespread, too. However, in GM's case, from posts on this very website, we do know that with each new generation of truck and SUV, like with the 2014-2018 models, it is suggested that "the new ones have all of the bugs worked out!" and then we see continued posts of failed lifters, ruined cams, oil-fouled spark plugs, and such. Having lived the AFM nightmare personally, I may be a pessimist on the subject, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in 2028, we're reading that "they had problems up to 2026, but the new ones have the bugs worked out!" Us GM fans needing a reliable, problem-free vehicle can only hope.

Best to stick with AC Delco plugs and wires (of the proper length). You can enter your VIN on the online acdelco.com parts catalog and it will tell you the exact part numbers for all available factory replacement parts on your truck. If you're buying said parts at O'Reillys, they should be good, genuine parts. Beware of buying them on Ebay or some other online sources, as some folks have paid good $ for what turned out to be Chinese fake parts in what appeared to be AC Delco boxes.

Another victim of the infamous GM AFM system problems. (Bad lifters scarring the cam and excessive oil usage.) You won't hurt anything by driving it til it dies, except for the excessive oil usage might plug up your catalytic converters and oxygen sensors, and it will probably progressively run worse until it quits.

Try pressing the AC and Recirc buttons at the same time. That has been the behind-the-scenes 'instant update' fix on the outside temp sensors for GM vehicles for many years now. It seems the General has the computer programmed to always let the sensor temp go down, but never to go up unless a list of factors are met (such as driving at highway speeds) to prevent underhood heat from causing an erroneous reading (go figure). On our 09 Silverado, a lot of the time, especially this time of year, the temp reading will get stuck at a cold morning temp (say like 32F) and then if it gets 60 in the afternoon, if I am just driving short trips around town, it will not let the Auto HVAC work correctly until I do one of those 'instant resets'.

THIS. The 5.3L in our '09 Silverado sounds like the first 45 seconds of Van Halen's Hot for Teacher song on every cold startup and even some warm startups.

On the AC Delco website, it looks like the years are mainly bunched into 2-3 year groups on the front struts (for instance 2008-2010 being the same) but there are many different part numbers depending on if you have the smooth ride, sport, towing, or off-road suspension package. If you know your front suspension RPO code from your factory build sheet, you can go on that website and see if the part numbers are the same between 2013 and 2014.

The Range V8 module to cancel AFM was actually invented by the Range engineers after they posted their Range gas saver module on the net. Their name Range was from this gas saver module--as in how much added range you could get from a tank of fuel. The gas saver module was designed to keep an AFM vehicle in V4 mode as long as possible. They didn't sell too many of those, but several people asked them to produce the V8 module to help with the infamous AFM oil usage and lifter problems, and they probably have sold many thousands of the V8 modules.

No disrespect, but this is folklore. AFM kicking in depends on the computer's memory of the truck's usage and the current throttle position. I agree that 4th gear would probably keep it out of AFM, but I can't tell you how many times I saw AFM kick in on 5th gear and light throttle on our '09 1500 with a 6-speed. While people on here were telling me it was impossible. The GM Service Mgr said "not impossible." Then I got the Range. Then I finally tuned out the AFM with a Hypertech.

Nobody said anything about F-150s, skewed results for one quarter, or the unicorn ZR2 that has supposedly been in GM's secret skunk works for 5+ years now. The fact is Ram has taken over 2nd place in full-sized truck sales, surpassing GM for the first time ever. The point is, COVID has affected all companies. And the other auto manufacturers continue to set course, shove off, and get it done--unlike GM they don't rely on one excuse after another for years of delays in upgrading their product to what it should have been in the first place. Look at the Ram TRX that is coming out now, during the pandemic.