Shake or Vibration Issues

[Jesse Davidson]

Just got off the phone with the dealer, they are claiming that replacing the tire has fix it, that it now rides smooth and is well within GM spec. I asked what they found with the radio, so he said to give him a minute so he can go ask what they found...... the guy completely forgot about it, it wasn't done. He is going to do it now, and call me again when they figure out what to do with that...

 

I highly doubt the tire fixed it, I have the 18's as well, and swapping the sets, rotating the sets around etc. never fixed it.... we shall see I suppose

[abominable z71]

Jesse D, any chance you can bring this up with your newly found GM friends? See if they could tell from PICO the difference between a tire out of round or a hub out of round? If the hubs are made overseas, they may not be heat treated correctly if at all and distorting.

I have checked runout on the hubs lateral and radial and they are tight. The bolt circle on the studs is a different story but the wheels are hub centric.

[pm26]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_J6UhQP6s&nohtml5=False

[southern_sierra]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_J6UhQP6s&nohtml5=False

Damn, wish my truck had this technology. I think we have come to far.

[tootall87]

My complete rear axle was replaced and my vibration was eliminated. It was rotor to rotor - the full assembly.

 

What process did you have to go through to get that kind of work approved? Both dealers I've dealt with have replaced tires and rfb'd them but state they wont do anything else because the truck is "within spec" and can't get approval for any other work.... grrrr.

[FogDucker]

 

What process did you have to go through to get that kind of work approved? Both dealers I've dealt with have replaced tires and rfb'd them but state they wont do anything else because the truck is "within spec" and can't get approval for any other work.... grrrr.

 

My Yukon was pico-scoped and was not within spec, apparently. I also opened a case GM Canada's "Executive Review Team" who worked with my dealership and assigned a field engineer to work on it.

 

The vibration wasn't as bad as some have reported in this thread [water bottle videos], but it was felt in the pants and the steering wheel.

 

The rear axle replacement did not fix the buffeting or booming that other K2XX SUV folk experience. The buffeting was ultimately fixed after several tire replacements and road force balances. The booming was fixed by adding 6 dampers on the exhaust system.

[Wrench589]

I have checked runout on the hubs lateral and radial and they are tight. The bolt circle on the studs is a different story but the wheels are hub centric.

What is interesting about the wheel figment on these vehicles is that yes, they are hub centric. I measured my hubs and wheel bore and exactly size-on-size. So that absolutely constitutes hub centric. BUT, they still use conical lug nuts. Conical lug nuts are used in tapered holes to Center the wheel to the bolt circle. So, GM has built these with both centering mechanisms. And unless everything is machined perfectly, one will fight the other. What problems will that cause? Can't say. But from and engineering design perspective, it is not a great design.

 

FYI, my 1 ton has hub centric wheels and the lug nuts have a flat washer built in to them. Much like semi-truck wheels and lug nuts.

[triton.21]

I bought a 2015 Silverado Z71 crew cab short bed around Thanksgiving 2015. At around the 1,000 mile mark, the truck started vibrating at interstate speeds over 70 mph. The vibration would come and go. One second it was fine, the next second the change in the center console would just about jump out of the console. Also seemed to get worse on trips where the transmission was at it's peak temp. If I could post a video it would blow your mind how bad it vibrated. Your whole body would itch after a 30 min ride. Back and forth and back and forth to the dealership, and after I tried 2 new sets of tires and 2 new sets of rims the vibration never changed. The dealership replaced the rear end, drive shaft, transmission and torque converter over a 6 month timeframe. The owner of the dealership finally came clean around month 5 and let me know that GM had been given thousands of bad transmissions from their supplier, and they didn't know which were good or which were bad. Tried working through GM for help, but they just referred me back to the dealer. It really sucks for the dealers because they have to deal with GM's mess. Long story short, they ended up giving me a new 2016 model just to make me go away. If you're dealing with this too and they tell you it's the tires, don't buy it for a second or waste money on new tires or rims. No telling how much money I've lost on this truck, not to mention the headaches and aggravation. It's a shame that GM is selling these $50,000 trucks knowing they have big issues. Drove by the dealership yesterday, and sure enough there's my old truck on the lot with a sale sticker on it. If you buy used, ask for the service history. Sure hate to see anyone else go through this. From what I've read and learned talking to service departments out of state, this issue is wide and deep affecting thousands of people. I've owned multiple Chevy's over the years, but this one is definitely my last.

