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Review 5 of 113
Price Paid:
$51000.00
from Pohanka Year / Model Reviewed:
2004 Chevy Suburban Summary:
I bought a new suburban a year ago.
IT's been bad since the beginning.
In summary, the vehicle is suffering from an oil consumption problem, which is well documented, to have been in existence for quite some time. The attached support this claim.
I will attempt to chronologically summarize the events over the last couple years, which relate to this issue.
First, the vehicle was purchased new by the undersigned. Has been owned and operated by the undersigned for the entire period of time since new.
Early on in the vehicles life I noticed what I considered excessive oil consumption. I attributed this to the fact that the vehicle was new, and perhaps the rings had not “seated”. While concerned, I was not alarmed, but I did try to informally track it to a small degree. Those results are below. I had planned on tracking this further to determine if “seating” was improving.
Mileage Added Mileage between adds
6250 0.5
6829 2 579
7613 2 784
8151 1 538
8421 1 270
8973 1 552
9390 1 417 Qts used Avg miles/Qt.
3140 8.5 369.4118
9474
10482 1 1008
11735 2 1253
12200 2 465 Qts used Avg miles/Qt.
2726 5 545.2
Table I, oil consumption as monitored by owner.
I seemingly confirmed a problem and my suspicions, and I am a busy quy, so the next documented data I have is from the dealership which I selected to perform the maintenance under warrantee.
On 11/24/04 With 19618 miles on the vehicle I had it returned for service for excessive oil consumption. (It had been in previous to this at 19028 miles, but I have no records on hand which relate to this visit.) At 19618, the dealer noted that the vehicle consumed 1.1 Qt’s in 590 miles. The vehicle was thoroughly inspected, and “No external leaks were noted”.
This basically confirmed my findings above (that the vehicle was burning oil to an excessive degree) to my satisfaction. A baseline is formed.
I continued to monitor the consumption and have the following results:
At 20059 miles the vehicle was returned to the dealer, which added 1.5 Qts.
The dealer position: “It is stated that no-published info can be found relating to this concern”. (Please keep this in mind, as mysteriously published info appears later)
Further to the problem: “TAC assistance was contacted and informed about #02-06-01-035” “Replaced intake manifold bolts and re-torqued.”
Note 10 bolts replaced.
(In essence, the problem was acknowledged and the intake manifold seal was claimed to be the problem. I thought it silly but played along)
The technical advice was that oil was making its way into the intake ports/passages and eventually being burned with the fuel charge.
At 20666 I added 2 Qts of oil. 600 miles or so and 2 Qts.
At 21121 I added 1 Qt.
At 21566 I added 1 Qt.
At 22232 I returned to the dealer. The next item was to replace the intake manifold gaskets.
This was performed as the next step, I worked with them and it was suggested I try this and monitor oil consumption.
(Again, in essence, the problem was acknowledged and the intake manifold seal was claimed to be the problem.)
At 22960 the vehicle was returned to the dealer again for oil consumption. The dealer noted it was 1 Qt low, I measured more but didn’t argue.
Further diagnostics were preformed. A compression check was performed to check the quality of the ring seating. The compression test seemed to indicate good compression. But “oil was noted on all spark plugs”. All spark plugs were replaced.
(Please note that I later document a much more extensive test, which is a better indicator of cylinder sealing: A leak-down compression test)
Critical to note, the dealer Removed and reinstalled “valve seals”. Quite a bit more extensive effort involved than intake gaskets.
(Again, the problem was acknowledged and the problem was addressed on the intake manifold as well as the valve stem seal replacement.)
The next documented testing occurs at 29216 miles.
At this point the dealer placed dye in the oil to trace the path to the intake manifold. The dealer documented dye in the intake ports for cylinders 2,4&1.
The intake manifold was replaced (warpage concern); the intake bolts were replaced, as was the intake gasket.
A rather extensive exercise as well.
(Again, the problem was acknowledged and the intake manifold was replaced.)
All along I doubt the effectiveness of any of this rework.
At 34573 miles I return to the dealer. I expressed my concern that I am nearing the expiration of my warrantee and we still have not resolved the problem. I was assured by the service manager that the “problem is well documented and that IT WAS OBVIOUS IT WAS A EARLY ON DETECTED PROBLEM, and that GM would make good on the problem.
At 34573 the dealer wanted to restart an oil-monitoring program to again qualify the consumption amount and suggested I ret Strengths:
It's a shame GM will not fix a flawed product that is really a huge EPA problem. Weaknesses:
Burns a quart of oil every 400 miles and GM claims its normal. NOw it is fouling a spark plug at 37000 miles
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