asilverblazer

To be clear I'm not arguing whether your vehicles do or do not use oil. I am interested in continuing a technical discussion about what amount, if any, we can measure as being 'used' or 'lost'. As I stated, I measure the oil volume that I have drained from the oil pan and compare that directly to how much I put back in. There is always more going in than what came out. Generally, at a minimum, 1-2 cups, at most 1-1.5 quarts. The smaller discrepancies, were smaller oil capacity engines (5 quart load) and the larger discrepancies were on larger oil capacity engines (9 quarts). Generally, these never showed any 'measurable' oil loss per the dipstick(s). Oil was always within the marked area. Could it have been higher in the marked area one time vs another, I have to assume so, but the level on the stick never warranted a more significant dipstick reading accuracy check. I've come to the conclusion that so long as the oil level is within the range on the dipstick the volume is acceptable. Any loss that doesn't exceed the published acceptable use or fall below the dipstick marking is not considered a problem, meaning, the amount that I see being lost are not 'abnormal' or enough to warrant further investigation. Could it be that your measurement method isn't accurate enough to show an amount of oil loss? (This isn't an insult; I am exploring the measurement limitations of dipstick readings.) To wit, an oil pan that spreads a large volume over a greater surface area compared to a narrower pan would show variations in their measured volume quite differently on a dipstick.

Give or take, all but my earliest vehicles had that short an interval. To be sure any vehicle I've touched this century, generally they've all been on a minimum 5k interval.

I haven't changed the oil on ANY vehicle in the last 30 years that had a full load of oil in the drain pan when it was changed. Any MAKE, MODEL, ENGINE, USE, TYPE, LOAD, TEMP, CAR, TRUCK, TRACTOR, ETC... never mattered. Generally, all are a quart short. I know 'some' will stay in the engine, some in the catch pan, etc. Never have ANY of them been close (say with in a cup) of being full. I know this because, I measure every waste oil volume and can compare it to refill volume. A 5 quart engine always has about 4 in the catch pan, every time.

The Falken AT3W has me intrigued, looks similar to the KO2 tread pattern.

Visual match isn't reliable, they might be the same externally but could have different internals. (Long ago, some traction adders have different requirements) Is there no longer a glove box sticker?

You can gain a little bit of height. Observe the clearance from the upper control arm to its droop limit tab on the frame. Less clearance, worse ride quality. Do not confuse the above with the space between jounce bumper (bump stop) and lower control arm. Generally, anything greater than 2" is too much and results in increased wear to ball joints specifically, but other parts too. An alignment will be required after adjusting.

I've seen them be a little off, never so much that they couldn't be mounted. The small amounts I've seen get taken up when tightened down. If that bushing is so tight that you can't spin it in the shock mounting tube to more closely align, then forcing it will be putting a bunch of extra torsional strain on the bushing that shouldn't be there and potentially cause the bushing to wear out faster. Yes, you can spin the bottom of the shock (180 degrees) independent of the spring and top mount, so long as you relieve the spring tension by breaking down the strut again. I think you already tried this and the result doesn't improve the situation. Given the above, Eibach should offer a reasonable resolution - if not, pick another brand.

Not sure what part you are referring to as "getting stuck" but if the blend door was getting stuck and finally gave up, that's where I would start. If it is a dual zone system, does either side get cold?

Same part = same warranty. If making the change to do so results in the cost skyrocketing it was a lousy part in the first place. I recently bought a temperature sensor for the Yukon. AC/Delco, GM $40 with a 2 year warranty Duralast $23 with a lifetime warranty Guess which one I bought. Squeezing out a customer today might save GM a little now, but no customers tomorrow will cost them more. They will eventually run out of 'loyal' customers to squeeze. Where are the new customers coming from anyways (another manufacturer they had a bad experience with)? A race to the bottom of who is the least awful to deal with.

They don't sound that awesome to me, replaced a bunch of parts that didn't fix the problem, meaning they didn't need replaced in the first place. All just to end up where GMC recommended originally. I'd be pretty irritated, wonder what the cost would have been for just the compressor. At least its fixed now.

gm - genius. The warranty on the part is based solely on who pays for it - when it is the EXACT SAME part. Let's make the warranty experience as awful as possible for our customers, that will build brand loyalty! Shareholder value today, no customers tomorrow, bankrupt next week.

