Ready To Trade It In!

[90plow]

My dads 2001 chevy 3500 utility body 4x4 with the Duramax/Allison setup is having problems...again. At 10k injection system went, 15k new motor was put in after they discovered a missing thrust bearing, at 60k fuel guage stops working, 61k transmission selector light stops working, 61k (today) transmission wont shift out of 2nd gear. The tranny just stopped shifting, it goes N P R D but wont shift gears no matter where the drive selector is. Brought it to the dealer down for about 2 days if its having the same problems the others were. Were both really fed up although hes a little more poed than I am. Stopped in at the Ford dealer today considering that as the next truck now :rolleyes: . This is getting a little rediculous.
Sorry just needed to vent,
Eric

[Pelican]

My friend had so many problems with his '01 Chevy Duramax that Chevy bought it back. The truck would quit for no reason, and then restart at the Chevy dealer with no repairs. I believe this happened to him about 7 times when they offered to buy it back.

He also had an idle surge issue that never was resolved.

[90plow]

My dads truck had the idle surge which ended up being related to the bosch injection I believe... Just a really aggrivating day, because the Ford 650 is also not sucking fuel from both tanks still and that has to be brought in to get fixed just not having any luck with trucks anymore. What happened to reliability with diesels, anyone know??? On another note the ford dealer said that the problems with the 6.0 diesel have been resolved anyone back him up on that?
Eric

[Long0]

I had a very similar problem (third gear only) with my allision - Actually two of them - The dealer narrowed the problem down to the Park / Netural switch. They swapped it out and I have been trouble free since - Well for the last 2500 miles anyway.:rolleyes:

Andy

[JohnnyU]

Eric, it sounds like many of those issues are related to the 2001 Duramax trucks. Many, if not all of them, have been corrected, If he wants a new truck, I'd wait till that new Duramax comes out, its going to be even better, too bad Cummins aready one-upped them :(

[snonut12]

The new Duramax LLY motors are already out in market on dealer's lots. Also I heard that most of Allison bugs got ironed out after 2001. So I don't think your dad should be hesitate to buy another new Chevy Duramax/Allison.

[90plow]

Heres what happened, shifter switch went and fuel sensor went. Total cost thousand bucks not covered by 3yr 36k warranty. Plan is to sell it at 100k before more problems start occuring. This truck is nothing but problems I cannot count how many times it has let us down or been out of service for weeks at a time. Very unsatisfying after spending what you do on these trucks. I think instead of having a horsepower race they should re-think and have a reliability race, less power more reliable kind of like....mitsubishi or UD? I don't know just poed.
Eric

[Joey D]

I would want to think the dealer is to blame for the terrible service and the down time. I have read about all the problems you listed on the diesel page and they all have solutions. I bet bad dealers lose more customers than anything.

[90plow]

Wasn't the dealers fault. They didn't know what to do at the time. GM didnt have answers for them and not too many guys had the right training for the motors. The fact that someone in the production line didn't put in a part causing the motor to malfunction wasn't the dealer either. They had to pull the whole motor and put a new one in after they finally diagnosed it. Its just a big mess and its very frustrating. You can argue however you want but the truck hasn't been good period.
Eric

[Joey D]

Hey I'm not saying don't sell it, it's your truck do as you want. But 2 days to fix a NSBU switch? That was such a common item guys were keeping an extra one in the truck with them until they updated the part to the tan one.

[ratlover]

Originally posted by Joey D
Hey I'm not saying don't sell it, it's your truck do as you want. But 2 days to fix a NSBU switch? That was such a common item guys were keeping an extra one in the truck with them until they updated the part to the tan one.

yup.....I gota spare ;) takes all of a couple of minutes and it should be a waranty item if your under 3/36. The y have a tsb on it and they waranteed mine anyway. otherwise its a 50$ switch and very easy/quick to replace.

The fuel sensor wasnt covered? or were you just out of your warantee.

