Bad luck with vehicles.........

[walnutman]

Brian, Duke... How are you. Sorry to hear about the parents. My Dad is in a nursing home for a couple of years now. Mom is a dialysis patient but is doing well considering here age and other issues.
Part of this end of our lives.

Brian, the problems you are having seem bearable and easily fixed. I understand your frustration but the main thing is the drivetrain and chassis. Remember still these are American trucks not Lexus.

GM is typical American auto industry. The market is full of pickups and pickup based SUV's and the demand there so that they they cruise without worrying about details. The foreign competition, although still has yet to produce a real truck, is relentless and pays much more attention to quality than our side does.

I haven't been on the forums nearly like a used to be. Just stopped in to raz you guys a little. Looks like you guys are still post fiends

I'm at the end of getting a nice size deck built on the house. Probably the last big project around the house. We had a 1000 sf addition built last year. We were gonna use my JD 310A to dig the foundation but I broke the boom in half just before. I borrowed another hoe from a friend down the road. The boom had a hole cut in it underneath where the previous owner decide that was a easier way to get to the hose fitting to replace the lines. I was supposed to beef up that area but got lazy.... the boom went BOOM while crushing lumber in a dumpster. I got a used boom and replaced it last month.

hoot

 

[two_bit_score]

I must have another good Chev. truck. 197,000+ miles and no problems, just routine maintenance.

 

[Builder]

I think what you see on the internet sites is a wide disparity of satisfaction with given vehicles because some guy expect perfection, some guys are content with a few little problems.

 

[LBrown59]

I need to vent a little so please bear with me.... We just got back from a 14 hour trip with the truck. The trip was great but the truck did not seem so happy on the trip. I can normally get into the 20mpg range but I was struggling to get 18 on the computer. After it was all said and done, hand calc-ed, I got 15. Most of the way were 2 lane back roads driving at 60 with nothing in the truck but 2 adults 2 kids and 75 gallons of fuel in the transfer flow tank... I should have got better milage........

On the trip the passenger side door handle broke off. My wife, 115 pounds, went to open it and she ended up with the handle in her hand. Looks like the plastic broke around the bolts holding it to the door....

The front spoiler under the front bumper decided to come loose and it blew under the front tire at 60mph, ripping half of it off..... including the fog lamp....

Both towing mirrors started to come loose and they rattled to no end. The dealer said it was fairly common for these to come loose for some reason????

While we were at the dealership, I was walking around the truck and asking them to please put more anti squeak tape on the doors, I found that my wheel liner on the front was falling down and there was a 4 inch hole wore in it from rubbing on the tire. This was the opposite side that the spoiler ripped off, so it would have had nothing to do with that...

I must have a truck that was built on a friday..... But most of the items that broke were held on with plastic push pins.... Its frustrating to only have 30K on this thing and have the lack of quality.

I don't off road this truck. I don't beat it... I have other vehicles to have fun in.... and I really feel it should be holding up a lot better than it has over the 30K. This is the 6th trip to the dealer in 2 years over stupid stuff breaking, and 3 others over engine codes and failures.......

Your luck with this truck sucks but picture this .
Friends of ours blew the engines in their car and pick up both in the same week.

 

[westcliffe01]

Except for the engine and rear axle, I am actually very happy with my Dodge Ram 1500. Hardly any squeaks and rattles, quiet enough in the cab to listen to the radio. Stock radio is actually quite nice. Was the only truck with a 6 speed manual. Bodywork seems fine. Bought if for $7500, was 2 years old at the time, from a Dodge dealer. Cab is low maintenance, rubber/vinyl on all surfaces. I put in some heavy rubber mats to save the factory flooring (amazing how some won't spend $20 for a removeable floormat and wear through the then vinyl floor with their heels ??).

Have to say that I can't think of a vehicle in the world that deserves the 3.7 V6. Since they fit the cummins straight 6 in the engine compartment, I see no reason why they don't have a nice lugging straight 6 gas engine in there. My old 70's vintage chevy straight 6 would have been a perfect engine with lots of low down torque. This whimpy v6 with no torque is an utter missmatch for the 3.55 rear end.

 

[Builder]

Agree. I had an old Chevy 258 "Blue Flame" in a GMC stake body that would pull the shorts off my 302 V-8 Ford pickups.

 

[Builder]

Brian, Duke... How are you. Sorry to hear about the parents. My Dad is in a nursing home for a couple of years now. Mom is a dialysis patient but is doing well considering here age and other issues.
Part of this end of our lives.

Brian, the problems you are having seem bearable and easily fixed. I understand your frustration but the main thing is the drivetrain and chassis. Remember still these are American trucks not Lexus.

GM is typical American auto industry. The market is full of pickups and pickup based SUV's and the demand there so that they they cruise without worrying about details. The foreign competition, although still has yet to produce a real truck, is relentless and pays much more attention to quality than our side does.

I haven't been on the forums nearly like a used to be. Just stopped in to raz you guys a little. Looks like you guys are still post fiends

I'm at the end of getting a nice size deck built on the house. Probably the last big project around the house. We had a 1000 sf addition built last year. We were gonna use my JD 310A to dig the foundation but I broke the boom in half just before. I borrowed another hoe from a friend down the road. The boom had a hole cut in it underneath where the previous owner decide that was a easier way to get to the hose fitting to replace the lines. I was supposed to beef up that area but got lazy.... the boom went BOOM while crushing lumber in a dumpster. I got a used boom and replaced it last month.

hoot

Good to hear from you hoot. Wondered if you joined a monastery or something.....

Can you believe I'm a happy GMC owner now? Owned my truck for 30 months without a problem.

