https://www.gm-trucks.com/lifter-nig...87-v8-engines/

I don't own one of these but when my wife and I travel, we have a car/limo service because they pick you up and take you door to door and if you are gone for more than 7 days, it turns out to be cheaper than long term airport parking. The woman who picks us up always drives an Escalade. When we returned she had a Grand Wagoneer. She could not stop talking about how she puts 90,000 miles per year on her $90,000 Escalades, and the last few have had engines that failed at 85k, 120k, and most recently 100k. She said you can't get new crate engines because there is a huge demand and is worried this will put her under. Dealers are now hoarding them and wanting huge markups on replacement engines and several people she knows who rely on these GM pickup trucks as tradesmen, or drivers have their means of earning stuck at dealerships waiting weeks at a time with no hope of getting engines. She claimed it was the cylinder deactivation that was the source of the problem, but that was her opinion. She drives enough miles to see a problem two or three times in an engine before most owners will see it once, and she has. She claimed she had a friend at a dealer who told her that there were two engines in the Minnesota and the dealer was hoarding them and all the rest were on backorder with dozens needed. Her cars were also very well maintained with 5,000 mile oil changes.

I asked why did she not then try a Grand Wagoneer because the one we were in was as nice as the Escalade, but she said the Stelantis engines and transmissions were lousy, and the Ford engines in the Lincoln products were bad too. She claimed that everyone in her industry drove GM products because you could usually get to 250,000 miles with only one transmission replacement during that time and then the engines would need replacement, but now because of the cylinder deactivation systems, they were crapping out around 100k and there were so many Silverados, Tahoes, etc on the road that were time bombs that GM could not keep up with replacement engines.

I started surfing a couple forums out of curiosity and it seems fairly bad and a ton of people are really mad.

I wonder how bad this actually is and if it will drive some of the truck pickup buyers to Ram or Ford. FWIW, my friend who is a die hard Ram guy had a ticking sound in his at around 100k and the dealer said the engine was "blown" and replaced his Hemi on his extended warranty.

I am not trying to slam GM, but as a general statement to any automaker, if cars are going to cost fifty to eighty thousand for car people typically buy, they should be expected to go well beyond 100,000 miles. Longevity seems to be going down while prices go up.

 

The engine on my brothers 2016 Corvette failed at 30k miles, was out of warranty by time but obviously not mileage, GM offered nothing towards it. His is a regular C7. He was quoted $18k to replace it, the dealer ended up contributing to the replacement and brought the cost down to just over $12k. Still a lot of money for something that obviously shouldn't have happened. All service was done at the dealer. I believe the cylinder deactivation had something to do with his, we did a road trip to Florida in it and I noticed a strange sound from the driveline, when he switched from touring to sport with manual mode on it stops the cylinder deactivation, the driveline noise stopped. He parked it when we got home from the trip (this was in April 2022) the next time he drove it about a month later it failed, he'd done an oil change and checkup right before the road trip at the same dealer.

 

Yeah this is going to be painful for GM. And disappointing as well! I always say that I would love to buy GM or Ford again. But when I am a person that likes to keep cars for multiple hundreds of thousand miles, it is hard to not default back to buying Toyotas or similar. Granted the Toyotas I buy are built in the US so do provide jobs to US workers but still ... hard to watch our companies that used to be top of the game for automotive production continue to slide backwards like this.

 

So, this is definitely a thing and it's very annoying. GM smallblock engines without the dynamic fuel management (newest cylinder deactivation) were generally VERY reliable. 250k miles, no issue. This newer fancy cylinder deactivation can "turn off" individual cylinders from 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, etc. It's pretty crazy and it works okay until the whole engine has lifter failure and is gone.

Happened to my brother with his wife's '22 Escalade with the 6.2 at like 5k miles. I've heard tons of other people with failures of the newer 5.3 and 6.2 engines for the same reasons at mileage from 1k miles all the way to 80-90k miles and then boof engine gone.

It's one of the main reasons my Dad and I drive the 3.0 Duramax straight six diesel instead of the 5.3 or 6.2 It's just a better engine, especially the newest LZ0 version. I'm at 29k miles so far with zero issues. Dad has 80k miles on his LM2 (first gen) in his 2020 Denali. Add DEF every 5k miles at a bulk pump at Bucee's, fuel filter (takes 5 minutes) every 25k miles and normal maintenance otherwise. Also, get nearly 30mpg driving normal on the highway with my 4WD version. It's a legit nice engine.