I agree that your motor was fubar the first time from the factory but the biggest thing I see as a "reliability" problem with all of the car manufacturers is the lack of good mechanics. And the reason for the lack of good mechanics is the fault of the manufactureres and of the dealers. Anytime someone says my X is a unreliable POS because it has spent x number of days in the shop and they can never get it fixed......That aint a POS truck, its bad techs and a problem in general with how the dealers/manufacuteres view good techs or getting techs trained or keeping the good ones they have. Its an industry wide problem JMO

[90plow]

Well the good ol' Dmax ran fine for a month and now the injectors are clogged. My dad ran it back to the dealer knocking like hell and its there now. Filter was changed by the dealer about 10k miles ago and its a big filter so it shouldn't need changing. :rolleyes:
Eric

[ratlover]

first off the factory filtration is believed by many to be inadequate. check out dieselplace.com and do a search on fuel filters or secondry filtration.

Also it dosnt matter what brand truck or what filter. Its the quality of the fuel. dirty fuel will clog a filter quicker than hell.

The early injectors were more failure prone.

I would get pissy with em if they try to make you foot the bill. You have proff that the dealer change the filter acording to the factory scheduel(weather its right or wrong they cant fault you for doing what the manual says) And if the filter was doing its job no crud would get to the injectors. If they say it was due to crap getting buy the filter then tell em fine, factory defect now fix it! See if they change thier story :rolleyes:

[John DiMartino]

Eric, I think you would unload that truck as soon as financially possible.I would not buy a Ford either,i think your options are another GM or a Dodge .From whats on the turbodieselregister,the Dodges have been holding up great.

[90plow]

We're not paying for it, it's still under waranty. It's just the fact that the damn thing keeps breaking. Secondary filtration shouldn't be required I mean when you design something it should be able to filter the fuel you put in IMO. The diesel was from HESS so it wasn't cheap fuel at a back road station. Just kinda fed up with the chevy. THe dodge isnt really an option because it isn't real easy to upfit with a body.
I dont know just frustrated
Eric

[ratlover]

gm shoulda put adequate filtration on there but its thought by many not to be. Its crap. Do a search on dieselplace.com about it, if you search on fuel filter you will have reading material for weeks :eek:

Do have to agree though......if you truly have a lemon then unload it if possible. Warantee dont mean crap if its constanly in the shop.

Maybe John can confirm this on the new Dodges......

Dodge uses the same basic injection system as the Duramax and they run 2 fuel filters and a lift pump. The way it shoulda been done. (well the lift pump is probably just for the sake of the additional filtration....)

[John DiMartino]

The common rail pump is the same on both trucks to the best of my knowledge.The Dodges have had zero problems for the most part with the HPCR system. They do use a lift (transfer pump to feed the HPCR pump ,and Gm does not.Dodge said they did it to make filter priming easy for the owner or service tech,Also runnign otu of fuel is no biggie in a Dodge when it comes time to prime, a GM is as easy,and could take a long time,which is hard on batterys and starters.

[90plow]

The D-max isnt hard to prime at all...Trust me. WHne we were having other problems with the injection system (turned out to be an internal crack) it would lose prime every day. It has a hand pump to bring it back up, only if its not off camber PITA. Good thing we have the FORD to run in its place :rolleyes: haha
Eric

[NNJSnow]

My boss had some problems with his 03-04 mason dump (forgot which year). Darn thing wasn't sucking gas, after about 3 months he finally got it back but hes probably gonna have to get a new dump body for it and they had to reposition the gas tanks so they are on a 45 degree angle. Truck only had like 3,000 miles on it.

I just bought a 98 Chevy Silverado K/1500 all was well until i had to replace the water pump 5 days later but oh well it was under warrenty and everything checks out fine so far. I bought the 3 year power tran warrenty when I bought the truck so Im set, Ill have to get some pictures up on here soon.

Jeff