10.0
really awful- Typical Repair Cost:
- $550
- Average Mileage:
- 55,800 miles
- Total Complaints:
- 3 complaints
Most common solutions:
- replace brake lines with stainless steel (2 reports)
- not sure (1 reports)
First of all, my truck really does have 10,200 miles on it! Yes, it's a 2006 but It's our third vehicle and only used to tow trailers, Home Depot runs, and plowing snow. I purchased it new with a dealer installed stainless steel Fisher snow plow.
Yesterday I was plowing about 5 inches of fluffy snow which is very easy on the truck. Suddenly a car drove right up on me as I was backing up an incline. I jammed on the brakes and, heard a "pop" and the brake peddle went straight to the floor NO BRAKES at all!!! Not wanting to jam the trans into park while moving and for fear of hitting the car behind me, I turned the truck into a snow bank. The inside of the cab smelled like brake fluid! Thank God I narrowly missed the car behind me by inches and the snow bank did no damage to my truck.
Took the truck to the local service station to see if it could be repaired. We repaired the one broken line but as soon as I applied the brakes another broke right next to it. Where the brake lines are on the frame behind the drivers front wheel is the area of the broken lines. Repaired the 2nd broken line applied the brakes and heard "pop" again. This time the brake line broke inside the frame rail behind the cab. We put the truck on the rack to look under it and HOLY COW! All the brake lines are severely rusted and every point where the lines are attached to the frame! What numb-nut designed or uses a moisture holding material to hold steel brake lines in place! Additionally the line holders act like a debris magnet. I wash the truck and undercarriage after snow plowing every time.
This is unacceptable and a real safety issue. My old beater Dodge truck had 348,000 miles on it and NEVER had a brake line issue and I never washed that big pig!
- Chuck S., Falls Church, VA, US
I was pulling a heavy loaded dump trailer with my 2006 Chevy Silverado Diesel with Allison Transmission, which lunges when you try to stop but that's another problem, and without warning I lost all of my brakes due to a broken line under the driver's door. Brakes usually have a junction block so if this happens you will still have either front or rear brakes.
This is definitely a engineering problem that needs to be addressed. What if I was driving down a steep hill and at the bottom was a group of kids playing. This is a dangerous problem that needs to be addressed. WAKE UP GM!!!!
- Joe S., New Windsor, NY, US
We had our trailer hitched to the truck and were all ready to go on a long trip. As we prepared to pull out of the campground, we realized we had no brakes. Had we been on the road, this would have been a major crash.
- set410, Millville, DE, US