V4 scares me

[15 Z71]

My friend at work beats his truck,does 0 maintenance changes oil maybe once a year. Btw...its a 2014 silverado LTZ 5.3. 81000 never been back to dealer for any repair. And AMF never turned off. Now how can this be possible....after reading all these post??

[wforrest08]

On 1/6/2018 at 6:15 PM, Jsdirt said:

Draw is in low milliamps - would take months to drain a healthy battery. There's more parasitic draw from all the damn magic boxes these rolling tupperware have in them today.

On my 15 it was less than a week. 3 times I don’t drive it much battery was/is fine just would forget to pull it out the port. Ended up doing a Black Bear tune on it. My truck had less than 500 miles in V4 before the tune couldn’t be happier running all 8 all the time. 

 

I could be wrong but I believe the Range keeps the truck from going into “sleep mode”?

[swathdiver]

3 hours ago, MaverickZ71 said:

Electronically removed. First via Range V8 module, later via Hypertech 2.0 programmer. But I waited too long. First troubles around 7k miles, but did not turn off AFM until factory warranty ran out.  By then the rings were stuck and bad lifters scarred the cam.  Still furious over GM stonewalling on the problem and sandbagging on repairs until warranty was up. If I had it all to do over again, I would have had AFM mechanically disabled at the first sign of trouble by having the whole engine rebuilt with new non-GM pistons and rings and an AFM delete kit (including regular LS-style truck cam and all non-AFM lifters from Texas Speed. I used to say the Chevrolet small block V8 was the best engine in the world. Then GM came up with this AFM junk because of CAFE, just to supposedly save on fuel. But many of us didn’t see any decrease in mpg with AFM turned off.  

I've turned mine off through a BlackBear tune and will physically remove it sometime this year.  No problems with it.  Just want the reliability of a Gen III!  

2 hours ago, 15 Z71 said:

My friend at work beats his truck,does 0 maintenance changes oil maybe once a year. Btw...its a 2014 silverado LTZ 5.3. 81000 never been back to dealer for any repair. And AMF never turned off. Now how can this be possible....after reading all these post??

If he's running synthetic oil he can probably get away with it.  If he's not, it's only a matter of time.

[Jsdirt]

2 hours ago, wforrest08 said:

On my 15 it was less than a week. 3 times I don’t drive it much battery was/is fine just would forget to pull it out the port. Ended up doing a Black Bear tune on it. My truck had less than 500 miles in V4 before the tune couldn’t be happier running all 8 all the time. 

 

I could be wrong but I believe the Range keeps the truck from going into “sleep mode”?

Definitely possible. I'm running an AGM battery, so I periodically leave my 5-stage charger on it every couple weeks anyway (a charging system engineered for lead-acid batteries isn't the best thing for a long AGM battery life), so I wouldn't see an issue if there was one.

 

Battery state-of-charge plays alot into how fast it will become a no-crank, as does temperature - those 2 factors alone can make wild differences between one guy's results to another. Batteries will always discharge faster with heat, so guys out in AZ, SoCal, or FL will have much shorter total battery life, and, much more frequent need for charging than we do up here in the Northeast, even with the same parasitic current draw. Guys up in Canada will have even longer battery life than us. In MA, we typically get 6 years average - me being in the repair side of things and having high-dollar 4 & 5 stage chargers,  I always get 8-10 years, depending on battery quality. I once got 12 years out of a battery designed for the heat of AZ that I brought back home with me. Bought the battery in May of '00, and it finally gave up the ghost in summer of 2012. Now, that was running in a '72 El Camino with a points-style regulator - no electronics anywhere to be found on that beauty. ANY parasitic draw in those vehicles meant something was wrong. All that is different today ...

 

It was -16°F up here Sunday morning - not much discharge happening in those temps!  If it's discharged far enough in these temps, it's split wide open. 

[Jsdirt]

3 hours ago, 15 Z71 said:

Then why don't you buy a different brand of truck?

Just a wild-assed guess ... but he's probably not made of money. We buy vehicles because we expect a certain amount of reliability in 2018. That's 110 years automakers have been building these things - you'd think they'd learn something in that amount of time ...

 

I bought my truck because I've been driving and riding in GM products since I was born. Anything I've owned built before the 1996 model year has been trouble free. My 2007 truck ended up a piece of shit - I'm keeping it, because I already bought and paid for it, but no way in hell I'll buy another GM as long as I live.

[mookdoc6]

19 hours ago, Jsdirt said:

I think he was joking around. Made me laugh, anyway. 

 

 

 

Mook, automakers aren't in the business of making your vehicle last forever - their goal is to sell you a new vehicle as often as possible. Are  you really going to trust the owner's manual telling you, you can go 7,500 miles on the cheapest oil on Earth?

 

I sure hope not ... but, it's your money.

Actually, they are all competing for lowest maintenance and intervals.......The cheapest Full-synthetic oil absolutely is fine and good enough for 7,500 miles no doubt....Change your conceptions and lessen the frequency today's oil are far superior than even 20years ago...

[Jsdirt]

By "cheap" oil, I meant cheap, regular dino oil. Not all oils are created equal. I would NEVER run a non-synthetic anywhere even CLOSE to 7,500 miles, no matter what the book tells me.