[Jesse Davidson]

Well, I got a call from the dealer about an hour ago. They couldn't find anything for what was happening with my radio, so they called GM to work with them. GM admitted to the issue with losing all the highs, and audio fading, saying that its a rarer issue and gave the dealer a special update to do. I said, that I knew there was an update that could be done, but that I had heard mixed reviews on it, he then said that that one is for a different issue, and the one they did is 100% specific for the issue my radio has. So according to them, my truck is now 100% fixed, vibration and all. I'll be the judge of that, and I'll post the PI numbers for what was done when I pick the truck up tomorrow.

[SierraMyst]

The booming was fixed by adding 6 dampers on the exhaust system.

If I could flex my ignorance a bit here please.

 

Could you elaborate more on this?

 

What do you mean the booming and which type of dampers were needed on the exhaust?

 

And did you have the OEM exhaust or an upgraded one.

 

Thanks in advance!

[FogDucker]

 

"The Boom" sounded like a 12" subwoofer was being flicked and would occur when driving at low speeds over expansion joints and concrete transitions. It was particularly annoying over washboard gravel or snow covered roads. The booming sound would originate from the rear of the vehicle as the rear wheels drove over the bumps.

 

The fix was to weld 6 dampers to my exhaust, similar to the one shown in the attached picture. The work order did not include any GM part numbers and looks to be a one-of. I don't have access to a lift to take pictures, but I do recall seeing at least 2 when my Yukon was in the air getting the BFGs installed.

 

No more buffeting, booming or vibrating!

[abominable z71]

I bought a 2015 Silverado Z71 crew cab short bed around Thanksgiving 2015. At around the 1,000 mile mark, the truck started vibrating at interstate speeds over 70 mph. The vibration would come and go. One second it was fine, the next second the change in the center console would just about jump out of the console. Also seemed to get worse on trips where the transmission was at it's peak temp. If I could post a video it would blow your mind how bad it vibrated. Your whole body would itch after a 30 min ride. Back and forth and back and forth to the dealership, and after I tried 2 new sets of tires and 2 new sets of rims the vibration never changed. The dealership replaced the rear end, drive shaft, transmission and torque converter over a 6 month timeframe. The owner of the dealership finally came clean around month 5 and let me know that GM had been given thousands of bad transmissions from their supplier, and they didn't know which were good or which were bad. Tried working through GM for help, but they just referred me back to the dealer. It really sucks for the dealers because they have to deal with GM's mess. Long story short, they ended up giving me a new 2016 model just to make me go away. If you're dealing with this too and they tell you it's the tires, don't buy it for a second or waste money on new tires or rims. No telling how much money I've lost on this truck, not to mention the headaches and aggravation. It's a shame that GM is selling these $50,000 trucks knowing they have big issues. Drove by the dealership yesterday, and sure enough there's my old truck on the lot with a sale sticker on it. If you buy used, ask for the service history. Sure hate to see anyone else go through this. From what I've read and learned talking to service departments out of state, this issue is wide and deep affecting thousands of people. I've owned multiple Chevy's over the years, but this one is definitely my last.

So the owner said that GM got a bad batch of transmissions, and they replaced your transmission and torque converter but that still didn't fix your vibration issue? The same thing has been said about the rear ends in these trucks, GM rushed them into production, AAM cranked them out knowingly sending out of spec rear ends, some people who had the rear end changed said it fixed the issue some said it didn't, some said they had marginal improvement. Apparently GM built a lot of trucks with a bunch of different components that could cause these issues and they have no idea how to distinguish the source. It does however seem to be the most prevalent in the crew cab 4wd trucks, maybe this configuration is just best at transmitting the vibrations. Was your 2015 a 4x4? What model 2016 did you end up getting and does it have any vibration issues?

[triton.21]

So the owner said that GM got a bad batch of transmissions, and they replaced your transmission and torque converter but that still didn't fix your vibration issue? The same thing has been said about the rear ends in these trucks, GM rushed them into production, AAM cranked them out knowingly sending out of spec rear ends, some people who had the rear end changed said it fixed the issue some said it didn't, some said they had marginal improvement. Apparently GM built a lot of trucks with a bunch of different components that could cause these issues and they have no idea how to distinguish the source. It does however seem to be the most prevalent in the crew cab 4wd trucks, maybe this configuration is just best at transmitting the vibrations. Was your 2015 a 4x4? What model 2016 did you end up getting and does it have any vibration issues?

