Shake or Vibration Issues

td33 · November 6, 2014

Hi folks, new to the forum and new GMC sierra owner. My truck drove smooth for the first 12000 miles, have noticed vibration in the seat and console area recently with 14000 miles. I also have experienced the clunking noise when coming to sudden stops and downshifts this happened around 2000 miles. I find that it happens more often when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I've had my tires balanced and alignment done still vibrating at highway speeds. My truck has the 20" rims with goodyear SRA. I believe the drivetrain clunk over time is the cause of the vibration I am experiencing now. I have appointment with dealership next week will keep everyone posted.

Silverado-Hareek · November 6, 2014

Hi folks, new to the forum and new GMC sierra owner. My truck drove smooth for the first 12000 miles, have noticed vibration in the seat and console area recently with 14000 miles. I also have experienced the clunking noise when coming to sudden stops and downshifts this happened around 2000 miles. I find that it happens more often when stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. I've had my tires balanced and alignment done still vibrating at highway speeds. My truck has the 20" rims with goodyear SRA. I believe the drivetrain clunk over time is the cause of the vibration I am experiencing now. I have appointment with dealership next week will keep everyone posted.

You are the 2nd person to post here reporting a vibration showing up after 10+ thousand miles. That is very alarming. Especially for the folks pursuing a buy back/replacement truck.

Silverado-Hareek · November 6, 2014

My vibration seems to be getting worse. I'm noticing it more in the seats and console now. I have a 6 year/90,000 mile warranty and at 90,001 I will be unloading this junk.

td33 · November 6, 2014

I thought I was one of the lucky ones until last week When I noticed the vibrations. It's pretty sad when my wife's car with 170,000 and tires that have more mileage than I do drives smooth as silk down the same road I travel. GM if your listening time to step up and admit there is a serious problem happening here!!

mafd2 · November 6, 2014

I thought I was one of the lucky ones until last week When I noticed the vibrations. It's pretty sad when my wife's car with 170,000 and tires that have more mileage than I do drives smooth as silk down the same road I travel. GM if your listening time to step up and admit there is a serious problem happening here!!

How many miles do you have? Can you describe the vibration? Speed, steering wheel, floorboard console etc?

td33 · November 6, 2014

How many miles do you have? Can you describe the vibration? Speed, steering wheel, floorboard console etc?

I have 14380 miles, I drive 130 miles per day 5 days a week. At first thought it was tires, tire shop balanced and aligned truck same issue. I brought truck to dealer for second oil change and tire rotation two weeks ago. My truck drove smooth up until last week when I noticed vibrations through my seat and console, when I lean my head up against the headrest it is even more noticeable. The vibration is felt more at highway speeds. I have also had the drivetrain clunk happening since about 2000 miles,this happens about 2-3 times a week sometimes more, on the last 10 miles of my commute with stop and go traffic lots of declines, inclines and winding roads.

Edited November 6, 2014 by td33

keakar · November 7, 2014

videos people, start posting youtube videos showing your vibration issues. there are only a few videos showing truck vibrations on youtube now yet there are hundreds of people just at this one website with this issue so please get your cameras and go made videos showing how bad your truck vibrates and then post your videos and call some public attention to this issue so the general public starts taking notice and talking about these crappy trucks GM wont fix or stand behind.

without public pressure GM can continue to tell us all to go to hell and that's what they are doing to us

Edited November 7, 2014 by keakar

Mickey_D · November 7, 2014

The vibration on my SLE 4x4 was slowly getting worse (especially in the 40 to 50 mph range during acceleration or climbing a hill). I had an appt. at the dealer and the service writer seemed knowledgeable about the problem and said that it would be in for a week or more. The truck drove great otherwise but was not quite up to the task of pulling our travel trailer, so I started looking at 3/4 tons. Drove a Chevy 2500 LTZ with both the 6.0 and the Dmax, the 6.0 showed 11 mpg on the DIC while cruising at 65 on flat highway and shook like crazy and the front and back end did not feel like they were connected. The Duramax was a lot smoother, but again, the rear end of the truck danced on any kind of bump. The dealer was not discounting the Duramaxs very much, and I was not impressed with the 6.0, so I walked. Went to the Ram dealer and drove a couple of 3/4 tons, the 6.4 hemi felt too high strung and barely bumping the throttle led to a lot of tire noise - felt like the first 10% of travel was 90% of power, and the rest did not do much, so it did not feel like a great daily driver. But the chassis and frame were smooth and vibration free, almost like a big go cart.

