Chevrolet Tahoe Electrical Problems

shantelln

I have a 03 chevy suburban and for the past month ive been dealing with the reduced engine power message on my dash. My truck speed slows down and i cant get any acceleration and it begins to shake and my truck begins to make a knocking noise. My check engine light comes on and the air conditioner begins to blow hot air. Ive changed the battery, got an oil change, changed the oil pressure sensor, changed the throttle body, and the accelerator pedal. I cant figure out whats going on and i cant keep spending money. My truck will shut down in the middle of traffic. Does anyone have any suggestions! I am about ready to contact the BBB, Because there is no way all of these vehicles should have these problems and no one seems to have any idea how to fix it... Not even the dealership. 

Mr_Shiftright

You may need to enlist the help of a really well trained technician. Go to this website and then click on "repair shops" and see if there's anyone on that list who is near you.

http://www.iatn.net/

Sounds like there's been a lot of guessing going on, which is unfortunate.

locolos

kmg10 said:

Bobby, Look at my post from July 10, 2013. I have a video of the problem. GM said to replace the battery cables, as the stock cables are not rated large enough to carry the current load when you accelerate. Thus, causing the voltage to fluctuate. You may need to reprogram the body control modules as well. Sometimes their memory gets messed up as a result of the voltage problems. Hope that it helps. My 2009 has had no problems since the fix. "Knock on wood" Good luck to you. Mark

Had similar problems....... but haven’t found Solution yet .... called dealership and they have no clue. My mechanic said it was probably the battery? Who knows.......

locolos

4x4 said:

Did this ultimately fix the problem?



danigirl12 said:

When my husband and I purchased our 2009 Chevy Silverado, less than 30 days ago, there was an initial problem with the back passenger door lock not opening and closing and the next day, after we purchased the car it stalled in the Orchard Supply Hardware parking lot. We discussed both issues with the dealership immediately. The dealership replaced the actuator, and ran a diagnostic. However, I’m wondering if the initial door issue and car stalling was part of a bigger safety problem which manifested itself during the mentioned major malfunction. On Monday, September 29, the truck again encountered a problem, but this time I experienced two major malfunctions, within 15 minutes, while I drove home. It happened twice within 15 minutes. Both times I was approaching an intersection and went to accelerate through the intersection when the truck lost power to the engine, and the engine seemed to turn off. I was forced to coast to the side street and avoid being hit by the cars behind me. Both times I couldn't get the truck to accelerate for about a minute. During that same minute the door locks on all doors were popping up and down and the indicator lights on the dash board briefly flashed on and then off. I called my husband and he came and followed me home. On the way home the dash lights turned off and I could feel that there was a decrease in acceleration, but I was able to make it home. Once home, called the Chevrolet Customer Service (1-800-222-1020). I told the agent on the phone what safety issues I had encountered. She called the dealership and got me a FREE diagnostic and 1 hr. labor to investigate the issue. I also looked up on the internet the car issues I just encountered and found the EXACT same issue with the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe within this forum. I took the information I found, printed it out, as well as emailed the information to the service manager at the Chevrolet dealership where I had the appointment scheduled. I've pasted 2 links below to let you know where I got my information from. http://www.autoserviceprofessional.com/article/92084/finding-gmlan-wiring-problems http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/5662/chevrolet/tahoe/chevrolet-tahoe-electrical-problems/p9 Well, I took my truck in for the scheduled appointment today. This is what the report said: "Tech inspected & found C0900 stored. Tech followed published diagnostic & found the UBEC cable/175 AMP maxifuse has fretting issue. Tech replaced the fuse/cable & tested. Tech also found the neg battery cable have excessive voltage drop. Tech found the UBEC cable/fuse has fretting problem & the negative cable has excessive voltage drop. Tech states the negative battery cable has excessive voltage drop cause: customer satisfaction Battery positive junction block cable replacement Tech found the negative cable has a 256 MV drop. Tech replaced the negative battery cable & tested. Tech states the cable now operates to Manf Specs." My husband picked up the truck this afternoon. The service technician said that the notes I emailed and turned in helped them narrow down the problem and pinpoint it without much delay. No fees or charges. I hope this information assists others and thank you to the others that posted their problems and solutions previously on this forum.