Dealers are least knowledgeable about the warranty on their parts. Call any dealer and ask about the lifetime warranty on your Denali shocks. The level of ignorance and lies that will follow will amaze you. No wonder so many people HATE going to dealers. The dealer model is beyond dead - why any company (GM) would allow a third party between them and their customers is beyond baffling. Bad experience at the dealer = no GM products sold. This one part example above has convinced me I know more (or have access to the same information) than every GM dealer in the greater OKC metro area. They must be so used to talking to so many other ignorant consumers that I think even they begin to believe the absolute garbage they spout off.

Start with locating the crankshaft and camshaft position sensors (P0336 and P0011). Look for wiring damage, if it isn't a daily driver suspect rodent damage. Ignore the fuel trims and P0174 until the P0336 and P0011 are resolved. Given that there isn't a clear signal from the crankshaft and or cam shaft position, the truck likely doesn't know what to do with the VVT/cam shaft. I would first focus on the crankshaft position sensor, this might clean up the cam shaft position. Conversely, if the low oil pressure is indeed due to poor cam shaft bearings, those bearings might now be worn so much that they are allowing too much play causing the cam shaft position sensor to read all sorts of incorrect 'positions'. Otherwise, the oil pressure is not part of the problem at hand.

Wonder if the "full reset" without the sensor replacement would have fixed it. Curious to, if the sensor replacement required a vac and recharge of the refrigerant? Is this the high pressure switch, low pressure switch, or mysterious pressure sensor?

Too many variables, you'll never know what was actually wrong with it. What you spent money fixing that wasn't broken, you might fix the original problem and create a new one or worse, NOT fix the original problem, create a new and have multiple issues. This is the WORST strategy for fixing a problem. Work carefully and methodically, test each part carefully prior to replacing, like with the injector. You found the culprit, repaired, then, importantly, confirm the repair solved the problem. Adding another new part to the mix doesn't confirm the original problem has been resolved.

Must've run him off. I could have used a little more description of what the conditions were, what the settings on the controls were, plus the setting for "automatic fan speed", what did intermittent mean based on the above? The automatic climate control uses a LOT of inputs to determine what to do, even including the ambient light sensor.

Not faulting your opinion, the problem I have with 'fixing it' is that they are never the same afterwards. I factor repairability in there somewhere. Watching crash test videos, seeing the impact literally ripple from bumper to bumper, it'll never be 'straight' again. It becomes a sad story of "it was such a great truck..." I worked hard on it, took care, of it, maintained it well, it looked great... I suppose that's when you land at your last point. To me it's hard to walk away from a certain level of 'investment', whether it's taking time to fix, maintain and repair an otherwise 'unseemly' vehicle. I've had several experiences finding myself with vehicles that I put quite a bit into, time, repairs, maintenance, effort, improvements, $. For various reasons, they're no longer around, some I made money on, some I lost, some I broke even. Some I'm glad are gone, some I wish I'd kept, none of them I HAD to get rid of. Circumstances at the time just didn't warrant keeping them in the driveway. I've found that regardless, most of them aren't in my driveway much past 5 years. My favorite and best was around for about 15 years. However, the current fleet, the Yukon my wife drives, and the Silverado look like they'll surpass the average, nothing new is compelling enough. The Yukon though is starting to show some age, door dings, fading plastics, more rattles, wear on the interior surfaces all cosmetic, but soon will follow drivetrain wear, wheel bearings, cv-boots/shafts, ball joints, tie-rods and bushings, many non-serviceable, 170k miles, 10 years old, close to the point where the maintenance tab is going to go up, marketable value is about to go off a cliff. To me, its end of life soon, the minor cosmetic issues will start becoming eyesores. Minor complaints will become major annoyances with no practical resolution. Finding interior rattles, nope. Recovering arm rests, new steering wheel cover, polishing or replacing plastics, fix all the door dings for a new one tomorrow. (Things a new one would be subject to, too.) Death by a thousand annoyances or one major item (a locked-up engine from poor maintenance ). Just lease one.