Drove another (Laramie 4x4 CC SB) one with the Cummins and it was wonderful like a truck should be. You know the Cummins is there because you hear and feel it, but it is not obnoxious. The ride is very firm but not harsh, interior is nice (but not as "clean" feeling as the GMC), visibility is better, the headlights are wonderful (I can see in the dark again!!!), and the fit and finish are about the same. Downside is it is tall (parked next to the GMC and I was looking over the roof) and not as easy to get in and out of, running boards are ugly, and you almost need a ladder to climb in the bed. I am going to leave a rake in the back for stuff that rolls to the front. The Ram dealer was offering 10K off and gave 2.5K less in trade than I bought the GMC for in July (7500 miles so not too big of a bath), so I bought it. It is not as good looking of a truck and won't be as easy to live with expensive diesel and higher maintenance costs, but I think it will work out better with what I will do with it. But I still miss that good looking black GMC....

14SLTZ71 · November 7, 2014

Go easy on Kristen. These "reps" are merely minimum wage employees hired to monitor the forums to help GM maintain an image of customer service. Go to the facebook page of any company and its the same thing. I dealt with this on Verizon FiOS's facebook page. Go to enough facebook pages or forums and you'll start seeing the same pattern of responses from these "reps." That's why all of these customer care responses are nearly identical. It's scripted. They're here to take and pass your information along to a dealer local to you. Or you can just contact GM and a dealer yourself and accomplish the same thing. But using these reps usually will open a case in your name starting the documentation process you'll need if you want a buy back, lemon law, or whatever so they can be helpful. Bottom line is they're not here to provide you with any answers. They're like the receptionist at an office and your problem lies with their boss (GM).

Yeah but unfortunately they are very annoying and basically accomplish nothing.

Edit: however if they could add some value to all of these problems with their input it would definetly be welcomed, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Edit: and I don't mean assistance in the form of mechanical knowledge or solutions, I mean assistance in the form of notifying the appropriate people at GM about the rash of concerned customers on this forum and actually helping people to get their issues resolved.

Edit: I think we all know that if you want warranty work performed you have to call a dealership and make an appointment. If you have an issue that is not being resolved by your dealership, you have to call GM and open a case so that a GM customer relations rep will contact the dealership. We don't need to be told this over and over again and again.

Edited November 7, 2014 by 15LTZZ71

Silverado-Hareek · November 7, 2014

Had to drive about an hour away for work this morning for a meeting. Truck was vibrating for the first half hour or so and then seemed to settled down from that point until I reached my destination. On the way back, it vibrated for most of the hour ride back to my house. I made lunch at the house, then drove the 15 minutes from my house back to the office and the truck didn't' feel like it was vibrating much at all.....you could feel a little in the steering wheel but not enough to think there was a problem. So I'm f*****g clueless. I don't think it's the tires anymore. And if it's temperature related, it doesn't seem the transmission temperature is what matters. All I know is the truck felt smooth when I bought it in February, vibrated most of the spring until early June, then was vibration free until 2 weeks ago and it vibrates pretty much every time I drive it now. The weird thing is the intensity and rate of the vibration does not change with speed or RPM's. You start to feel it around 40 mph and it's fairly consistent all the way up to 80 mph. And it comes and goes. If I rev the engine in park, no vibration at all so that rules out the engine. I don't know. I'm really kicking myself for not buying that Tacoma. My plan was to drive a Tacoma until these K2 trucks started nearing their end of life for the model run and then trade up to one then. If I only I had a Delorian to go back in time......