It was a Z71 4X4 crew cab short box LT model. Also had to have an injector fixed (missed bad on acceleration), the hill descent system wouldn't work, and the battery kept going dead (something in the theft monitoring system was sticking on). Piece of junk top to bottom. New rear end and driveshaft changed nothing. Once they mentioned having to change the whole transmission and torque converter, accepting the truck back was out of the question at that point. With a rap sheet as long as my leg at 1,100 miles, no one would give me full trade credit when it was time for a new one, and I definitely wouldn't feel good selling it directly to an individual knowing the troubles it had. I assumed they would send it back to GM, but guess not. These poor dealerships are left holding the bag and taking all the heat from the buyers. It's just wrong any way you cut it. Only had the new truck for a couple days and so far it seems ok. Fingers crossed. Great looking truck though!!

[Jesse Davidson]

Ok, I just picked my truck up and have a good amount of info to post for everyone.I will cover the repair attempts first, then at the bottom address more information I got from the foreman, so bear with me.

 

Vibration:

On the original pico-scope test, my truck registered 27 milli G's on a T1 (which is parts of the vehicle that rotate at tire speed). The GM threshold spec is 22 milli G's. So as it turns out, I really did have a bad tire, not by the RFB, (RFB measures the stiffness of the sidewall), but tread wise. When it was on the machine, the tire itself had lateral movement (lateral runout), so it was a manufacturing issue, and it was replaced.

 

On the second test, after getting the new tire, the truck registered 16 milli G's for the T1, although they did admit and put in writing on the service documents that it does increase in severity as the truck gets driven. Before even getting my keys, the Shop Foreman told me that I will still feel the vibration, it just won't be quite as bad. Specifically, he said that with a reading in the teens on the pico, you will still feel it, however GM doesn't consider below 22 milli G's a problem, yet the foreman agrees that feeling any vibration in a vehicle this expensive is ridiculous, and he would be as pissed as we all are.

 

As for my own road test, I was pissed off and just made the short back road trip back to my house, and didn't hit any highways. I can say however that atleast on the back roads, there is little if any improvement, possibly even slightly worse, I need to take a longer drive to rally figure it out. I will hit the highways over the next few days and report if I think it is any better then.

 

Radio:

As for the radio issue, they performed PI1374F, which is actually directed to the 2014 MY trucks that also have issues with fading radios'. This did help slightly with how the highs get lost, in the sense that it isn't quite as pronounced, but it still happens. In addition, the radio now makes an intermittent buzzing sound and gets more static than it ever used to. Thinking that maybe they took the unit out, and a connection came loose. I called them when I got home to ask if they did, and they said no, so the truck is going back on Tuesday regardless of the severity of the vibration on the highway.

 

GM Trade in:

So just for kicks, after they gave me the paperwork and said it was all fixed, I asked what they could do for me on getting me into a '16 Sierra, since my truck is now all set.... They offered 28k for my truck, and thats from a GM dealer... so even GM wont pay what the their own trucks are supposed to be worth, smdh.

 

Well maybe they can fix your radio.

Nope

 

More Info:

Jesse D, any chance you can bring this up with your newly found GM friends? See if they could tell from PICO the difference between a tire out of round or a hub out of round? If the hubs are made overseas, they may not be heat treated correctly if at all and distorting.

No, the Picoscope can not tell the difference between the tire and the hub, the hub spins at tire speed and is shown as part of a T1 Vibe, it is up to the tech to figure what part could be causing the vibration.

 

So as we know, GM lowered their RFB spec, industry standard is 30 lbs, GM has decided theirs is now 25 lbs, allegedly to try to help the vibration we all have. Mine all registered 16lbs or lower.

 

GM has set their threshold PICO number to 22 milli G's, yet the vibration will still be felt even lower than that, like my truck for example at 16 milli G's

 

GM currently has 37 PI's in their system all related to attempting to fix vibration in their SUV' and Truck' (the foreman showed me the system on the computer)

 

Some people like myself have noticed that we have paid for upgraded A/T tires, yet got Wrangler SRA' tires, a highway all season tire. Per the shop foreman, GM decided that the Wrangler SRA is an A/T tire, even though industry says its not, and neither does GoodYear for that matter. (the foreman agrees that the SRA is not an A/T tire).

 

Both the shop foreman and the sales manager I spoke with suggested continually calling GM to complain and say you're very unhappy with the trucks, and to try to make as much noise about the problems as we can.

 

NEW RECALL:

In case anyone hasn't heard it yet, GM is now recalling 1.04 million 2014 and 2015 Pickups because of faulty seat belts. check your vins everyone.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Jesse D

[C6Bill]

Sorry to hear that Jesse, I was really hoping they would get you squared away.