Shake or Vibration Issues

[pm26]

It's not just the trucks assembled in Mexico that are having these issues, the trucks assembled in Indiana are having the same issues.

Edit: the same people that get upset about GM assembling the trucks in Mexico still continue to purchase GM products, why, if you are so upset with it?

Don't blame the Mexican workers they are just trying to make a living. They only install the parts that GM gives them to install, so why blame them?

They torque the nuts and bolts to the torque specs given to them.

GMs biggest problem is lack of effective quality control procedures, or quality control personnel not doing their job.

 

Edit: and if it's not quality controls fault then it must be management saying "send the vehicles anyway and we'll deal with the fall out later".

I did not say anything about Mexican or other workers in particular. By "wrong hands" I mean workers who are either improperly trained for the job or do not care, or both. Also, the ones who do not perform necessary quality control checks which are essential when making driveshafts , assembling transmissions or differentials. The results speak for themselves.

 

And I do not quite agree that lack of quality control is the only problem. It is also the lack of quality of parts and assemblies in general. GM is trying to make parts cheaper and cheaper and at some point this is going to backfire. it does not matter how carefully one puts together a HVAC actuator made of cheap plastic parts which will strip out after several years. The part will still fail prematurely due to cheap components used to make it.

Edited November 3, 2014 by pm26

[14SLTZ71]

I did not say anything about Mexican or other workers in particular. By "wrong hands" I mean workers who are either improperly trained for the job or do not care, or both. Also, the ones who do not perform necessary quality control checks which are essential when making driveshafts , assembling transmissions or differentials. The results speak for themselves.

 

And I do not quite agree that lack of quality control is the only problem. It is also the lack of quality of parts and assemblies in general. GM is trying to make parts cheaper and cheaper and at some point this is going to backfire. it does not matter how carefully one puts together a HVAC actuator made of cheap plastic parts which will strip out after several years. The part will still fail prematurely due to cheap components used to make it.

 

My post was not intended for any specific person.

As far as the consumer is concerned the fault falls on GM and GM alone, they are the ones selling and putting a warranty on the vehicles, with the exception possibly being the tire warranty.

Failures within their business structure ultimately falls on the management team. If their quality control plan sucks then fix it.

If the parts and components received are substandard a good quality control process should catch that before it turns out to be a nightmare for the company.

I understand, things will slip past the best quality control but when it gets to the point where a lot of things are slipping past, then you got major problems within your quality control process.

 

It's simple, if you want to sell Kia quality vehicles then put Kia prices on them.

 

Edit: before I get slammed by a Kia lover I will add that I have heard that the quality of Kia vehicles has increased slightly.

Edited November 3, 2014 by 15LTZZ71

[pm26]

I have to disagree with your assertion that good quality control can catch problems due to low quality materials. You can make a cheap dashboard out of questionable quality plastic which will warp in a few months after exposed to hot sun.

The dash can be perfectly made as far as initial appearance and it looks just fine at the time the quality control guy looks at it. Same for HVAC actuators. These actuators use cheap plastic gears inside and no quality guy in the world will prevent failure of this part after say 1000 cycles, when a well designed part made from good quality materials should last at least 4 times as long.

 

A good quality control process will have both qualification testing and acceptance testing. The qualification part is the one that evaluates and approves the design, often by running destructive endurance testing on the part. Acceptance testing inspects each individual part made. I wonder how GM has scaled down both of these processes. I suspect that many parts are deliberately made to fail shortly after the basic warranty expiration.

[14SLTZ71]

I have to disagree with your assertion that good quality control can catch problems due to low quality materials. You can make a cheap dashboard out of questionable quality plastic which will warp in a few months after exposed to hot sun.

The dash can be perfectly made as far as initial appearance and it looks just fine at the time the quality control guy looks at it. Same for HVAC actuators. These actuators use cheap plastic gears inside and no quality guy in the world will prevent failure of this part after say 1000 cycles, when a well designed part made from good quality materials should last at least 4 times as long.

 

A good quality control process will have both qualification testing and acceptance testing. The qualification part is the one that evaluates and approves the design, often by running destructive endurance testing on the part. Acceptance testing inspects each individual part made. I wonder how GM has scaled down both of these processes. I suspect that many parts are deliberately made to fail shortly after the basic warranty expiration.

 

If it's low quality materials, it's a quality issue within the quality control process. If a company chooses to use low quality materials in the manufacture of their parts then they can expect to receive low quality parts.

The companies that GM uses for their parts will construct them out of whatever materials GM chooses.

Regardless, it's all part of quality control and how a company deals with it.

You don't keep putting f_ _ked up driveshaft on trucks just because you have 8000 of them sitting in the back lot. You don't keep putting frames on trucks when the undercoating is falling off as the truck travels down the assembly line.

You don't keep putting rims and tires on trucks when you know that they will never be able to be accurately balanced.

You don't keep putting bent, warped, or whatever the reason rear axle assemblies on trucks when you know that it will cause shakes and vibration. Etc etc etc etc.

This is all quality control and company leadership problems.

You don't have to agree with me but ultimately GM management is at fault, not their vendors, suppliers, and workers, you don't recieve a warranty from them.

[GMCustomerService]

Hey mdmischief,

 

I apologize for the vibration and recent dealer experience. Please feel free to send a PM if you'd like for me to contact your dealer and look into this further. Keep me posted on how things go when you take the truck back.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eddie A.

