piston slap = engine problems?

ness5575 · December 5, 2003

At any gm truck forum that i have been to, everybody is complaining about piston slap. while it is annoying and a new engine should be quiet - does the piston slapping lead to engine problems? i know theoretically it should, but who has actually had problems with their engines?

chevy4x4trucks · December 5, 2003

None that I have seen. If you search around you get a technical explanation of the knock and cold start knock as well.

SilveradoWV · December 5, 2003

Never heard of a failure due to the engine knock!

pacodiablo · December 5, 2003

One of the sites about piston slap said that it did cause scarring of the cylinder wall, but I am not sure if there is really any truth to that. I have never heard of an actual engine failure do to it. I think a lot of people are just mad about the noise.

mdub · December 6, 2003

Not sure how you can have the piston skirts repeatedly hit the cylinder walls hard enough so it can be heard in the cab, and not have cylinder scarring. Not sure how you can have significant cylinder sarring, and still maintain proper ring seating and good compression. Seems like common sense. But that's just me... I'm not the one that would have to fix hundreds of thousands of engines if I were to admit to the the defect.

Greg · December 6, 2003

They may not have experienced engine problems (yet), but people have reported getting less $$ for their trucks at resale time.

03GMCSierra4.8L · December 6, 2003

I sure am glad there are more quiet motors out there than noisy ones. If you read these boards long enough one would start to hear CSK and Piston Slap from your computer tower! I am one of the GM owners with a quite motor and feel there are many more of us out there that have not made this fact known.

Guess I should feel lucky that mine is quite, but to tell the truth I have not in person heard a noisy one. I will have to keep my ears open, I guess.

ness5575 · December 8, 2003

should be interesting to see over the next couple of years, as more and more and the NBS trucks get to the 100k and beyond point if there turns out to be more of a problem with the engines...

k1500chevy97 · December 8, 2003

should be interesting to see over the next couple of years, as more and more and the NBS trucks get to the 100k and beyond point if there turns out to be more of a problem with the engines...

chevyman16 · December 8, 2003

At work today, a dealer dropped off a 1999 Chevy 1500 Silverado with the 5.3 to get detailed. This truck had 276,000 miles on it! I started it up, ran smooth and no piston slap. I was shocked when i saw how many miles it had.

miket · December 8, 2003

It doesn't matter what damage it spawns...for those of you with "quiet" engines, how would you feel if all of a sudden your defrost only worked on warm days. See my point? I didn't buy my rig with the understanding it would drink the oil it does and sound like a diesel at start up. if I would have known that I wouldn't have bought it....and for the folks who did GM will step up to the plate and fix it...obviously they felt it was a big enough issue to fix it for 03's. That admits guilt.