Long term results for K2XX 1500?

Baytrucker · August 8, 2019

2 hours ago, truckguy82 said:

Says carbon buildup is a big problem

way over a million of these engines on the road, zero reports of actual issues with carbon buildup

ive not seen a single post on truck, vette, and camaro forums about an actual problem, all speculation and a few photos of a little buildup

I didn't call it a "big problem". I called it a "common concern". And it is. There are loads of threads about it. Just because most people won't notice the effects over a long period of time doesn't mean its not a design flaw worth mentioning. It is admittedly a long term concern.

The number of people who have "issues" with this is significantly greater than zero. This forum is full of accounts of people who have had their 150k+ engines cleaned and noticed a significant performance increase afterwards. That increase is all of the performance they have lost over the life of the engine. It happens gradually, so most people aren't going to notice it until after they get it fixed.

One of the reasons why truck manufacturers are able to get away with overlooking these things is because a huge part of the pickup truck market is made up of people who buy their trucks for show and will never actually use all the horsepower these engines are capable of. The suburban commuter who hauls his 21' Jayco to the campsite once or twice a year isn't going to notice his engine performance decline over a 5-10 year period. It doesn't mean its not an issue for people who want to buy a truck to "run it into the ground", or actually use the horsepower.

The other major chunk of the market is fleet sales (businesses), which generally tend to turn over faster than individual owners, before carbon build up becomes an issue.

I have a hard time believing that most vette or camaro owners will ever see a use for the full performance curve of their V8 after the first 10k when the novelty wears off. For the wealthy, those engines are purely for bragging rights, and will be traded up long before carbon deposits cause a noticeable loss in performance. And for nearly everyone else, they are mid-life crisis machines used to drive to work in morning traffic.

Ultimately, I was responding to OP who was is the market for a K2 (2014-2018 range) truck. Its worth noting that Toyota saw this issue as worth fixing within that time-frame. Ford also implemented a fix for this during that time period. The K2 series GMs are behind the curve on this one and still haven't resolved it in their 2019s.

truckguy82 · August 8, 2019

6 hours ago, Baytrucker said:

The number of people who have "issues" with this is significantly greater than zero. This forum is full of accounts of people who have had their 150k+ engines cleaned and noticed a significant performance increase afterwards. That increase is all of the performance they have lost over the life of the engine. It happens gradually, so most people aren't going to notice it until after they get it fixed.

Oh yeah? Where?

I’m on this forum daily for 2 years and have not seen one thread about a top end cleaning having a performance increase. Maybe one squeezed by me, but I doubt it.

I saw one thread on corvette forums on a 20k mile vette and thats it.

I’m fairly certain you just completely lied. I could be wrong, and I’ll apologize if I am.

BS flag has been raised

KARNUT · August 8, 2019

Oh yeah? Where?

I’m on this forum daily for 2 years and have not seen one thread about a top end cleaning having a performance increase. Maybe one squeezed by me, but I doubt it.

I saw one thread on corvette forums on a 20k mile vette and thats it.

I’m fairly certain you just completely lied. I could be wrong, and I’ll apologize if I am.

BS flag has been raised

I agree that carbon buildup on value stems probably wouldn’t cause problems for most people. But saying there hasn’t been threads on here about that issue. There have been many, catch cans for one example. The implication is performance gains and is worth mentioning.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

truckguy82 · August 8, 2019

52 minutes ago, KARNUT said:

I agree that carbon buildup on value stems probably wouldn’t cause problems for most people. But saying there hasn’t been threads on here about that issue. There have been many, catch cans for one example. The implication is performance gains and is worth mentioning.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He said this forum is “full of accounts” that had the valves cleaned, or should I said “engine cleaned” and noticed a significant performance increase.

that is a lie and misleading

Edited August 8, 2019 by truckguy82

KARNUT · August 8, 2019

He said this forum is “full of accounts” that had the valves cleaned, or should I said “engine cleaned” and noticed a significant performance increase.

that is a lie and misleading

I think we’re splitting hairs here. Every dealer I’ve used for service pushes injection cleaning between 30-60K. They called it in some cases top engine cleaning. I’ve never used it. Never even put fuel treatment in. I have some old vehicles. Never a problem. Some posters have pushed walnut blasting and catch cans. If all that isn’t for performance gains why bother? I don’t use any of it some people swear buy it. Same as some people spend a fortune with paint protection. I use paint when my front gets all chipped up. Same results much cheaper. Different strokes. I know other manufacturers are finding a fix for direct injection (problems). If it wasn’t a performance issue I doubt they bother.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

truckguy82 · August 8, 2019

39 minutes ago, KARNUT said:

