Unlevel truck

Mark_in_Tulsa · December 1, 2004

I noticed yesterday that the back end of the passenger side is lower than my driver side. I don't know when this happend. And I am 98% sure that it wasn't like that when I bought it a month ago. I still have 5000 miles left on it till the warrenty is up. So what might I expect the stealership to tell me is wrong? I know they will fix it, but what could it be? My only guess is its a Shock thing. Anyone else have this happen to them?

I measured from the top of the rim, up to the the bottom of the rear quarter panel.

And one side was 16 & 1/4" and the other was 15 & 1/10"

Thanks

budhayes3 · December 1, 2004

I'm pretty sure that I've read about alot of folks with the same concern, thought it was more on the left side though. Would actually sound more like a spring issue than a shock issue to me. Try doing a search for uneven or unlevel height or ride height or something like that, I'm sure you'll find something.

JimG · December 1, 2004

My old truck had that problem. Turned out it was the leaf spring. Now, this was a '95 Sonoma and I noticed this in 2001 so obviously I had it fixed by someone other than the dealer. In your case, bring it there, show them what's wrong and let them deal with it. You'll have the issue documented, and whatever repair they perform I believe is warranted for 12,000 miles regardless of the factory warranty at that point.

The way the shop fixed mine was to add a leaf to the sagging side (driver's). That leveled it out quite nicely. Not sure if that's the best way to fix it or if they should just replace the entire leaf spring assembly. Someone more knowledgeable can answer that.

budhayes3 · December 1, 2004

Since it's covered under warranty, if it's a leaf spring problem, they should replace the whole leaf spring assembly.

mcreyaufmiller · December 2, 2004

Shocks only stop the bouncing, the springs would control the height of the truck, my truck sags on the drivers side. My belief is that it is the fuel tank that flattens the spring.

gnutruk · December 2, 2004

Shocks only stop the bouncing, the springs would control the height of the truck, my truck sags on the drivers side. My belief is that it is the fuel tank that flattens the spring.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Second the fuel tank theory, but only when the tank is full. All that extra weight will cause a slight sag on the drivers side.

I'm not sure the effect of the extra weight from the fuel would cause a PERMANENT deformation of the leaf springs. I would suppose they are stronger than that. But it does have to be taken into account that when the truck is active, bouncing up and down in normal driving and cornering, the "inertial mass" movement of the fuel could be considerable. Perhaps that sort of additional, sometimes extreme, downward force could over-load the leafs, leading to a partial degree of permanent flattening. Hard to say short of being able to do some dynamic testing.

gnutruk

Mark_in_Tulsa · December 2, 2004

Well it sags on the passenger side. And I did fill the tank up a earlier today, and it still looks the same.

USA1Fan · December 2, 2004

I had my '04 parked half-in / half-out of my garage for a while the other evening, as my wife was getting Christmas decorations out (usually stored in plastic bins under a table in front of my garage). I back my truck in and it takes all but about 6" of space to fit in the garage, so we had to pull up to get to the stuff.

Anyway, it looked like my passenger side was sitting lower than the driver's side. At the time I took it to be because of the front wheels sitting on the slightly off-level gravel driveway (I was too lazy to actually go out front and see if the front was sitting off level or not. Now that I see others have had problems, maybe I'd better pay better attention and see if it's really because of the driveway, or if it was the truck itself. (I only have just over 3k miles on the truck, so there's plenty of time, but still, the thought of it sitting at an angle bugs me.)