 

A cheap synthetic is miles ahead of a good dino.

[Largely Unknown]

On 1/8/2018 at 4:48 PM, lapoolboy said:

It is a known issue for AFM to cause oil consumption.  I disabled mine via Diablo i3 and I am MUCH happier.  Why do people who care so much about gas mileage buy trucks?  

One of my two favorite quotes: "It's a truck, so therefore...".  My other favorite one is "I paid $50K for this POS, so therefore I deserve this or that...".

 

I'm not going to switch over to a Prius.

[MaverickZ71]

On 1/9/2018 at 11:43 AM, mookdoc6 said:

Last two Brand new vehicles were SuperTech @ 10K heck I got upset when they raised the price years ago now it's around 18.00...."have no tolerance for lack of maintenance"  Really, where? Maintenance is being extended on everything vehicles, appliances heck the NUKE plant down the road.....You should investigate that on prolonging maintenance scares me more than GM continually extending maintenance on vehicles all the time every new generation..

My AFM problems were exacerbated by the extended maintenance interval of going off of the Oil Life Monitor indicator (roughly 7500+ miles) on regular dino oil at first.  Later on, anything past 4K miles on my truck, even with Dexos1 semi-synthetic or full synthetic would result in more clattering and increased oil burnoff.  My GM dealer service manager told me I'd be better off doing 3500-4000 mile oil changes, so I have ever since he said that.  I use only the AC Delco PF-48 oil filters (NON E-CORE) from my cache that I purchased when they stopped making them.  Any other 'better' more restrictive filters result in increased nasty mechanical noises at startup.  

[MaverickZ71]

14 hours ago, Jsdirt said:

Just a wild-assed guess ... but he's probably not made of money. We buy vehicles because we expect a certain amount of reliability in 2018. That's 110 years automakers have been building these things - you'd think they'd learn something in that amount of time ...

 

I bought my truck because I've been driving and riding in GM products since I was born. Anything I've owned built before the 1996 model year has been trouble free. My 2007 truck ended up a piece of shit - I'm keeping it, because I already bought and paid for it, but no way in hell I'll buy another GM as long as I live.

+1  I've got so much time and trouble invested in my '09 that I'm probably just gonna drive the thing until the wheels fall off, or more likely, the troubled old 5.3 AFM engine seizes up.  My dealer keeps telling me to trade up to a new one.  No way--no one can convince me the new generation of GM trucks has the problems fixed--if anything they have more vibration and other troubles.  And for ten straight years now, we've been reading posts like this on this website (this post being brand new today):

 

 

 

 

 

[Jsdirt]

^^ Well said.

[MaverickZ71]

18 hours ago, 15 Z71 said:

Then why don't you buy a different brand of truck?

I'm not an all-aluminum Ford with EcoBoost fan.  Truck Trend said their short-stay F-150 they tested for their 2018 Truck of the Year had too many structural creaks and groans and pops for their liking.  And those EcoBoost engines with direct injection need some serious internal cleaning, but the strong cleaner burns out the turbos. 

 

I'd be driving a new Ram Rebel Hemi 4x4 in a heartbeat (no pun intended) if I could, but FCA and I are too far apart on that price right now, due to medical expenses.  7 1/2 years of "what in the heck is the Silverado doing now?" certainly haven't helped any on that front.  

[jrob56]

1 hour ago, MaverickZ71 said:

I'm not an all-aluminum Ford with EcoBoost fan.  Truck Trend said their short-stay F-150 they tested for their 2018 Truck of the Year had too many structural creaks and groans and pops for their liking.  And those EcoBoost engines with direct injection need some serious internal cleaning, but the strong cleaner burns out the turbos. 

 

I'd be driving a new Ram Rebel Hemi 4x4 in a heartbeat (no pun intended) if I could, but FCA and I are too far apart on that price right now, due to medical expenses.  7 1/2 years of "what in the heck is the Silverado doing now?" certainly haven't helped any on that front.  

The new ecoboost are bi-fuel injected, atleast the 3.5. So worrying about valve build up and all shouldnt be an issue going forward, time will tell. If I was buying a new truck that would be on my short list. Probably going to run this one into the ground though.

[15 Z71]

1 hour ago, MaverickZ71 said:

I'm not an all-aluminum Ford with EcoBoost fan.  Truck Trend said their short-stay F-150 they tested for their 2018 Truck of the Year had too many structural creaks and groans and pops for their liking.  And those EcoBoost engines with direct injection need some serious internal cleaning, but the strong cleaner burns out the turbos. 

 

I'd be driving a new Ram Rebel Hemi 4x4 in a heartbeat (no pun intended) if I could, but FCA and I are too far apart on that price right now, due to medical expenses.  7 1/2 years of "what in the heck is the Silverado doing now?" certainly haven't helped any on that front.  

My boss has one been nothing but problems water pump,thermostat both on back order. He is so un-happy with it. He just told me today he can't wait to get rid of it. So see it's not just chevy and gmc.

[Jsdirt]

Like I've said a million times here on this site, and all over the internet, THEY'RE ALL JUNK TODAY. Some are just worse than others, across ALL brands.