Stupid GMC secondary spare tire latch

[Line Dancin]

I have a 08 gmc sierra truck. Got a flat on it and tried to get teh spare off. followed the instructions in the manual and tried for over an hour. Figured i was doing something wrong and called AAA. Waited for an hour for the wrecker. He worked on it. Said give me a minute and called another driver. that driver show up two working on it. Another hour goes by and wrecker three shows up half an hour later and the spare still isnt off. Driver two says i can get it off with a torch. NO WAY. so i call onstar to find out i am 1 month out of warranty. tow the truck to discount tire and have them pull the flat and repair the tire. I call GMC oh to bad your out of warranty nothing we can do for you can i schedule you an appt. So i am pissed to say the least. I then find out talking to their service dept that these things usually corrode over about six months and in doing so trips the saftey latch. It is a known problem. I did a search and found hundreds upon hunderds of complaints. I guess they have been using this system for quite a while. I call Detroit world hq to no avail. So i call the dealer back only way they will work on it is if i have the complete assembly replaced for around 600-800 bucks including labor to get the spare down which he said can take a couple hours . And i am told in doing so to expect the same problem in another six months because of winter and salt on the roads. So i call a small shop by the house and he says for 60 bucks he can cut the secondary latch locking finger out and then i will be able to crank the tire up and down at least. So i have a appt sat to get that done. If GNC knows this is such a crap problem why don't they fix it. It is a total rip off. This is one more reason that my next truck will be a Toyota. I had issues with fords when i owned them and i wont own a dodge.

So if you own a gmc or chevy with the tire underneath ya better see if your crank system works before you spend six hours on the side of the road to end up being towed because of american made JUNK. Better yet if it doesnt work call GM wold HQ and scream at them about it.

Oh by the way my mom and dad own a chevy one year newer and after my experience they checked theirs..... Guess what...... they will be visiting the mechanic that i am taking my truck to.

[danthebuilder]

Looks like a ton of fun.

[SeaCatMich]

Thanks for the heads-up. One more thing to do before it gets cold. I wish I had known earlier though. My '07 Avalanche had a 12 month bumper to bumper warranty on it as a Certified GM vehicle when I bought it -- of course that ran out in June

Back in '06 I had to use the spare on my '02 Avalanche. It was an adventure to get the spare off the truck. The guys at Discount Tire put it back in the mount after fixing my bad tire... I wasn't looking forward to doing that either.

What I don't understand is with this being an ongoing problem, why hasn't GM fixed or replaced the system. With all of the regulators out there for the auto industry, why hasn't this been publicised as a major issue? Seems like a working spare tire storage system would be sort of important!

[Line Dancin]

Looks like a ton of fun.

The third wrecker driver new that trick still got towed. I watched the video when i got home. It is so rusted in there that you cant get it to move. I soaked it on penetrating oil and tried last night to no avail for about an hour and said the hell with it..

[Nailer]

They all have there "known issues" , and good luck getting them to help you.

I was considering replacing my 2002 Duramax. I went to Crags List to get an idea what it was worth. I found one just like it, with simmular millage, and a list of all the repairs he had done. The list was a mirror image of what I have done to mine. He stated, "that took care of all the known issues"

Now I am keeping the truck, because all of my "known Issues" are repaired.

[jimcr]

Good luck on getting it fixed without replacing , I have personally replaced a couple of these at work , and some will and some won't . If you can get enough room you sometimes can unbolt the assembly with the wheel still in place.

I work in a body shop and we see this problem a lot.

[fishy1]

Greta reason to buy a foreign piece of sh** as if toyota doesn't have issues like the 7.4 million vehicles they just recalled. By the way they do great things for our country and remember to help keep the japanese economy running.

[Line Dancin]

Greta reason to buy a foreign piece of sh** as if toyota doesn't have issues like the 7.4 million vehicles they just recalled. By the way they do great things for our country and remember to help keep the japanese economy running.

Ya i know i willporbably stay with gm of ford. Hell if i bought a horse i would have toput it down half way through its life the way my luck is.

[Line Dancin]

Well it fixed. not the gm way but it is fixed and works 35 bucks out of pocket and i can now get my spare if i have another flat.

The mechanic that did it said he has been doing approximatley 3 a week for the last 6 years if he averaged out how many he has done.

[Rascal Trophy Fishing]

Simply amazing, I had a 2000 Silverado with a flat years ago, I had the same problem and called wrecker service, only to wait 2 hours, then have another 1-1/2 hrs to get changed up. Now I have a '10 silverado, and don't look forward to any flats, I'm just going to call AAA when anything like that happens. Too bad, it used to be easy to replace the flat, they must have a lot of faith in the tire makers, but for all these years? C'mon!

[jay d]

goes good with the s$@# wireing on the gm vehicles,every third one on the road has a running light out.i used to be a gm fan but after all the electrical issues i had with my last gm i switched to ford.but ha after the bailout they fixed their problems:thumb:

[Priority1]

Jay D, I hear ya. GM and Chrysler fixed their problems with our tax $$. At least Ford stayed clean. I own a Buick and a Silverado, but if I'm ever in the new car or truck market again I'll be looking @ Ford.

[Quack Addict]

What I don't understand is with this being an ongoing problem, why hasn't GM fixed or replaced the system. With all of the regulators out there for the auto industry, why hasn't this been publicised as a major issue? Seems like a working spare tire storage system would be sort of important!

GM has not "fixed" the problem because it isn't a big warranty issue - so it is not a problem - to them anyway.

Genuinely "fixing" the problem would require expenditures on their end: engineering & design, validation costs, material changes (say they upgraded some carbon steel components to more expensive stainless), etc. Then, by fixing the issue, customers that own the old parts would bitch saying GM knew there was an issue and changed something to fix it, so they'd want no cost replacement after their warranty expired. That's one reason why many new parts are designed to not directly interchange with the old parts they replace.

GM's warranty liability becomes your financial responsibility when the warranty expires. MANY components are engineered & designed to outlast the warranty, not to withstand true vehicle life in the field.

[Far Beyond Driven]

Ford mortgaged themselves to within an inch of their life. Chrysler has paid off 8.7 billion of the 9 billion borrowed, with interest.

Would it have been better to allow the industry to crash and only have furrin' cars over here?

Alright, I'm off to hop in my Ford Escort that has a Japanese designed motor in it and was assembled in Mexico, but it says "Ford" on it......

[jimcr]

Ford mortgaged themselves to within an inch of their life. Chrysler has paid off 8.7 billion of the 9 billion borrowed, with interest.

Would it have been better to allow the industry to crash and only have furrin' cars over here?

Alright, I'm off to hop in my Ford Escort that has a Japanese designed motor in it and was assembled in Mexico, but it says "Ford" on it......

you need to look and see how many parts for the so called domestics are actually made here. The list is getting smaller every day. Maybe if domestics were made here it would be different. How about that big expensive outboard, where is that made? only the names are from the states anymore .

[Far Beyond Driven]

Tier two to four automotive quality engineer for twenty years. Don't need to tell me about the supply chain.

We take a tier two part with components from nine countries that goes on an American assembled vehicle with an Italian engine, that in turn is only avaiable for sale in China or the Philippines. A sister part with a Japanese component allows the same vehicle to be sold in Europe.

Lately we've been sourcing fewer of our purchased parts off shore or from Mexico as the quality didn't offset the savings. Kind of nice to pick up the phone and call a guy who can be here in 20 minutes, and not a rep in Chicago that can get an answer next week. But most of the Chinese reps are hot, I will give them that.

[kingquadcab]

the GM way....cheap as possible with minimal  thought involved !