Did this solve the problem? This sounds exactly what happened to me ! 

locolos

Did this solve problems? Same situation for me 

locolos

4x4 said:

Did this ultimately fix the problem?



danigirl12 said:

When my husband and I purchased our 2009 Chevy Silverado, less than 30 days ago, there was an initial problem with the back passenger door lock not opening and closing and the next day, after we purchased the car it stalled in the Orchard Supply Hardware parking lot. We discussed both issues with the dealership immediately. The dealership replaced the actuator, and ran a diagnostic. However, I’m wondering if the initial door issue and car stalling was part of a bigger safety problem which manifested itself during the mentioned major malfunction. On Monday, September 29, the truck again encountered a problem, but this time I experienced two major malfunctions, within 15 minutes, while I drove home. It happened twice within 15 minutes. Both times I was approaching an intersection and went to accelerate through the intersection when the truck lost power to the engine, and the engine seemed to turn off. I was forced to coast to the side street and avoid being hit by the cars behind me. Both times I couldn't get the truck to accelerate for about a minute. During that same minute the door locks on all doors were popping up and down and the indicator lights on the dash board briefly flashed on and then off. I called my husband and he came and followed me home. On the way home the dash lights turned off and I could feel that there was a decrease in acceleration, but I was able to make it home. Once home, called the Chevrolet Customer Service (1-800-222-1020). I told the agent on the phone what safety issues I had encountered. She called the dealership and got me a FREE diagnostic and 1 hr. labor to investigate the issue. I also looked up on the internet the car issues I just encountered and found the EXACT same issue with the 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe within this forum. I took the information I found, printed it out, as well as emailed the information to the service manager at the Chevrolet dealership where I had the appointment scheduled. I've pasted 2 links below to let you know where I got my information from. http://www.autoserviceprofessional.com/article/92084/finding-gmlan-wiring-problems http://forums.edmunds.com/discussion/5662/chevrolet/tahoe/chevrolet-tahoe-electrical-problems/p9 Well, I took my truck in for the scheduled appointment today. This is what the report said: "Tech inspected & found C0900 stored. Tech followed published diagnostic & found the UBEC cable/175 AMP maxifuse has fretting issue. Tech replaced the fuse/cable & tested. Tech also found the neg battery cable have excessive voltage drop. Tech found the UBEC cable/fuse has fretting problem & the negative cable has excessive voltage drop. Tech states the negative battery cable has excessive voltage drop cause: customer satisfaction Battery positive junction block cable replacement Tech found the negative cable has a 256 MV drop. Tech replaced the negative battery cable & tested. Tech states the cable now operates to Manf Specs." My husband picked up the truck this afternoon. The service technician said that the notes I emailed and turned in helped them narrow down the problem and pinpoint it without much delay. No fees or charges. I hope this information assists others and thank you to the others that posted their problems and solutions previously on this forum.

locolos

I’m guessing it did solve the issue. This explained my situation to a T ! Let me know 

locolos

mrmom51 said:

I have a 2013 Tahoe LTZ and I have been having the same issues as many on this blog. My gauges start going haywire, losing power to the transmission, door locks cycling and dinging as warning lights go on and off intermittently. Sometimes it dies on me and won't start and after I let it sit all night it starts right up. It will start with check engine light and then will not shift out of low gear. I had it towed to a dealer and they could not get it to act up. They told me to come pick it up and I could not even get out of the parking lot before it started jerking and loss of power etc. I had a sales manager come out and see what it was doing so I left it at the dealer and next morning it was fine. After 2 weeks at the dealer and $500 in car rental later I picked it up and got it home with no problems. This week on spring break it broke down on me in the middle of Texas on my way to Colorado. I was not happy. The next morning, it started and I drove my daughter the rest of the way to Colorado in low gear. I took it to a dealer while it was acting up and they could not pull codes because there was no communication with the computer. They rushed it back to the big computer and before it was able to read the 4th code it was running fine. After pestering the dealership about me having to leave for home so I could get my daughter back for school they test drove it and low and behold it died on them in the parking lot and they had to push it into the garage...much safer than when it died with my daughter in the car in the middle of Texas. After that I got a phone call saying that in their frustration they hit the fuse box under the hood and the car started up, they hit it again and it died. After inspection they found that there was massive amounts of corrosion in the fuse box and connections were corroded and they think that is why my 2013 Tahoe has been intermittently acting in this manner. I will find out soon if that was the culprit. I would have thought the fuse box under the hood would be sealed? Very frustrating to say the least

nw_john1 said:

