2021 lifter failure - post mortem

Nomad24 · March 19, 2022

My 2021 trail boss is in the shop right now for lifter failure at 15k miles. I’ve seen several posts about the same failure and I’m curious if anyone can share how their truck is running now? How many miles have you put on your truck since the repair and have you had any additional issues?

Edited March 19, 2022 by Nomad24
Typo

20Denali22 · March 19, 2022

Off topic, but what was the build date on your TB?

voided3 · March 20, 2022

Our '21 Silverado with L84 5.3 got the first flashing check engine light at 585 miles. The dealer replaced the lifters only on cylinders #6 and #8 after several visits (the light came back four times in total) around 1800 miles.

The truck is now at about 12,500 miles and the issue hasn't come back yet, but 1) I change the oil every 3,000 miles as a preventative measure, and 2) I exclusively drive the truck in L7 on the 8-speed to disable DFM. Despite these measures, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again given only four out of 16 lifters were replaced.

I've mentioned this in other DFM lifter threads, too, but if they remove your serpentine belt for any reason as part of the repair, have them replace it. Ours started failing at 6300 miles because they took it off twice and stretch fit belts are one-time use. They replaced the serpentine belt, AC belt, and idler pulley on ours under warranty. Also make sure they clip your heater hoses back into place. They didn't on ours and I had to clip one back in its retainer so it wouldn't rub on the frame and squeak going over bumps.

Even without the manufacturing defect that affected our batch of engines, the lifters will most likely fail between 60,000 and 80,000 miles under normal use, anyway, due to the poor design. If you are not leasing the truck, I would plan on trading it before the 5 year/60,000 mile powertrain warranty is up or get an extended warranty if you hope to keep it longer. We negotiated an extended component coverage (6 years/100,000 miles) letter for the engine on ours that's tied to the VIN number due to the terrible, dragged out repair experience we had with ours over the course of a few months. It's at minimum a $5,000 job out of warranty to get the lifters replaced at the dealer, and if it takes out the whole engine due to metal debris recirculating, it can be as much as $11,000-12,000 for a new engine.

With all of that said, we plan on trading in the truck later this year. We use it to tow a modestly sized 4,000 lbs. GVWR camper and I can't deal with a practically brand new truck randomly failing in the middle of nowhere hours from home. No amount of warranty coverage will make you any less screwed in that scenario.

Nomad24 · March 20, 2022

16 hours ago, voided3 said:

Our '21 Silverado with L84 5.3 got the first flashing check engine light at 585 miles. The dealer replaced the lifters only on cylinders #6 and #8 after several visits (the light came back four times in total) around 1800 miles.

The truck is now at about 12,500 miles and the issue hasn't come back yet, but 1) I change the oil every 3,000 miles as a preventative measure, and 2) I exclusively drive the truck in L7 on the 8-speed to disable DFM. Despite these measures, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again given only four out of 16 lifters were replaced.

I've mentioned this in other DFM lifter threads, too, but if they remove your serpentine belt for any reason as part of the repair, have them replace it. Ours started failing at 6300 miles because they took it off twice and stretch fit belts are one-time use. They replaced the serpentine belt, AC belt, and idler pulley on ours under warranty. Also make sure they clip your heater hoses back into place. They didn't on ours and I had to clip one back in its retainer so it wouldn't rub on the frame and squeak going over bumps.

Even without the manufacturing defect that affected our batch of engines, the lifters will most likely fail between 60,000 and 80,000 miles under normal use, anyway, due to the poor design. If you are not leasing the truck, I would plan on trading it before the 5 year/60,000 mile powertrain warranty is up or get an extended warranty if you hope to keep it longer. We negotiated an extended component coverage (6 years/100,000 miles) letter for the engine on ours that's tied to the VIN number due to the terrible, dragged out repair experience we had with ours over the course of a few months. It's at minimum a $5,000 job out of warranty to get the lifters replaced at the dealer, and if it takes out the whole engine due to metal debris recirculating, it can be as much as $11,000-12,000 for a new engine.

With all of that said, we plan on trading in the truck later this year. We use it to tow a modestly sized 4,000 lbs. GVWR camper and I can't deal with a practically brand new truck randomly failing in the middle of nowhere hours from home. No amount of warranty coverage will make you any less screwed in that scenario.

Thanks for the information, all good advice! We went thru issues with a 2015 Ram 1500 with the eco diesel. The whole engine went out at 30k and then none stop issues after that. I was hoping to do better going back to Chevy! Ed are going to watch it and see how it does, if it gives us more trouble we will trade it in.

