General Comments:
The truck is pretty solid and reliable. The ride quality is fairly good and the 5.3L has a decent amount of power (I wouldn't go as far to say impressive though). I have the LT trim, so it has heated/power leather seats, and they are very comfortable around town and on long trips. Overall, it's a very solid reliable truck, BUT...
The quality of engineering on these trucks is just pathetic!
Let's start with the brakes; they have such a long mushy travel that ups the pucker factor every time I have to do an emergency stop... I wanna meet the jerk off that said "yup, brakes are good, send it into production"
Next let's talk about the infamous "clunk" upon stopping and accelerating. Chevy engineer's great minds came up with a nickel plated slip yoke to stop the clunk... well that doesn't solve it now does it?! (just masks the real problem). Their new trucks continue to do this as well. None of those guys figured it's actually axle wrap that is the problem, and it can be fixed for good with a pair of $15 spring clamps.
Shall we move on to piston slap? Nothing like having a nice truck that sounds like a fricking diesel when you start it in the morning! GM says it's "normal"... It's not normal; they just don't wanna pay to fix the issue!
So how bad is your truck rusting? Seems like 9/10 of these Silverados have the rocker panels completely rusted through, along with the bed above the wheel wells! Once again, slumping on quality materials..
Overall, it's a very nice reliable truck, but you're sure to have a few of these quality issues that drastically reduce resale value, and can be quite annoying or even embarrassing. These problems don't turn me off from Chevy's altogether, but if I were to buy another one, I would test drive it for a full day or two just to make sure it's a good one.
4th Jul 2012, 20:58
I had a 2001 Silverado with the 4.3 V6. Great truck with zero reliability problems. Sold it at 120,000 miles to a neighbor, and he's had it 5 years without any major issues. Bulletproof.