First Impressions Are Everything.

[The John]

-edit

It appears some responders either aren't reading all the way through or are jumping to conclusions. This isn't about my buying a truck with 80k miles and being upset because something broke; it isn't about the previous owner abusing the truck; it's about GM installing a defective part and then telling the customer they have to foot the bill for replacement of the part.

-end edit

 

 

Oh boy.

January of this year I ditched my little S10 Xtreme so I could buy a truck I could actually use. Don't get me wrong. It had the 4.3 V6 in it and well suited many of my needs. At first I didn't think I needed a big truck and talked myself out of one but soon discovered that I needed a bigger one to do the things I wanted to do (like haul twenty 80# bags of concrete to a job site). My original plan was to get a Silverado but I've always heard that GMC made their trucks beefier and stronger so I added a Sierra to my search. After much searching - I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find a 4WD extended or crew cab - I finally found my 2005 Sierra. I got it for a good price, decent mileage (80k on the odo when I bought it), and the thing still looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.

All was well and good with the truck until October. I was sitting in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru waiting to order when the dash glared the COOLANT HOT message at me. The needle was quickly climbing to the red and I parked it and popped the hood. There wasn't a drop of coolant in the overflow reservoir. I had to walk half a mile to QT to buy a gallon of antifreeze and back. It took the whole jug and still needed a little more. I kept an eye on it and it was fine until the next week. I noticed that each week I would have to add half an inch or so to the reservoir. I called the dealership about it and even had them look at it and they told me they've actually seen it evaporate out of the canister before. So I figured that to be the case because after all, there is a ventilation tube hanging off the side of it that is completely open. Fluid could easily evaporate out.

Over Thanksgiving I went to my mother's house four hours away. It sat the whole four days I was there and the day I left I noticed a small puff of white smoke out the back but dismissed it because it was rather cold that morning. The whole four hour drive back home, everything was fine. The next morning I started it up and a massive white cloud completely enveloped the whole truck and I couldn't see past the windshield. It was a Sunday so I couldn't get it anywhere, went inside and did some research. Monday morning I took it to the dealership and...

Turns out I'm a victim of the 06-06-01-019B service bulletin.

Both heads were porous and I had a milkshake under both of the valve covers. Not really having a choice, I had them remove the heads and pressure test them and found out that both of them were, in fact, cracked. I'm guessing that around the time the truck overheated was when they decided to crack and the long trip I took expanded the cracks large enough for the coolant to drip into the cylinders. My usual trips are just ten to fifteen minutes and perhaps it just wasn't getting warm enough for the cracks to open up all that much.

So after researching the TSB and finding out that GM basically said "we acknowledge there's a problem that could potentially cost you thousands of dollars, tough cookies if it happens to you", I found myself having to replace the entire motor. There was no way of telling how long the coolant had been down in the bottom end and I wasn't going to take the chance of just replacing the heads and then having to pull the motor again in another 10-20k to replace all the bearings.

On the bright side, the dealership got GM to pay for one of my heads and they cut me a major deal on the labor and the short block itself. I've also got a 90k mile truck with a brand new motor with a 3 year, 100k mile warranty. I love the truck and I'm happy with the outcome, but still highly disappointed in General Motors over the whole thing. I bought a GMC on the strength and integrity of the GMC name and this is what I end up with. Not a good first impression. It's definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. My wife's side of the family is loyal to GM as am I but now I am left asking myself:

Do I ever want to buy GM again?

[Nargg]

Well, you could buy a Ford and have possible cylinder problems. Or a Toyota and have gas peddle issues. Or Nissan and have electrical issues...

 

Bottom line is they are all imperfect. And they all try to do as much as they can to avoid paying for their mistakes. Like us all, you take your lumps and continue on with life. My bet is 10 years and 200,000 more files down the road you'll see this truck as the best one you've ever owned.

[The John]

I'm not arguing that. No doubt about it, it's the best automobile I've ever owned to date.

I just baffles me why GM would do such a thing. They recalled every Sunfire one time because the belt routing sticker peeled off but they refused to recall and fix a cylinder head problem that only affected a "very small percentage" of trucks. Seems like they're willing to spend the money to recall stupid stuff but won't recall stuff that matters unless they're forced to.

[z71rob09]

Oh boy.