Odometer just hit about 10,150 miles. I hate this truck.

EDIT: The only thing I can think of at this point is expansion and contraction of the metal components in the drivetrain due to ambient temperatures. I took a course in college called "Mechanical behavior of materials" where we studied this. Too bad I don't remember much...........

Edited November 7, 2014 by Silverado-Hareek

Silverado-Hareek · November 7, 2014

Yeah but unfortunately they are very annoying and basically accomplish nothing.

Edit: however if they could add some value to all of these problems with their input it would definetly be welcomed, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Edit: and I don't mean assistance in the form of mechanical knowledge or solutions, I mean assistance in the form of notifying the appropriate people at GM about the rash of concerned customers on this forum and actually helping people to get their issues resolved.

Edit: I think we all know that if you want warranty work performed you have to call a dealership and make an appointment. If you have an issue that is not being resolved by your dealership, you have to call GM and open a case so that a GM customer relations rep will contact the dealership. We don't need to be told this over and over again and again.

Fair enough I hear what you're saying. But again that's not these reps' fault. They're doing the job they were hired to do. It's up to their employer, GM, to change the job description.

14SLTZ71 · November 7, 2014

Had to drive about an hour away for work this morning for a meeting. Truck was vibrating for the first half hour or so and then seemed to settled down from that point until I reached my destination. On the way back, it vibrated for most of the hour ride back to my house. I made lunch at the house, then drove the 15 minutes from my house back to the office and the truck didn't' feel like it was vibrating much at all.....you could feel a little in the steering wheel but not enough to think there was a problem. So I'm f*****g clueless. I don't think it's the tires anymore. And if it's temperature related, it doesn't seem the transmission temperature is what matters. All I know is the truck felt smooth when I bought it in February, vibrated most of the spring until early June, then was vibration free until 2 weeks ago and it vibrates pretty much every time I drive it now. The weird thing is the intensity and rate of the vibration does not change with speed or RPM's. You start to feel it around 40 mph and it's fairly consistent all the way up to 80 mph. And it comes and goes. If I rev the engine in park, no vibration at all so that rules out the engine. I don't know. I'm really kicking myself for not buying that Tacoma. My plan was to drive a Tacoma until these K2 trucks started nearing their end of life for the model run and then trade up to one then. If I only I had a Delorian to go back in time......

Odometer just hit about 10,150 miles. I hate this truck.

When it's under a load it could be anything, that's why you will not feel it in park or neutral with no load on the engine and tranny.

Silverado-Hareek · November 7, 2014

When it's under a load it could be anything, that's why you will not feel it in park or neutral with no load on the engine and tranny.

I thought that but the vibration does not change when traveling up a hill, down a hill, V8, V4, pressing the gas pedal or not pressing the gas pedal. It's really weird. All that leads me to believe it's not load based. Plus, again, being under load or not doesn't explain why the truck was great for almost 3 months this summer and now on the exact same roads it's vibrating again.

EDIT: I feel the vibration in neutral.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Silverado-Hareek

14SLTZ71 · November 7, 2014

I thought that but the vibration does not change when traveling up a hill, down a hill, V8, V4, pressing the gas pedal or not pressing the gas pedal. It's really weird. All that leads me to believe it's not load based. Plus, again, being under load or not doesn't explain why the truck was great for almost 3 months this summer and now on the exact same roads it's vibrating again.

EDIT: I feel the vibration in neutral.

Hmmm, crazy. I've said this before......maybe it has something to do with the wheel hub assemblies, who knows? Edited November 7, 2014 by 15LTZZ71

BlueWrapper · November 7, 2014

I thought I was one of the lucky ones until last week When I noticed the vibrations. It's pretty sad when my wife's car with 170,000 and tires that have more mileage than I do drives smooth as silk down the same road I travel. GM if your listening time to step up and admit there is a serious problem happening here!!

Thanks for posting. I've been beating myself up over not grabbing a 2014 in blue topaz. But that is the nightmare scenario if you can't tell on the test drive and it pops up later.