No 3 I've dealt with the burnt piston issue on a 2009 Enclave before finding out it was super common for that year. Only one that year I've seen on the roads, so that may tell you something too.


Had a customer (lady in her 70s, retired trucker) that was excellent on maintenance that had bought a Traverse new. Not certain, but I think it was a 2013. It was still the one with the mount that catches oil. She took a trip out of town and had that mount fail and a shop where she was replaced it. When she got back it had ruptured an A/C line and all the motor mounts were broken. It had just passed 88k miles.

What appears to have happened is the front mount failed and damaged the other mounts but the shop only replaced the obvious broken one. With only one solid mount the engine did enough twisting to break it again along with the A/C line.

We ended up replacing the front mount we installed after only 2 oil changes. Seeing that the mount would not hold up like that, we made a shroud to direct the oil from the filter towards the center of the engine bay. She got rid of it when the timing jumped around 130k, but the mount was still holding on. Keep in mind, this is a customer who I've said the sentences "You have almost 1,000 miles before your next oil change is due. Are you sure you want to do it now?"

I get "Why do you hate GM so much?" from people. It's because I see what they sell and how it stacks up to the competition."

 

I've owed nothing but GMs since I was young. The only one that ever had a build quality issue was a 2007 G6 I had. After a long road trip a valve seat dropped and killed the motor. All the other GMs I've had have been very reliable. I do all my own work and keep up with maintenance. IMO bad mechanics at bad shops give cars bad names by doing bad, shotty repairs. Most mechanics nowadays are just part changers and they don't troubleshoot issues to fix them the first time. Again...my opinion

 

This fella speaks of quality and workmanship. "Parts changer" garages; quality & workmanship are just another "4 letter words."

 

NO. 4 "Another interesting GM quality issue. 2016 Traverse with EcoWreck came in today for a wheel bearing. Found the factory installed bearing had only 2 of the 3 bolts fully tight. The other had a 1/2" gap between the bolt head and knuckle. Factory F-ed. Seems the assembly bot put too much thread locker on the bolt and it dried before installing, so when the bot went to torque it down it hit its target torque before the bolt was seated. We had to wire wheel off the thread locker to be able to properly install the bolt. "

 

The guy has about 10% valid points and 90% hogwash. The timing chain issues of the early year LLT are well noted on this forum and a valid gripe. I've never heard of a "burning holes in the pistons" to be a common issue though. Couldn't even turn up anything on short order with a quick google search even on Camaro5 (which shares the LLT for some years) pertaining to the V6. That's actually pretty hard to do without trying (or an awful tune) on a modified motor, let alone a stock generic V6.

GM certainly has flaws but so do most manufactures now. Golden boy Honda is getting dinged for oil dilution issues on their direct injected 1.5T. Unless this guy is older than 70 or younger than 30 his career has likely covered a number of the malaise years of the 80s through the mid 90s of domestics. GM had A LOT of stinkers, some well etched in history now like the V8-6-4 or HT4100. Even those which are revered, like the beloved 3800 Buick V6 or the older 4.3 truck V6 (an SBC with 2 less cylinders) were well known for leaking intake gaskets putting coolant in the oil and potentially toasting the motor. My 4.3 in a Blazer was doing this in less than 40k miles. The small block was known for years to have poor sealing and would leak oil everywhere. Sometime in the 80s GM also decided nylon cam gears would be a good idea, and no surprise those wore excessively quickly and caused timing chain failures. Opti-spark of the 90s LT1 anyone? So yeah GM has always had issues. Honestly in my opinion they are mostly better with their quality now then 20, 30 years ago. The gap between them and the Asian makes is much tighter than it was for many years.

And it's tough to go back to the carb era to compare - people back then often didn't expect more than 100K out of their vehicles. Now it's a given, and 200K is more of the upper end of realistic lifetime. People back then also didn't drive near as much, so 100k miles might be 8-10 years of ownership, not 4-5.

