2002 Silverado 2500HD Alignment

mentor34

I've got a 2002 2500HD 4X4 that has pulled, fairly hard, to the left since new. At 500 miles, I called the dealer, "You have to wait until 3,000 miles before we can look at it." OK, at 1,100 miles, I had had enough, "OK, bring it in, we'll do an alignment, but Chevy may not cover it since it doesn't have 3,000 miles yet." OK, but what does Chevy think about a vehicle that would be in opposite direction traffic in a heartbeat (Get it, Heartbeat of America?) if you released the steering wheel, thinks I, but I patiently wait for a 3 hour alignment. The service rep drove it, announced it fit, I drive away, no change. At 2,000 miles, I go back to the dealer, they swap the front tires, left to right, and the Service Manager takes it for a drive with me. "Yup, sure pulls hard to the left, bring it back at 3,000 miles when the warranty will cover it." Took it to Green Bay and back, 280 miles round trip, now I am officially fed up with this truck. You need to hold the steering wheel at the 1-2 o'clock position or you will be swapping bumper paint with opposite direction traffic, Chevy dealer doesn't give a crap, the drivers door squeaks incessantly, and my state, WI, doesn't seem to have a great lemon law or I'd drive it back to Ballweg Chevrolet today with a ribbon on the hood. Any thoughts, suggestions??

obyone

Preferably one closer to home? The part about the 3000 miles is bull. It is obvious they are stonewalling you. You could try and make a call to GM customer support but they will probably advise you to try another dealer. If they do that try to get them to refer one as they might have an idea of who's ok and who's not.

When the dealer pulls the bull, I have a tendency to ask them to put it in writing. So much so that when they say something out of the ordinary...the advisor looks at me and says, "Uh, you want that in writing?". Course, if you said it you wouldn't mind writing it on the RO.

mentor34

This is the almost comical cut/paste and ad-lib response I got from Chevy. Bad English aside, seems like it is just fine with them to allow a vehicle that pulls left into oncoming traffic to keep on truckin'.

Dear Mr.----,

Thank you for contacting the Chevrolet Customer Assistance Center, regarding your 2002 Chevrolet
Silverado. We sincerely apologize for the alignment pull you are experiencing with your 2002
Chevrolet Silverado. We are sorry to hear about all the concerns you had with your Chevrolet. I
assure you that the "excessive" service you described is not characteristic of the quality or
reliability of our product.
Here at Chevrolet, we pride ourselves on building the best cars we possibly can. I know it may be
difficult to believe, given your story, but we take every precaution to make sure each car leaving
our assembly line is in optimum condition. We utilize what we believe to be the finest technology; we stress safety and excellence; and we give each of our team members the authority to do whatever is necessary to ensure top quality. Unfortunately, we haven't reached perfection. I can't tell you that we've never made a mistake, but I can tell you we are doing everything we possibly can to continuously improve.

In addition, we have documented your comments with the Customer Assistance Center under file number
S1-5986608 and are investigating your concern. We have contacted Ballweg dealerships Service
Manager Roger Hainstock and reviewed your service history. The Service Manager has advised that he
has test drove the truck previously and feels as if the truck should wait until the 3,000 mile
marker for another inspection. If the concern has escalated, we would suggest that you contact the
dealer back for a sooner inspection. We would ask of you to contact us back in advising us if the
alignment pull has escalated or is in the same consistency as before and if you are scheduling a
sooner inspection appointment.

If you have any further questions or comments please feel free to contact the Chevrolet Customer
Assistance Center at 1-800-222-1020 weekdays between 8am and 11pm Eastern Standard Time or by e-mail
at cac@Chevrolet.com.