The 6.2 in my LS9 doesn't have DOD and it's bombproof basically. The 6.2 (LT2) in my Stingray does have DOD, but it's only 4 cylinder or 8 cylinder, it doesn't have the individual cylinder deactivation crap. It's seamless and mostly problem free from everything I've read. LT4 in my Blackwing has no cylinder deactivation and is basically bulletproof. LS9>LT4>LT2>L86>L87>L84 etc.

If I was buying an Escalade, etc. for livery service, I'd get the 6.2 and immediately take it to a GOOD shop who can pretty easily take out the DOD parts and program it out. It will cost $2k or so, but then you are back to having your nice 250k mile 6.2 engine. Small price to pay for a vehicle which pays your bills.

I do hope the next gen GMV8 engines fix those issues. GM is supposed to come out with this in 2026 for the 2027 model year based on everything I've read.

As far as Ford/Lincoln goes, the newer 3.5 high output ecoboost engines are pretty damn solid. Cam phaser issues are a thing, but not awful and not guaranteed. Think that's mostly fixed. Everything else is good. I wouldn't mind a Navigator livery vehicle and would mostly trust it to get to 200k miles or so. Stellantis stuff, the new straight six Hurricane engines haven't been out long enough to know, so I guess time will tell. The 6.4 and Hellcat engines are solid and I think the 5.7 Hemi is too besides their mild hybrid 5.7 which has lots of issues. Same crap as GM. Just go back to a normal V8 without hybrid or cylinder deactivation. But CAFE and government says you need that extra 1mpg! Yeah....cause the govt isn't paying for the repairs.

 

So the article I linked only mentioned the 6.2 but my driver said it was also a problem in the 5.whatever liter engines GM sells. She mentioned flashing it to remove deactivation and I wonder if GM would void warranties for people who do this or just smile and ignore because it would be doing them a favor.

I understand the need to squeeze every mile out for the fuel economy regs, but for all of this supposed money put into light weight materials the industry did, I have seen almost zero of it come to market. I also can't pretend that they would not get much better mileage if they were not building them huge and trying to get them to sixty in 5 seconds because trucks are popular and you have to compete trying to make 6,000 pound workhorse vehicles fun.

 

It affects the 5.3 as well. But, the 6.2 is better overall due to hp/torque and many times actually has better mileage than the 5.3 (doesn't have to work as hard). So, the 6.2 is the one to get in livery vehicles IMHO. You can flash too and not remove the actual parts inside and that should work too. It could potentially cause issues with warranty, but the Moss-Mag act would require GM to prove it. And, the likelihood of engine issues if the DFM is killed via a flash is quite low.

Had a city inspector I worked closely with on a large project in Dallas. He has a nice clean '18 Silverado with the 5.3 L83 (good engine) with the 4 cylinder mode. He had the 4 cylinder stuff taken out, had long-tube headers put in, and a nice safe tune installed and I'd bet money he'll get to 250k miles no problem on the engine. His 8-speed transmission may take a dump at 100-150k miles or whatever, but that's not a crazy expensive fix.

 

She can go imports, like a Lexus LX or TX or Infiniti QX80. Maybe a X7 with the B58 engine as well.

 

Sad to read that once staples of the industry are having issues. But it’s not just GM. The V6’s which are/were bulletproof Honda engines, everything blueprinted, SOHC V6 with VTEC, some issues. Toyota Tundra/Tacoma, this newer generation, engine issues. Honda and Toyota are addressing it however. This GM stealer hoarding bs is just that, some serious bs. Step up and take care of your customer’s engines or they’ll go elsewhere. You lose a customer, it’s 10X harder to get them back under your umbrella. I know people who have sworn off GM, Ford, or Stellantis , and I mean for good because of some issue the stealer/mfr refused to fix, putting the responsibility on the customer. At that point it’s lawsuit time, getting others involved, perhaps class action, but that takes years. Working people don’t have years to battle in the courts. They need their vehicle for work purposes.

 

Yep, saving $$ on the response to this now only costs much more $$$$$$ later in loss of customers.

 

Maybe, I don't know a ton about the big Japanese rigs but she certainly had a preference in her work for a V8. She was opposed to anything German as repairs when they happen are crazy expensive.

I had a headlight go out on my Macan two weeks ago. Googled it. Common problem. New headlight from Porsche was $2,800. Sealed unit, can't just change a bulb/led. It also has two controller modules at about $250 each. I went used ebay headlight and slapped it in for $480. I saw people posting dealers were just replacing the headlight and said it needed controllers as well (it does not if they are functioning) and charged a few hours labor at $200 per and coming in at $4,000 for a headlight. Most just sucked it up and paid. I swapped it in 25 minutes with no prior experience. German dealers are sharks.