January of this year I ditched my little S10 Xtreme so I could buy a truck I could actually use. Don't get me wrong. It had the 4.3 V6 in it and well suited many of my needs. At first I didn't think I needed a big truck and talked myself out of one but soon discovered that I needed a bigger one to do the things I wanted to do (like haul twenty 80# bags of concrete to a job site). My original plan was to get a Silverado but I've always heard that GMC made their trucks beefier and stronger so I added a Sierra to my search. After much searching - I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find a 4WD extended or crew cab - I finally found my 2005 Sierra. I got it for a good price, decent mileage (80k on the odo when I bought it), and the thing still looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.

All was well and good with the truck until October. I was sitting in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru waiting to order when the dash glared the COOLANT HOT message at me. The needle was quickly climbing to the red and I parked it and popped the hood. There wasn't a drop of coolant in the overflow reservoir. I had to walk half a mile to QT to buy a gallon of antifreeze and back. It took the whole jug and still needed a little more. I kept an eye on it and it was fine until the next week. I noticed that each week I would have to add half an inch or so to the reservoir. I called the dealership about it and even had them look at it and they told me they've actually seen it evaporate out of the canister before. So I figured that to be the case because after all, there is a ventilation tube hanging off the side of it that is completely open. Fluid could easily evaporate out.

Over Thanksgiving I went to my mother's house four hours away. It sat the whole four days I was there and the day I left I noticed a small puff of white smoke out the back but dismissed it because it was rather cold that morning. The whole four hour drive back home, everything was fine. The next morning I started it up and a massive white cloud completely enveloped the whole truck and I couldn't see past the windshield. It was a Sunday so I couldn't get it anywhere, went inside and did some research. Monday morning I took it to the dealership and...

Turns out I'm a victim of the 06-06-01-019B service bulletin.

Both heads were porous and I had a milkshake under both of the valve covers. Not really having a choice, I had them remove the heads and pressure test them and found out that both of them were, in fact, cracked. I'm guessing that around the time the truck overheated was when they decided to crack and the long trip I took expanded the cracks large enough for the coolant to drip into the cylinders. My usual trips are just ten to fifteen minutes and perhaps it just wasn't getting warm enough for the cracks to open up all that much.

So after researching the TSB and finding out that GM basically said "we acknowledge there's a problem that could potentially cost you thousands of dollars, tough cookies if it happens to you", I found myself having to replace the entire motor. There was no way of telling how long the coolant had been down in the bottom end and I wasn't going to take the chance of just replacing the heads and then having to pull the motor again in another 10-20k to replace all the bearings.

On the bright side, the dealership got GM to pay for one of my heads and they cut me a major deal on the labor and the short block itself. I've also got a 90k mile truck with a brand new motor with a 3 year, 100k mile warranty. I love the truck and I'm happy with the outcome, but still highly disappointed in General Motors over the whole thing. I bought a GMC on the strength and integrity of the GMC name and this is what I end up with. Not a good first impression. It's definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. My wife's side of the family is loyal to GM as am I but now I am left asking myself:

Do I ever want to buy GM again?

you bought a 6 year old truck that could have been abused by the previous owner and you're going to complain about GM quality?

 

LOL

[ChevyTech77]

Your situation sucks, no doubt but you did buy a 6 year old truck with 80k on it, drove it until it was out of coolant, got the dealer to work with you on the parts and labor but want to bad mouth the truck still? I know it sucks to pay out of pocket for things like this but you got a deal on the repairs. Plus, I would've taken the chance on the short block. I've done quite a few sets of heads on these trucks with your mileage and more and none of them ate a short

block later on down the road. If the engine oil was full of coolant, that would be a different story but milkshake in the valve covers is typical of this head cracking issue and usually, little if any coolant gets into the sump where it can do

serious damage.

[The John]

There was coolant in the sump. I had changed the oil a couple days before the trip. After they told me about the milkshakes I went back into the garage and had a peek inside the bottle and there was coolant in the bottom of it.

Sucky.

The difference between just replacing the heads and replacing the whole motor was only a matter of a few hundred bucks in the end and I thought it better to go ahead with the whole motor so I'd have the warranty.

Like I said, I'm happy with the outcome. I've got a five year old truck with 90k miles and a brand new motor that should easily push it to 250 or 300k. Now all I have to worry about is the little stuff that might pop up.

