MFG Defect: Mystery dents, crinkles and ripples on my 2014 Silverado

JamGear · November 3, 2015

For those of you already familiar with this mysterious condition where your brand new GEN3 2014+ Chevrolet Silverado begins to spontaneously dent and crinkle, scroll to the end of this posting to read about GM’s final answer to me on this issue.

For those of you who wish to read an interesting story of how my 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 “made of high strength steel" started spontaneously denting and what GM’s final say on the matter was, read on…

In May of 2014 I took delivery of my brand spankin’ new third generation Chevrolet Silverado 1500. Because my wife and I were buying this truck to tow a 5th wheel, we added the max trailering package for another $3,000. This gave us a 3.73 rear axle ratio, some suspension, special electronics and other towing centric enhancements. So our new baby has 11,200 lbs of towing capacity and 2,000 lbs of max payload. Since this new pickup truck was also to be used as my daily driver, we decided to get the 5.3L 4x4.

I will not bore everyone with how difficult it was to purchase one of these very rare (at least in May 2014) configurations. But let’s just say that in the end we searched Cars.com using their unlimited distance miles setting and only found 36 within 1600 miles of our home. When we found our best choice, it was at Turnpike Chevrolet 535 miles from our home.

Let me say that Turnpike Chevrolet in Nitro, West Virginia is the best darn dealership my wife and I have ever purchased from. Because my wife and I are consummate car sluts, we have had a lot of experience with new car dealerships. Plus we have a good friend who is an F & I guy at a big Toyota dealership. Turnpike was fair, extremely courteous, and so helpful that we are inclined to drive the 1,200 mile round trip from NJ to WV when we upgrade to a 2500 HD.

But we do not need nor require a 2500 HD at this time. Our Silverado 1500 5.3L with the max trailering package is a perfect-fit tow vehicle for our 11,000 lb 5th wheel trailer and for the frequency we tow. I get an average of 9 mpg when towing, 17 around town and 21+ mpg on the highway with no tow. It tows beautifully! With my factory installed brake controller and a brilliant "tow mode" which basically tunes the gear wind-outs to optimize for more weight, this thing drives better than my last rig a 2013 Class A Tiffin!

Later in 2014 I noticed the driver's side outer truck bed fender panel had some minor denting along the top ridge. I thought to myself, "darn, how'd that happen?". Did some knucklehead kids hit it with a frisbee or ball. It was not bad enough at that point to warrant any worry. I figured I would pay a dent guy $150 or so and get it fixed sometime.

A couple of weeks following the appearance of the dents, I had the 5th wheel hitch system installed in my bed. A few days later, we picked up our new 5th wheel trailer (trading in our class A). Aside from having to put in some Timbren's to raise the rear about an inch (which totally leveled out the truck) our Silverado 1500 towed like a dream!

By August the dents were showing up on both outer bed panels and even some by the wheel wells. Which, by the way, were showing up without towing for two months! Now I knew something was up.

In September after quite a long battle with the dealership, they agreed to, under warranty, pull all the dents. One of the dealership's claims was that my 5th wheel towing was causing this issue. They could not be more wrong. It's actually due to a bad metallurgy in the panel and or some failure of the glue used to attached the panels that is temperature triggered.

When I picked up the truck after the dent guy did his magic, I was very happy and thought that would be the end of this weird self-denting thing. We towed with and drove the truck from September 2014 to May of 2015 without any issue and no re-occurrence of the dents.

In mid-November I took the hitch out of the truck. Then in May, before I put the hitch back in and towed anything, a couple of dents reappeared. By June, 2 or 3 dents turned into 5. Now, in early November 2015 I am back to 7 to 9 dents in the outer driver side rear truck bed panel.

GM's Final Word October 2015:

Having gone about 5 rounds with my local dealer, I call GM customer service and work with an agent named Emily. Next day she calls Hawthorne Chevrolet (Midland Park, NJ). The service manager tells her that he believes the dents are from my 5th wheel hitch (this is particularly disturbing because those very same people told me they did not think it was the hitch). Emily calls me back and says that I voided my warranty by installing the hitch. Basically it was "sorry kid, we are not obligated to help you".

Respectfully but assertively I asked, "really? Are you saying that installing a hitch voids the warranty for a cosmetic issue even though there is an enormous amount of proof to the contrary?" She then said I should keep any receipts for any service on this issue in case there is a recall at which time I can be reimbursed.

Emily did advise I could take the truck to another dealer. So obviously GM is forcing the dealers to remedy this manufacturer defect out of their allowances. But at this point, what dealer, especially one that did not sell me the truck, would take over $2000 out of their pocket to replace my quarter panel?

I may bring suit or exercise NJ lemon law rights against GM and the dealerships. But I would rather just have my panel fixed. I have spoken with other Silverado GEN 3 owners that have dents in their roof panels and front fenders. The hood is aluminum, so no reports there and likely there will not be. In the end, this is definitely a manufacturing defect. Since it is only esthetic in nature, it will likely not elevate to a recall.

The bottom line: In the GEN3 redesign the 2007 frame and many other innards were kept the same. The body, however, was a significant design and structure change. The panels are indeed thinner. I have no doubt that something in the metal's chemistry or element of how the panel is attached reacts to temperature changes. Among other reasons for my hypothesis is that all the incidents I have read about are from owners that live in areas of the country with significant season temperature variants (north midwest, northeast).

Here are other links to posting on this issue...