 

Your right about the quality issues back in the 70's, 80's with Detroit as a whole. The Japs eat their "proverable" lunch.

They finally woke up in the 90's.

That said; in 73 I bought a 70 Pontiac Catalina 2 door sedan. Had a 400 CU IN. engine with a pvc valve as the only emission control, and a 2 barrel carb. Wasn't to fast on the startup but would top out over a 100.

In 77 bought a 76 Scotsdale "5/8" or "heavy half" ton pickup. The overload leaf in the rear springs gave them just enough so they could by pass the catalitic convertor "mandate". That soon changed. It had a 4 barrel carb., would get 12 mpg. empty or with 12 tons on it....didn't matter.

Quality?? Paint jobs on both were really bad.........and thats an understatement.

 

Sorry but I'm not buying most of what this guy is selling. I've been here 3 years and have yet to see or hear about a burnt piston. Sure, earlier model have some timing chain issues but even those are relegated to pre-'14.

And he never mentioned Waveplates or the extremely expensive HVAC repairs from the blower motors, he missed two easy ones!

 

2x on the Honda fuel dilution issues. Lets not forget their low tension oil ring oil burning issues 10 yrs ago. that nobody remembers or mentions. Best friend is a parts mgr. at Acura, they have plenty of issues as well as Chevy and the rest of the makers.

 

Don't forget about bulletproof Toyota... that's why my grandmother's Camry needs a new transmission but since the extended coverage on it ended during the lockdowns and Toyota didn't extend it she's left having to pay for it.

 

Also forgot Honda had a lot of auto trans issues in the 00s, and a few manual trans (I recall the Preludes eating 5 speeds). Toyota had sludging issues on the older 3.0 V6s.

Nissan, and certainly Mitsubishi were fortunate to get lumped in with assumed quality by association being Japanese mfg'ers, but they were never much better than the domestics. Subaru was hit or miss. Mazda usually pretty good.

The problem with GM was they grew so big into the early 70s as to be arrogant and rest on their laurels, while the hungrier Japanese upstarts struck at the ideal time with gas shortages and fuel economy demands of both governments and customers. It also did not help that the Japanese put more value on their engineers while the domestics put more value on their MBA's (as well illustrated in Mr. Lutz's Car Guys vs. Bean Counters book about his time at GM).

 

Once I read the guy mention the holes being burned in the pistons--- I knew hes full of it.
Been on the Acadia/Enclave/Traverse forum for 12 yrs now--- and I cant say I recall a post on a hole being burned into the pistons.

 

I guess thats all to be said about this subject so,lets put it "to bed" so to speak.

 

First you must walk outside and say you are sorry to your LLT for ever doubting it. Then give it an oil change with a quality synthetic and filter. Lastly, a fresh air filter and MAF cleaning should atone for your sins.

 

I've been on the Turtle Wax Ceramic bandwagon. Spray on ceramic lasted all winter on my outside fleet, especially on my black Tahoe that was the lake effect zone lets go snowmobiling vehicle.
T wax Ice didn't last all winter, ceramic blows it away.

 

The 3.6 timing chains are no longer an issue after 2013. It was caused by a bad PCV system on the rear bank that caused the pcv valve to clog and cause oil sludge on the rear chain. 7500 oil changes were revised to 5k. You dont see chains going out much in the 3.6 now. In fact, I love the engine. Its in my 14 Impala and 17 Traverse. Neither vehicle has given any issues

 

My 15 doesn't have a pvc valve according to GM. But it does,cause O'REILLYS and Autozone sell them.

Destroyed mine trying to get out right after I got the vehicle. It's still in there with a "make shift" top.

The first time I posted on this forum was about that.

 

Guess I'll google foam cannon. Never heard of such,but that's nothing new.

 

09 Chevrolet traverse catalytic converter stop up we put a hole in the couple weeks after that I went over a speed bump and died all it does now iturn over but will not strat I heard it could be the timing chain