GM Customer Care

[14silverado4.3]

From Techlink:

Electric Power Steering System

 

The belt-driven electric power steering system features an integrated electromechanical power steering unit, containing the power steering control module, its sensors, the power steering motor, a belt drive and a ball nut mechanism.

 

The power steering control module is part of the power steering assist motor assembly and is replaceable as a complete unit independent of the steering gear assembly. The torque sensor is integrated with the steering gear pinion and is serviced as part of the steering gear.

 

The power steering control module has a software feature referred to as Smooth Road Shake Compensation that reduces steering wheel vibration caused by an imbalance from the front tire/wheel assemblies. The vibration transmitted to the steering wheel is referred to as Smooth Road Shake and is a phenomenon that occurs only at highway speeds and on smooth roads. The power steering control module employs active controls to sense and reduce the periodic torque component applied to the steering wheel caused by the wheel imbalance force. This software feature will compensate for a specific range of imbalance.

 

In addition to smooth road shake, road crown is compensated for by the steering wheel angle sensor signal, which calculates the intended driving direction. The Electronic Brake Control Module (EBCM) receives serial data message inputs from the steering wheel angle sensor.

[20SierraL8T24]

Has anyone checked to see if maybe their axle is slightly crooked? Take measurements on the leaf springs and see if one side is further forward or behind the other? Could this cause a vibration in the tires? Its a shot in the dark and maybe because they're all pre marked, and not aligned at the factory.

[20SierraL8T24]

Has anyone checked to see if maybe their axle is slightly crooked? Take measurements on the leaf springs and see if one side is further forward or behind the other? Could this cause a vibration in the tires? Its a shot in the dark and maybe because they're all pre marked, and not aligned at the factory.

Or maybe the spring mounts were welded to the frame slightly off?

[20SierraL8T24]

Thinking about it, the truck would just track slightly to one side.. Idk

[Dfunder]

Good luck to everyone. The dealer brought in a "field engineer" to look at mine. He lowered the tire pressure to 30 then took it for a ride with the vibe analyzer. Service Manager called to let me know that there would be no buy back, the vehicle is "operating as designed" and there was nothing else they could do for the truck. He did offer to let me trade in my truck on another Chevy. They all had some type of vibration and it would be at my expense........Don't know what else to do except take a hit on another brand. YAY

[mafd2]

Good luck to everyone. The dealer brought in a "field engineer" to look at mine. He lowered the tire pressure to 30 then took it for a ride with the vibe analyzer. Service Manager called to let me know that there would be no buy back, the vehicle is "operating as designed" and there was nothing else they could do for the truck. He did offer to let me trade in my truck on another Chevy. They all had some type of vibration and it would be at my expense........Don't know what else to do except take a hit on another brand. YAY

That's freakin terrible. BBB, lemon law, atty. Hey Eddie A. with Customer care, can you help this guy now???? If Customer care is so eager to help and ya'll are so sorry to hear of the problem forward all these complaints to Mrs. GM herself. Forward to upper management. Engineers??? Can you not do that??? Geez GM this is horrible! My truck doesn't vibrate but reading all this makes my stomach turn and GM is leaving a really bad taste. I'm really loosing confidence... Un F**I<**G believable!

[BluByU14]

Good luck to everyone. The dealer brought in a "field engineer" to look at mine. He lowered the tire pressure to 30 then took it for a ride with the vibe analyzer. Service Manager called to let me know that there would be no buy back, the vehicle is "operating as designed" and there was nothing else they could do for the truck. He did offer to let me trade in my truck on another Chevy. They all had some type of vibration and it would be at my expense........Don't know what else to do except take a hit on another brand. YAY

 

That is just horrible and I really do feel for you my friend. Out of curiosity, how many miles to you have on your truck? Reason I ask is that GM offered me a full buy back because my truck had just over 2000 miles on it. They also offered to buy it back from me before the field engineer comes out and told me to continue to drive my current 2014 until my 2015 comes in (hopefully before xmas). I know they are handling these vibration issues on a case-by-case basis, but feel like there should be consistency on how they are rectifying it for their customers. Just my $.02. Hopefully the GM rep on the site can chime in and give you some help.

[14silverado4.3]

We need to get the media involved, get some actual behind the wheel footage. Bad reports in the media typically will sway the sales, draw some unwanted attention GM's way.

[Dfunder]

The third time that it went in it had aprox 2300 miles on it. Thats when the engineer decided that nothing would be done for me. I was in contact with a GM representative thru the process, but all they would do is call the dealer to have the manager call. They were useless. The service manage was dealing directly with the District Manager and told me that the representatives are nothing more than an annoyance for them. Good luck to those that have a dealer willing to give you the time. Oh and the Dodge dealer that I test drove a Ram at offered me 8K less that what had been payed for the truck. It only had 2500 miles.

[yojo]

Good luck to everyone. The dealer brought in a "field engineer" to look at mine. He lowered the tire pressure to 30 then took it for a ride with the vibe analyzer. Service Manager called to let me know that there would be no buy back, the vehicle is "operating as designed" and there was nothing else they could do for the truck. He did offer to let me trade in my truck on another Chevy. They all had some type of vibration and it would be at my expense........Don't know what else to do except take a hit on another brand. YAY

What have they tried so far to repair the problem?