 

[walnutman]

Yea Duke I remember you were never really anti GM and mentioned once in a while you might get one. How's business these days? Home improvement seems a little busy right now. Lot's of people fixing up instead of moving. We dumped a load of money into our house over the last year.

 

[Builder]

It's a lot more competitive. Jobs that were normally given to me are now cut throat bids. Luckily, I was good at saving money over the years so riding out a recession isn't as bad as it is for some others who spend everything they have.

I just lost a 3/4 million dollar bid up in BerWyn (big time Main Line money customer ).

I just bought a nice lot and will be hopefully building a home in 1-2 months.

 

[nmu98]

I finally received my truck back on Saturday. I was not aware, but they had some of the quality engineers come up from GM to take a look at the truck. I do not have all the paperwork yet (seems odd) but it is supposed to be mailed to me.

The reason that multiple parts of the body were falling off, and my squeaks were so bad is due to some body mount failures on the front passenger side. This caused the hood to move around when I would hit a bump, the body to flex more than it should, and the plastic push pins that hold most of the front together to break off.

I was told by the service writer that they have never seen this bad of a problem in the new trucks, but the engineer from Detroit was aware of the problem and seems to have dealt with it multiple times.

Either way, when I drove it out of the parking lot I could tell there were some major improvements. I just hope it holds together. The ride is quiet now and the truck feels tight. This truck has not drove like this for the past 20,000 miles.

I hope no one else runs into this, but if they do, know that you are not the only one with this problem with the new style trucks, and it can be fixed.

 

[walnutman]

Geeze I would crawl up underneath and see what gives. Get some closeup shots of the repair.

 

[nmu98]

Just to Jab at ya hoot. Do you really want a picture of 2 new body mounts and a new fender well and supporting pieces.........

I can get them Sucks to say it... But whatever issue it had under there, it was not noticable by crawling around. I had been under there a dozen times checking for anything I could do....

 

[Builder]

This sounds more like a case of human error on the assembly line, not faulty truck parts.

If this is the case, then you must allow GM the opportunity to correct the problem, then rate the truck in its' corrected form.

I usually accept mistakes as part of life-anyone can make mistakes, I make mistakes, too. It's how you react to, handle and correct your mistakes that proves you as a man, company, etc.

 

[walnutman]

I was just wondering what was the problem. Almost sounds like the robot welder was to blame... yea that's it, blame it on the robot LOL

 

[nmu98]

This sounds more like a case of human error on the assembly line, not faulty truck parts.

If this is the case, then you must allow GM the opportunity to correct the problem, then rate the truck in its' corrected form.

I usually accept mistakes as part of life-anyone can make mistakes, I make mistakes, too. It's how you react to, handle and correct your mistakes that proves you as a man, company, etc.

I cannot argue that. I do not have the paperwork, but it might have been bad rubber body mounts or it could have been how they were installed? I might never know. At this point, I am happy to drive it and it not fall apart. That was a bad experience. From the little discussion I had today, it sounds like GM might offer me an extended warranty free. Its not set in stone, and i did not ask for it, but it is being discussed I guess.

The only part of this that I do not like it the fact that the dealership leaves me out of everything. They did not tell me the engineers were coming until they already left. They said nothing about warranty extension until the truck left there place.... They did not keep me informed as to what was going on or how long they planned to keep my truck over the week and a half they had it....

All and all, all that matters is that they got it corrected.

 

[taborekle]

I have a 2003 Toyota Tundra that has done me very well. Right now at 114K miles. I've had to replace a light bulb for the bed, a over drive switch in the shifter a window motor and a fuel cap. Total cost in 6 years from dealership repair expenses has been about $1000 for the above. I had the dealership do a few minor regular service items and that was perhaps another $1k. I do my own oil changes and minor servicing.

I hope to take it over 200K miles and turn it over to my son for his first car (he's currently 12).

The new models seem about twice the size. They just dwarf my older model. I have a friend that has one and it's a beaut!

Larry

 

[Dmace]

I have a 2003 Toyota Tundra that has done me very well. Right now at 114K miles. I've had to replace a light bulb for the bed, a over drive switch in the shifter a window motor and a fuel cap. Total cost in 6 years from dealership repair expenses has been about $1000 for the above. I had the dealership do a few minor regular service items and that was perhaps another $1k. I do my own oil changes and minor servicing.

I don't see what this has to do with his problem but since you bring it up: My 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 has 80k miles and the only non-maintenance thing I have replaced is a wheel bearing ($200 and 30 mins to replace). I'm on the 3rd set of tires, 2nd set of brake pads (original rotors), and just regular oil changes. I don't think the manufacturer really matters these days, the engineering is light years ahead of the manufacturing process so even though the vehicle is designed to last for 300k+ miles and years and years of enjoyment, it all relies on how well the vehicle was put together.

I think the original poster's truck was made on a Friday at 4:59PM.

 

[Builder]

I don't see what this has to do with his problem but since you bring it up: My 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 has 80k miles and the only non-maintenance thing I have replaced is a wheel bearing ($200 and 30 mins to replace). I'm on the 3rd set of tires, 2nd set of brake pads (original rotors), and just regular oil changes. I don't think the manufacturer really matters these days, the engineering is light years ahead of the manufacturing process so even though the vehicle is designed to last for 300k+ miles and years and years of enjoyment, it all relies on how well the vehicle was put together.

I think the original poster's truck was made on a Friday at 4:59PM.

I'll bet the O/P's truck will be trouble free up until 100K.

 

[Dmace]

I'll bet the O/P's truck will be trouble free up until 100K.

So would any 2008+ truck but probably without the numerous trips to the dealer for manufacturing faults...

 

[walnutman]

You can bet the Toyota dealer sees lots of trucks come in for warranty service.