In 2017 I found myself between a rock and a hard spot. I had a 2014 Honda Civic SI, which buying was a complete mistake. I bought the car brand new and with less than 500 miles on it, I got rear-ended by another vehicle at highway speeds. This accident caused $14,000 worth of damage to the vehicle but the insurance company decided to fix it. Fast forward to 2017 and another accident under the books, my Civic SI which I was complete upside down on was becoming a burden. I took the car to a dealer who offered to pay off the loan if I leased a brand new Z71. Well, I did just that, payments per month came down and as long as I bought the truck at the end of the lease, mileage wasn’t something to worry about.
It’s the end of 2017, I got my dream truck, and life couldn’t be better at this point. At first the truck was a gem, nothing it did could be wrong and I was in love with my truck. A few months later my brother traded in his truck which was a carbon copy of mine because of ridiculous shaking in the wheels, even the dealer mechanics couldn’t figure it out. They tried changing tires, adjusting the balancing of the tires, and went through the entire front suspension nothing was wrong. But at speed that Silverado would shake so hard your coffee cup would bounce out of the cup holder. Now enough about his truck, onto mine and why I’m keeping it old school on the next one.
2017 Silverado has a great little infotainment system with a big display in the dash with everything a person could wish for. Well in 2019, this awesome screen of mine, decided that it had a mind of its own, it would hang up Bluetooth calls, change the station, turn off when it felt like it and the buttons stopped working. So, like any person with some electrical understanding would, I went through every ground in the truck and cleaned them up, in hopes it was bad ground somewhere causing the issue. All this work was a waste of time because it didn’t fix the issue with the truck. So, i did the right thing and ignored it. About six months after that my battery died leaving me stranded, with my dad yelling at me saying, ” There is no F#$%^ng way that battery died already”. Well pops it did. So, I replace the battery and life goes back to normal. Infotainment is still a wreck but oh well, the truck runs. Now on to the drivetrain…….
In the 2017 Silverado, they paired a Vortec 5.3L engine, which is a great engine by all accounts, to an 8-speed transmission. But……. this Vortec motor has the emissions meeting, drop cylinder technology. This means at cruising speeds the truck drops to 4-cylinder to reduce fuel usage. It all sounds great on paper, trust me, I thought so too. Well, it’s not, the transmission and engine are sluggish to throttle response. You step on the gas and give it about 3-5 seconds for the truck to respond to the go-fast button on the floor. This drives me insane, if I need to get on it, I need that power and I need it now. I consider myself a pretty conservative driver, so I am not stomping on it unless I need to. Well, when I need it, the truck is slow to respond. This little feature drives me nuts on a daily basis.
At this time, I still have this truck that gives me headaches. I plan on driving it till the wheels fall off, as I have become accustomed to its lackluster qualities. But I plan on buying something a little bit older with an old LS motor and rebuilding it to replace this truck. Knowing EVs are on their way and wouldn’t have these issues I still love the roar of an old big or small block revving up.
NEVER. ENDING. RELENTLESS. DEDICATION 