It 'automatically' runs to control humidity.

Could the narrower version still get 48" between the wheel wells?

This is not a post.

My question for you guys keeping or intending to keep these trucks (or any vehicle) past 20 years or 250k miles. FWIW, I consider these number to be end of a vehicle's life. You've got your money's worth out of it. It has fully depreciated and it no longer worth significant investment for repairs. Where do you draw the line on fixing things? Would you rebuild a transmission? Collision repair? New (premium or name brand vs. may pops) tires? As an example, Grumpy, If, someone hit your truck and caved in the driver's door to the point it won't open and close. Repair estimate in the 4-5K maybe as high as 10K range. What would your course of action be? Personally, if it were me not sure, because: 1. To dispose of it as-is would be pennies on the dollar = bad. 2. Fixing it correctly (taking insurance out of the equation for simplicity) would be too costly for me to spend based on its 'book' value. 3. I'm not going to put a blue door on from a salvage. 4. Best I could come up and most likely thing I would do, is trying to get it fixed at a price point I could justify. Quality or out-come would be compromised.

One point of clarification to add to my "by the book" or "standard" maintenance regiment that I may not be clear in my posts. All of the vehicles that I am generally basing my position on have an on-board oil life monitor. These typically adjust oil change frequency based on all the same conditions that Grumpy also uses. At last check, the maximum mileage interval was 7500 miles. I would expect that most people see the light come on and service accordingly.

Wondering what it was...

Have we seen enough 23-year-old DI 5.3 engines torn down to know? No. They are all barely 10 years old. The ones we are looking at aren't the 'good' ones, because the good ones and many of the marginal ones are still in service.

To be clear I agree with the statement, "the correct OCI isn't a number of miles nor a length of time that can be standardized for every vehicle in every environment under every circumstance for the entire service life of said vehicle." This might be an agree to disagree without getting into some really picky semantics. Speaking strictly of GM full-size platform V-8s from 2000ish.. to include the early AFM versions (LS Family). Generally, my opinion is that the book works. Here is why, salvage yards are not piling up with them, resale values are still good, and plenty can still be found in sellable condition with over 200k miles (all anecdotal evidence), which is in contrast to an assortment of other vehicles (without naming a specific model, many small, some imported, sedans and CUV's). I think the jury is still out on the most recent 6.2 issue (though admittedly it doesn't look good) because there were A LOT of them built, vs. the internet amplifying the issue. There is a number of engines that have failed prematurely, determining the number of those failures that are strictly linked to "not following the book" is impossible to know. Even with the latest 6.2, GM and thus us will never know how many didn't fail that otherwise would have. Further still, this was in response to a manufacturing defect, which is not a lack of maintenance or problem with the 'book'. Having said all that I think the GM 5.3 and even 6.2 will prove to be far above average in reliability following the 'book'. I'll freely admit there is no way to objectively prove this point with actual data. This might deserve a separate response for further discussion. I'm not certain 'excessive maintenance' guarantees you anything against a structural failure or machining problem? (A snapped connecting rod as an example, or in the case of the 6.2, I don't see how changing the OCI will help if it is using the new oil specification. Unless going from 7,500 mile (used to be the longest allowable in the OLM software) intervals to 5,000 keeps the new specification oil in better condition to prevent the metal-on-metal contact that the 0-20 couldn't do. What if that interval becomes 1000 miles? I agree it's a calculation, but it does cut both ways, which we see with the ongoing 6.2 concerns. There was an argument on here in the past of whether failure at 200k miles a poor performance from GM. was The GUARANTEE is, the warranty terms, the expectation is different, I EXPECT a new GM V8 to last a minimum of 200k miles per the book, a literal jury would determine if that was 'reasonable'. Gm may not be playing to WIN the long game, but they can't ignore it. Keeping vehicles longer is cheaper, the point I am making is that an amount of people won't realize the savings you have, because they don't want to or circumstances otherwise prevent. Something that costs everyone else that you already have, subject matter expertise. It will at a minimum cost time to gain that. The old adage, time=$. I think we agree on more than it appears which is why I am focused on our points of disagreement. Not to argue, but to have a more in-depth discussion about those points.