[rdnkcpa]

I don't think he's bad mouthing the quality of the truck, he's bad mouthing the quality of the crappy heads GM put in the trucks and getting stuck with a very large repair bill. I'm the original owner of a 2004 Silverado with a 5.3L V8 and both of my heads went bad this fall with about 114,000 miles on the truck. I've owned the truck since it was new and I have taken good care of it. I'm in the process of replacing the heads. As soon as I get home from the 'Stan I'll be putting them in.

 

I'm also not too happy with GM right now. I've owned Honda's, Chevy's, Ford's, Nissan's and Mazda's and one Toyota. Of that group this is the first vehicle I've owned with defective cylinder heads. The heads do not fail due to high mileage or abuse, they fail because the heads were not cast properly. This is a known GM problem and it is in fact poor quality. That being said, I'm choosing to repair the truck because it has been a good vehicle and I intend to use it for many more years.

 

I guess I'm a little bit lucky, the the bottom end of my engine is still in good shape. No coolant damage to the main bearings. Doing the work myself, the repair will cost about $1,200.00 in parts. This includes heads, gaskets, new hoses, spark plugs, wires, lifters, and a new water pump. If I paid a dealer or independent shop for these repairs I'd be looking at $3,500 to $4,000.00. This by far is the most expensive repair that I've had in my 24 years of owning vehicles.

[BlackZ71Silverado]

Sorry about your luck but sometimes that's the price you pay when you buy a used truck with 80,000 miles. Sounds like you bought a truck that has some issues the previous owner no longer wanted to deal with. No need to be disappointed with GM. they didn't do anything wrong. You purchased a used truck that had a problem. You should be happy that GM paid for some of the things you needed, in reality, you should have paid the entire bill........Buy new, that should be your first impression.

[The John]

I don't think he's bad mouthing the quality of the truck, he's bad mouthing the quality of the crappy heads GM put in the trucks and getting stuck with a very large repair bill. I'm the original owner of a 2004 Silverado with a 5.3L V8 and both of my heads went bad this fall with about 114,000 miles on the truck. I've owned the truck since it was new and I have taken good care of it. I'm in the process of replacing the heads. As soon as I get home from the 'Stan I'll be putting them in.

 

I'm also not too happy with GM right now. I've owned Honda's, Chevy's, Ford's, Nissan's and Mazda's and one Toyota. Of that group this is the first vehicle I've owned with defective cylinder heads. The heads do not fail due to high mileage or abuse, they fail because the heads were not cast properly. This is a known GM problem and it is in fact poor quality. That being said, I'm choosing to repair the truck because it has been a good vehicle and I intend to use it for many more years.

 

I guess I'm a little bit lucky, the the bottom end of my engine is still in good shape. No coolant damage to the main bearings. Doing the work myself, the repair will cost about $1,200.00 in parts. This includes heads, gaskets, new hoses, spark plugs, wires, lifters, and a new water pump. If I paid a dealer or independent shop for these repairs I'd be looking at $3,500 to $4,000.00. This by far is the most expensive repair that I've had in my 24 years of owning vehicles.

 

Thank you.

Same here. I'm only 33, this is the 12th car I've owned to date (only one has been new) and the only one that's ever had any engine problem of any kind.

[tonygxp]

i have to tell you i am sympathetic to your cause but like others have said, it's a used truck, had you bought it new and had this issue even though it was out of powertrain at the time, GM might have done it for you. they tend (and so does every other mfr) give the original owners more assistance in out of warranty claims. on a side note, knowing what i know about the reprogramming of the gmt800 clusters to alter the mileage? i wouldn't touch one with a ten foot poll unless i knew the owner, or scanned it myself. GM made it too easy for those to be "fooled around with". one guy brought his truck (this is a gmt900 mind you) into my friend's shop to get some work done and a Dyno tune. well the speedo was waaaaaaaay off. like 60 was reading 30 etc. he looked into it further and noticed the truck's odometer was halved. meaning somebody cut the mileage in half, not sure what it affects but the result is a speedo that shows you accruing only half of actual mileage?? my friend left it alone and brought it up to the owner who responded by saying he's been doing that for years, before he could just reprogram the speedo himself, now with the 900's is harder so he does this instead. Buying used is a scary proposition.

 

That truck will last forever now, you'll be fine. just don't beat on the auto, thy're fine stock but don't hold up too well under mods outside of boltons.