I think we’re splitting hairs here. Every dealer I’ve used for service pushes injection cleaning between 30-60K. They called it in some cases top engine cleaning. I’ve never used it. Never even put fuel treatment in. I have some old vehicles. Never a problem. Some posters have pushed walnut blasting and catch cans. If all that isn’t for performance gains why bother? I don’t use any of it some people swear buy it. Same as some people spend a fortune with paint protection. I use paint when my front gets all chipped up. Same results much cheaper. Different strokes. I know other manufacturers are finding a fix for direct injection (problems). If it wasn’t a performance issue I doubt they bother.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

? He lied.

your or his thoughts on what could potentially happen with carbon buildup is far different than saying there is concrete evidence proving it.

This is especially important when I personally have been following pretty much every single picture of gm di v8 available on the forums and I create threads on other forums when new pictures arise of high mileage examples.

the results pretty much the same every time, with or without catch can

-a little visible carbon buildup, and 0 symptoms or issues related to carbon buildup.

the fact of the matter is, all evidence points to gm doing a fantastic job with DI and carbon buildup. DI has been around for over a decade and other manufacturers had huge issues, especially the germans in the early days, especially VW/audi. This is the primary basis for the concern.

Other than a few pictures of some light carbon buildup, there is no evidence to support a top end cleaning has improved performance or that carbon buildup is a concern at all (Other than a 20k mile corvette some performance shop did a few years ago)

If you’re going to offer an opinion on the subject, fine, but offering an opinion is a lot different than stating you have specific evidence to support your opinion. Especially when said evidence is supposedly located on a forum I frequent the most on a topic I am very informed about.

this is not to mention, the k2xx came out in 2014, out of the million+ k2xx’s on the road, how many have more than 150k miles, like 1000 of them? 150k is a boatload of miles for a gm di v8 and there surely aren’t many of them.

KARNUT · August 8, 2019

? He lied.

your or his thoughts on what could potentially happen with carbon buildup is far different than saying there is concrete evidence proving it.

This is especially important when I personally have been following pretty much every single picture of gm di v8 available on the forums and I create threads on other forums when new pictures arise of high mileage examples.

the results pretty much the same every time, with or without catch can
-a little visible carbon buildup, and 0 symptoms or issues related to carbon buildup.

the fact of the matter is, all evidence points to gm doing a fantastic job with DI and carbon buildup. DI has been around for over a decade and other manufacturers had huge issues, especially the germans in the early days, especially VW/audi. This is the primary basis for the concern.

Other than a few pictures of some light carbon buildup, there is no evidence to support a top end cleaning has improved performance or that carbon buildup is a concern at all (Other than a 20k mile corvette some performance shop did a few years ago)

If you’re going to offer an opinion on the subject, fine, but offering an opinion is a lot different than stating you have specific evidence to support your opinion. Especially when said evidence is supposedly located on a forum I frequent the most on a topic I am very informed about.

this is not to mention, the k2xx came out in 2014, out of the million+ k2xx’s on the road, how many have more than 150k miles, like 1000 of them? 150k is a boatload of miles for a gm di v8 and there surely aren’t many of them.

I’m skeptical of problems. You’re convinced, that’s good. Listing problems is information as well as people listing no problems . People say tunes void warranty. I say fine let’s see evidence.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Baytrucker · August 8, 2019

3 hours ago, truckguy82 said:

Oh yeah? Where?

I’m on this forum daily for 2 years and have not seen one thread about a top end cleaning having a performance increase. Maybe one squeezed by me, but I doubt it.

I saw one thread on corvette forums on a 20k mile vette and thats it.

I’m fairly certain you just completely lied. I could be wrong, and I’ll apologize if I am.

BS flag has been raised

Just did a search. Very first post that came up. Just look at the topic. You may not believe the effects of carbon cleaning, but the guy who wrote this post clearly does.

The second thread that came up, you actually posted in.