Sincerely,

Dave Kallio
Customer Relationship Manager
Chevrolet Customer Assistance Center

balbright

Hey,
I got a 2001 2500HD LB CC w/ 6.6 Dmax & Allison. I didn't notice the problem until about 20,000 miles after getting the tires rotated. I put the spare on to replace the front right tire, fixed it for a while but after another 7,000 miles, it's starting to do it again. Now, Firestone is telling me that I have an alignment issue. Dealer tells me I'm past the mileage window that they'll do anything under warranty. Looking back at it, at around 13,000 this winter, I noticed a lot of vibration when in 4x4 on the highway. Dealer told me I was going too fast in 4x4, that it was normal. Now I'm thinking it was the alignment. All I can guess w/ the 3000miles deal is from what the guy at Firestone told me, and it sounds legit, that as your truck wears in, the alignment will change (ie, springs, shocks, etc). Usually both sides change together so you don't notice it but apparently my (and yours) aren't wearing evenly. Chevy may be telling you to wait so that your truck is broke in a little more so that they don't have to replace your tires or do an alignment twice. I've got 27,000 miles on mine now, in 8 months, and I've done a good mix of towing and unloaded highway driving. I've had no problems with it otherwise. Give it a chance, after you get the alignment fixed. I love mine, just don't care to buy new tires every 9 months. Oh yeah, one other thing, the Firestone guy told me Chevy's rating for 80psi in the back is too high unless your towing all the time. He recommended going back down to 60. He determined this after seeing how quickly my center tread was worn on the rear tires. I always kept them at 60 front/ 80 rear. Good luck.

oldharry

I don't know where your dealer is coming from. I did the alignments for the local Chevrolet dealer for a year and a half while they were building a new building and did not have an alignment machine set up. Some of the trucks they sent me because of "pull" had less than 500 miles on them (yes hundred not thousand). The new trucks ara a lot easier to align than the '88 to '99 models, so unless they haven't a clue how to do it I don't see why they can't fix it.

Harry

obyone

I think it's not a matter of how to do it rather if they WANT to do it.......stonewalling at its finest.

lauriet1

Quote: "Dealer tells me I'm past the mileage window that they'll do anything under warranty. I've got 27,000 miles on mine now"

Don't you have a 3 year/36'000 mile warranty on your 2001 vehicle??

obyone

only up to 10k miles.

balbright

Unfortunately, there's an easy out for both the tire manufacturer and automaker. Just about no car maker puts a warranty on the tires themselves. If you ask me, it's a bunch of crap. Especially this tire rotation business. If you rotate your tires as often as they say, yes, you may prolong the life of your tires. OR, you may be hiding a problem in your alignment and prematurely wearing down the other 3 tires as you swap them into that spot, and you'll be none the wiser for it. You also gurarentee that you won't notice the problem while under either makers warranty period so the best you can hope for is a "credit" for the remaining tread life of your tire.

mentor34

Lordy, Lordy, after three trips to the dealer, it goes straight when I loosen pressure on the steering wheel. Now if only all of those squeaks and rattles would go away..........

cowboyjohn1

I am 1/2 owner of an alignment shop in Bellflower, CA and we do a lot of alignments on new vehicles. We do alignments for many dealers, both domestic and foreign, which includes Chevy and Ford. Some of our alignments take place as low as 50 total miles which is usually at the request of a customer (not the dealer). Most new vehicles are within "factory specs." However, we usually set camber, castor, toe-in closer than factory specs which usually provides a better driving vehicle. Each vehicle brought in is driven at least 2 times - once before the alignment to see if we detect something the customer has not commented on, and once after the alignment to assure the vehicle will track down the road - hands off. We have both computerized alignment and the old type gauges. In many case the computer machines are used by personnel who really don't understand the geometry of the vehicle systems, but they can do what the computer tells them to do. This may not work on collision jobs, or people who have bent frames, or popped the rear end out of alignment. However, a good man with the gauges generally has a good understanding on what needs to be done to make a vehicle drive right (even if the frame has to be pulled). We use the gauges on all the "tough" jobs.
For whatever this is worth.
cowboyjohn

oldharry

I have an alignment shop in Dixon Illinois, and I would never give up my hand guages. I have had power failures in the middle of a job, and the hand guages and the flash light have gotten the vehicle on the road.

I keep a roll of string to wrap around all four wheels of a car to show tracking problems. Often customers understand what they see with the string, while the computer numbers confuse them. Printing the computer numbers, and showing the print out next to the wheel with the string showing what it means sells a lot of doubters.

Harry

noobie1

My 0.02; Giving a reliable and reputable front-end shop 40.00 is far preferable to being jerked around by a service rep.

-David

oldharry

$40 is a little light. Test drive, align, test drive, tweak, prepare invoice and explain to customer takes more than an hour, and my shop overhead runs $23 per hour whether I work or not. I align trucks like that for $50, but technically lose money. Alignment shops do alignments to find the jobs that pay the rent.

Harry

noobie1

Still a better deal.

-David

jaguar0027

Agreed!

minikin

what noobie, oldharry and jag said. I have 40 bucks in non-routine maintenance costs so far; alignment and I fixed the brake line recall problem myself. Just taking it to the dealer would have cost me three times that in lost time; plus the blood pressure medicine.
-- Don