[JB Z71]

I think that sucks and gm is at fault. basically you missed the warranty based on it was 6 years old? Or did they not have the 5/100 then? I mean they arn't TOTALLY at fault. THey met their 'official' warranty, but still, we all expect more than 80 out of the engine.

 

Either way, that sucks to basically lose an engine at 80k.

 

The lesson I'll take away from that is if in the market for a used truckm find one within the powertrain warranty.

 

Would I buy gm again? Sure, like one person pointed out, the other manufacturers are all the same. And at least they worked with you on it.

 

Just enjoy the next 100!

[The John]

on a side note, knowing what i know about the reprogramming of the gmt800 clusters to alter the mileage?

 

That truck will last forever now, you'll be fine. just don't beat on the auto, thy're fine stock but don't hold up too well under mods outside of boltons.

 

Wow, that is scary. I checked the Carfax before I bought it (always do) and everything checked out.

Don't worry. This truck is going to be around for a very long time.

 

JB Z71 - Not in 2005. It only had the 3yr/36k mile warranty.

[rdnkcpa]

I think that sucks and gm is at fault. basically you missed the warranty based on it was 6 years old? Or did they not have the 5/100 then? I mean they arn't TOTALLY at fault. THey met their 'official' warranty, but still, we all expect more than 80 out of the engine.

 

Either way, that sucks to basically lose an engine at 80k.

 

The lesson I'll take away from that is if in the market for a used truckm find one within the powertrain warranty.

 

Would I buy gm again? Sure, like one person pointed out, the other manufacturers are all the same. And at least they worked with you on it.

 

Just enjoy the next 100!

 

The real lesson to be learned here is to stay away from 2001-2006 5.3L V8's with Castech aluminum heads. The defect in the heads does not usually come to the surface until 80,000 miles or so, far outside the warranty coverage. My truck had a 3/36,000 warranty. I'm 78,000 miles outside of warranty. I'm really not hopeful GM will do anything. Why should they, they met their obligation of 3 years 36,000 miles. When I get home I'm going to call GM and see what they say.

 

In the OP's case GM did the right thing and paid for the labor, but I bet he was still out $3,500 to $4k for the new engine. The cost of the truck I'm guess at was around $14k for the truck when he bought it last year. Still that's a bitter pill to swallow on a vehicle with only 80k on it.

[dlstewart01]

Yeah, the only place mileage in a full size truck is kept is in the cluster. It is not kept in the computer.

 

The IPC stores the Mileage.

 

The BCM will "keep record" of the current mileage.

 

Swap in a new cluster? With LOWER mileage?!?!? Guess what.

 

The BCM UPDATES itself. Yeah. Got 128K? The BCM sees 128K.

 

Plug in a cluster with 52K? Fire it up. Drive around. Oh look, Hi. The BCM now reads....

 

52K

 

Scary huh.

[jimbrown1]

Any way to tell if the heads were Castech or not? I have an 05 with only 45K (original owner pretty scary thinking I'll have problems with my heads in a few years.

 

I think that sucks and gm is at fault. basically you missed the warranty based on it was 6 years old? Or did they not have the 5/100 then? I mean they arn't TOTALLY at fault. THey met their 'official' warranty, but still, we all expect more than 80 out of the engine.

 

Either way, that sucks to basically lose an engine at 80k.

 

The lesson I'll take away from that is if in the market for a used truckm find one within the powertrain warranty.

 

Would I buy gm again? Sure, like one person pointed out, the other manufacturers are all the same. And at least they worked with you on it.

 

Just enjoy the next 100!

 

The real lesson to be learned here is to stay away from 2001-2006 5.3L V8's with Castech aluminum heads. The defect in the heads does not usually come to the surface until 80,000 miles or so, far outside the warranty coverage. My truck had a 3/36,000 warranty. I'm 78,000 miles outside of warranty. I'm really not hopeful GM will do anything. Why should they, they met their obligation of 3 years 36,000 miles. When I get home I'm going to call GM and see what they say.

 

In the OP's case GM did the right thing and paid for the labor, but I bet he was still out $3,500 to $4k for the new engine. The cost of the truck I'm guess at was around $14k for the truck when he bought it last year. Still that's a bitter pill to swallow on a vehicle with only 80k on it.