" Yeah, its not "needed" I'll just be doing it for hp and fuel economy, probably worth about 10-15hp @ 70k" - truckguy82

" There's guys on audi forums that did before and after dyno's after like 70k miles, one guy with an rs6 made 100whp after cleaning lol" - truckguy82

You've clearly been following this issue for a while. I don't think you were lying when you said there were "zero reports" of actual issues, but I do think you were mistaken. The thread-count on this topic is definitely higher than "zero", and that's not including youtube or other forums. I'm not gonna spend the whole day sorting inventory on carbon post threads just cause someone called me a lair. Most people know how to use a search engine, so they can search it for themselves and see if I'm full of crap. I learned back in the 90's its a waste of time arguing with people on the internet.

The original OP asked for long term perspective on the K2 series trucks. Whether you acknowledge it or not, these engines do build up carbon and there are strong indicators to suggest it impacts performance over the long term. The most damning evidence is that other manufacturers have devoted engineering time to fixing it. They wouldn't just do that on a whim. Those kinds of redesigns cost money.

Baytrucker · August 8, 2019

1 hour ago, truckguy82 said:

? He lied.

your or his thoughts on what could potentially happen with carbon buildup is far different than saying there is concrete evidence proving it.

Where did I say there was "concrete evidence"?

Was this the same post where I apparently said carbon buildup was a "big problem"?

truckguy82 · August 8, 2019

3 minutes ago, Baytrucker said:

Just did a search. Very first post that came up. Just look at the topic. You may not believe the effects of carbon cleaning, but the guy who wrote this post clearly does.

The second thread that came up, you actually posted in.

" Yeah, its not "needed" I'll just be doing it for hp and fuel economy, probably worth about 10-15hp @ 70k" - truckguy82

" There's guys on audi forums that did before and after dyno's after like 70k miles, one guy with an rs6 made 100whp after cleaning lol" - truckguy82

You've clearly been following this issue for a while. I don't think you were lying when you said there were "zero reports" of actual issues, but I do think you were mistaken. The thread-count on this topic is definitely higher than "zero", and that's not including youtube or other forums. I'm not gonna spend the whole day sorting inventory on carbon post threads just cause someone called me a lair. Most people know how to use a search engine, so they can search it for themselves and see if I'm full of crap. I learned back in the 90's its a waste of time arguing with people on the internet.

The original OP asked for long term perspective on the K2 series trucks. Whether you acknowledge it or not, these engines do build up carbon and there are strong indicators to suggest it impacts performance over the long term. The most damning evidence is that other manufacturers have devoted engineering time to fixing it. They wouldn't just do that on a whim. Those kinds of redesigns cost money.

Yeah after my research in the last two years, I have decided I’m not going to do a cleaning. No point.

I have no issue with you warning people about carbon build up and your opinion that it could possibly be an issue.

I have an issue with you stating there are numerous people with 150k miles that performed a cleaning and say increases in performance. Thats what you said. That’s not an opinion. It is factual evidence that as far as I know you fabricated.

truckguy82 · August 8, 2019

11 hours ago, Baytrucker said:

This forum is full of accounts of people who have had their 150k+ engines cleaned and noticed a significant performance increase afterwards. That increase is all of the performance they have lost over the life of the engine. It happens gradually, so most people aren't going to notice it until after they get it fixed.

You said it right here. This is factual evidence and not your opinion.

Baytrucker · August 8, 2019

36 minutes ago, truckguy82 said:

You said it right here. This is factual evidence and not your opinion.

You keep using that term "evidence". I don't think it means what you think it means. I think you are confusing "factual evidence" with "conjecture".

Its an anonymous forum. Personal anecdotes from anonymous people are not "facts" and certainly don't qualify as evidence.

I've never presented forum threads as evidence, or even pretended to. What i did say is that it was a "common concern". Right from my first post, that is all I have said this is. There are a number of threads of people being concerned about it. A quick search engine search will show that. You say I'm lying about these threads, but you've participated in many of them. Lots of people with differing opinions and results, but those threads do exist. Many of those people are saying they have positive results with cleaning (as I've linked). It doesn't make it evidence that a problem exists. Its just conjecture. But it is a concern that is stated commonly (hence: common concern). It could all be the same person with different accounts for all we know.

I don't recall ever saying it was evidence.

The only thing I would say would qualify as (weak) evidence that carbon is a problem is the fact that large manufacturers have spent not-insignificant amounts of money to fix this. We know this to be true because they have published it and its in the engine cut sheets. But that is an entirely different topic.