OK wanted to wait until I drove a while before I updated the blog from my Feb 21, 2015 (read it if you have not yet). Again I had the same problem come up while taking my wife shopping. As we were pulling into the parking lot, the dash when blank, locks cycled, engine power loss then gain, and cycles lasted about 1 sec +or-. I drove it to the back part of parking lot where it was un- occupied. This session lasted about 2 minutes, then went back to normal. So then I parked and shut it down, and tried to restart. It was dead no lights, nothing. The only thing was a back ground noise sort of like static. Now after having it in to the dealer for 3 times on this issue, and like other blogs they said it had to happen while they were test driving and said nothing seemed wrong. I decided to call AAA and requested a hauler truck opposed to a tow truck. I did not want them to touch it. Hired a taxi for the wife. When AAA arrived, I made sure all he did was wench it aboard and rode with him to the dealer. When I arrived at dealer we unloaded it in a spot where they wanted it. I then went into the service department and they said they would get to it in a couple days. I said I wanted to talk to the manager, and they obliged. After telling the manager of the history of this problem and with their dealership, my concern that my daughter is barrows this car with her 2 twin infants, etc., I wanted him to come out with a mechanic and see the problem first hand. I was concerned the vehicle would be jumped and then appear normal. Then like in the past times they could find nothing wrong. The manager got a mechanic and we proceeded out to the Tahoe. I explained and showed them that there was no power any where. The mechanic lifted the hood and tapped on the 175 amp fuse/breaker located at the battery. The car immediately had electrical power and started up. The mechanic said that these fuses are subject to micro corrosion which causes them to fail. It would take about a 1/2 hour to replace and they had the part in stock. 45 minutes later they had it done. I have now driven the Tahoe trouble free for a month, longer than any time before with no problem. For curiosity, I went on line to see how much the self re-setting fuse would cost, if I was not under warrantee. GM wants $30 but Monster Parts and others is as low as $12. The breaker could be replaced easy by almost any body, no special tools, easy to get to. If you have no warrantee or a deductible the going rate at my dealer Good Chevrolet at Renton Washington, to treble shoot is a minimum of $250 per session, by now I would be 1500+ into trying to solve this problem. GM needs to look into this, There may not be as many incidents for a recall, but the problem is as dangerous as their ignition switch recall. Loss of power while pulling out or across traffic can be the same: loss of power, air bags?, power steering and brakes = catastrophe. For a $30 retail part and 15 minutes in labor plus 15 minutes of paper work. If the problem appears again I will let you know. Sometimes fuses point to bigger problems. Good luck

Nice to know :..... been having same problem . I was told by dealership that I could be the battery but I had the battery tested and it shows good and so did the  alternator  now reading this gives me a clue on where to look next . Seams like it could be this box and or battery cables ? Well see what I do next . I really appreciate your feed on this tread cause it saving people the head aches at the dealership. Cause they say they have no clue ! 

thecardoc3

Getting a clue......

Vehicle problems have to be diagnosed as presented and what happens on one or even a dozen cars doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the next one that appears to present similar symptoms. There are techs out there that can make easy work of diagnostics like this, "IF" they get to have the vehicle while the problem occurs. Any other approach is just a blind guess and is far more likely to be wrong than right no matter how many times someone thinks that they have seen something.

atc007

07 Suburban. Has been a great one. 226,000 miles. Just started the relays clicking,service 4 wheel drive, nothing working,slamming secind gear. I had my Son sit in it with the key on,engine off. You can constantly hear the relay clicking under the dash. I went under the hood. Mine seems to be the main fuse on the firewall as the good people before us here have discovered. I can make it stop and start wigling the wires. I am off to tear it all apart and clean all the connections and coat everything in Vaseline. I will report back how it works out. The right side of the link is corroded, so I may end up buying a new one. Hoping to just clean everything and get away with that.

atc007

All I could really see was extremely light green corrosion. I would have never guessed in 1000 years this was the culprit. It is fixed for now. We shall see how the road test,and test of time goes. But for now, all the transformer shorting is gone. Simply cleaned,vaselined and retightened everything

Mr_Shiftright

Corrosion creates electrical resistance, so if the relay gets too low a voltage, it won't work properly.