Nomad24 · March 20, 2022

On 3/19/2022 at 11:05 AM, 20Denali21 said:

Off topic, but what was the build date on your TB?

I’ll check when it’s out of the shop, I picked it up February of 2021 so will assume a 2020 build.

Dirk Dingle Berry · April 13, 2022

Was your 2021 Trail Boss made in Mexico?

Grumpy Bear · April 13, 2022

On 3/19/2022 at 7:08 PM, voided3 said:

Even without the manufacturing defect that affected our batch of engines, the lifters will most likely fail between 60,000 and 80,000 miles under normal use, anyway, due to the poor design.

Guy visits his doctor for the after colonoscopy review. Doc says, "Great news. No cancer was found".

Guy smiles.

Doc continues, "But that was last week. No telling what happened since then. Better do it again"

We did the procedure correctly but the procedure is poorly designed and thus the test results are "likely" to fail.

In about a week.

So we are saying that Even without the manufacturing defect the lifters will most likely fail between 60,000 and 80,000 miles under normal use? And then add due to the poor design.

We made the part correctly but the part is poorly designed thus it not only will fail, I can tell you when it will fail?

A Prophet indeed.

Nomad24 · April 13, 2022

We decided we no longer have confidence in the truck! We ended up with 4 lifters replaced and I had no interest in waiting to see if 12 more would go out and leave us stranded again. Zero interest from GM to make it right and I have been working with GM customer service to try and get reimbursed for hotel and gas. Apparently once you have an agent assigned you can’t get a new one and mine has taken 3 weeks to get no where (I have requested a supervisor call me but that has not happened yet). We are done with chevy and back with ford! I have more confidence in the 3.5 V6!

WeGone · April 22, 2022

On 4/12/2022 at 11:16 PM, Dirk Dingle Berry said:

Was your 2021 Trail Boss made in Mexico?

The motors are not made in Mexico its just an assembly plant.

Big_Kahuna · April 22, 2022

way to many cases , wtf is going on with gm ? this crazy how many truck motors blow up.

1AT4 · November 4, 2022

Just discovering these threads about lifter failure. More research to do. Are the lifter failures limited to 5.3's or are the 6.2's also experiencing them?

Any chance this is tied to the early 2000 5.3 lifter issue? Had lots of folks with those early models complaining about lifter tap on morning startup that sounded like "diesel chatter". I think GM's fix was a glorified cap of some sort to eliminate the noise, but not a redesign. I sold that truck and stepped away from GM until my AT4 purchase last year. One of the reasons I went with the 6.2 was all that old history (probably/hopefully fixed, but didn't want a repeat).

Gangly · November 7, 2022

The problem occurs throughout the 5.3 and 6.2 line up. However, its a VERY small number, you just hear about it here because nobody goes online to shout "hey, the lifters on my new truck are working perfectly!". My guess would be that the number of lifter issues is probably within calculated acceptable thresholds for GM, we just hear about them the most because of this site. However, I really don't know the numbers so my thoughts on the matter are pretty irrelevant.

KARNUT · November 7, 2022

You want to find more info about it. Type in your browser GM lifter failure or cylinder deactivation problems. It’s more than a little. Reminds me of my 04 Z71 speedometer problem. It wasn’t a problem they said but I couldn’t get one. Probably a year after I sold it I got a recall on it.

Jim E · November 11, 2022

Occurred at 20k on my 6.2. I'm at about 22k now and it's been fine. If anything, it's running better and I previously had a lifter tick, that is gone as well.

One of the other topics has more details, but this doesn't appear to be a lifter design issue, but an issue with one of the sources or batches of the lifters.

Id expect this to be a much bigger problem if it was actually a design issue.

Silverado4x4 · November 11, 2022

1 hour ago, Jim E said:

Occurred at 20k on my 6.2. I'm at about 22k now and it's been fine. If anything, it's running better and I previously had a lifter tick, that is gone as well.

One of the other topics has more details, but this doesn't appear to be a lifter design issue, but an issue with one of the sources or batches of the lifters.

Id expect this to be a much bigger problem if it was actually a design issue.

I read somewhere awhile back ago that it was bad batch's of lifters and components that were not heat treated properly which led to their failure. If it was a bad design then this would be massive. The 5.3 and 6.2 motor could have been built way before being put in the truck or SUV and sitting in stock waiting to be installed.