carnut2021

My Tahoe guage cluster would just go dead ! Everthing would quit even the mileage, then in a day or so it would come alive again ? I googled this and found by removing it and "tweaking" it, it might last a week or so but would eventually fail again ! I started writing down my mileage and guessing when it needed gas ! I just now sent it off to guy I found on Ebay in Mn. called David Ruberg for repairs, he is also going to put blue LEDs in it for me ! He did have great reviews ~~~ fingers crossed

carnut2021

My 03 Tahoe battery kept running down, discovered a short in the driver seat control switch ! To save time and effort I pulled the 10 amp fuse under the dash ! Problem bypassed

vmait

2_blessings said:

I have a 2008 Chevy Tahoe LT and today I have over 180K miles on it and running like new. Away from regular service maintenance, the biggest service repairs was with the engine rear seal leak, steering rock leak and the replacement of the brake booster with master cylinder which trigger's the warning message "Service Brake Soon". The master cylinder was leaking brake fluid into the booster. I have also experience some of the same electrical problems mention by a few people within this post. My Tahoe became a ghost and started to do crazy funky stuff (door locks going up and down, dome lights gone, remote fob cannot commute to the vehicle and etc.) I took the vehicle to the Chevy dealer and they could not duplicate or resolve the issue. As an engineer who studied electrical/computer and mechanical engineering I decided to do my own diagnostic. It turns out the culprit was the battery negative cable aluminum molded terminal was at fault (what's really kills me is the terminal looks perfectly solid, in good shape and secured tightly to the battery). I did not ran to the dealer to get me a new cable because I think even the new cables are all defective. I went to my local NAPA auto store and have them ordered me a Cable Saver part # 728210 which will meet the spec for the vehicle; this all happened around 2012; now we are in 2021and the ghost is gone. I love this SUV because the structure is well built and safe for traveling the American highways with my family. GM just needs to pay attention to details because the aesthetic of the crappy cracked up dashboard, discolor body side molding and the front doors interior chrome handles which peels do cuts your fingers all help depreciate the Tahoe. GM should be ashamed of themselves for such poor job on a solid built SUV.

TelectrixGM

Time to ditch MY TAHOE-08 LTZ. I am having ELECTRIC ISSUES as well on my CHEVY TAHOE made in Canada probably for the Latin American market as the speedometer reads in Kilometers.
That is exactly what I have been told by my mechanic after we both read ALL the people posts complaining about ELECTRICAL ISSUES and how costly it gets for us customers trying to solve the issue on our own.
GM dealers service technicians not being able to diagnose or even care (or pretend to care) about their product they manufacture; older models, new models having the same issues failing at an alarming rate.
What is it going to take in order for them to issue a national recall, hopefully is not a tragic accident, god forbids.
GM please stop the guessing around and fix our vehicles, I beg you before someone dies while trying to speed up at a busy intersection or losing speed/control of the vehicle.
In addition to that, even if I were to trade it in, or sell it on the market place, knowingly that the Tahoe has electrical problems, that would be like bad karma. I would not feel good about myself.
Please let me know what you think and thank you all for continuing posting about your issues with your vehicles. I, too, love my Tahoe, but not like this.

kyfdx

@TelectrixGM If your vehicle was made in Canada, and the gauges read in KMs, why wouldn’t you assume it was made for the Canadian market? A carfax report could clear that up, though I doubt it has any bearing on your electrical problem.

02TAHOEswitch

@boobesmootcher said:
i have a 2002 tahoe z-71. car runs fine and starts great. while going down the road, the dash goes nuts. the message center flashes battery,security,low fuel. the gas gage and temp gages go up and down. the airbag, abs,seat belt light flicker on and off. oilpressure gage and volt gage are not affected. voltage reads 14.5 all the time this is going on. the other day i tried to get a look at the ignition switch. i took 2 screws off the bottom panel, but couldnt figure out how to get the big lower panel off. so, i got the 2 pieces off around the key and got a look at part of the switch. i just tried to move things, and in the process the car would only run in the start position. as soon as you let go of the key, the car died. then it started and worked ok untill the dash went nuts again. it has done this intermitently for the last 30k miles.i think i want to replace the ignition switch, but dont want to make a $164 mistake. any help would be appriciated.

I FIGURED IT OUT FOR MY 02 TAHOE. IT WAS THE STOP LIGHT SWITCH. I think. When I hold the brakes down in accessorie mode everything comes back on. I disconnected the switch and temp gage, fuel,airbag light and ring around PRND21 came back on. I will update after changing the switch. I also noticed that cruise control light works when messing with it as well.