ksigtuck

Hey guys,
I got a call from my wife last Friday around lunchtime that her Suburban was making a "funny" noise. I had her bring it by my office and when you put it in drive and touched the gas it sounded like fighter jet engines trying to take off in the front end combined with chewed up metal. I drove it to the dealership a couple blocks away and was catching stares from every salesman in the lot as I pulled in. They looked at it and said that the transfer case had ripped out in it. We had a recall a while back in which they changed a transfer case module at that time. It has 25,000 miles on it and I don't believe it has been in 4wd but a time or two since we have owned it. Is this a fluke or is this becoming a common problem with the new Suburban and Tahoes? It makes me nervous with only 11,000 miles left on the warranty of what I may be facing ahead to fix. I guess the reason I am so worried is that this is actually our 2nd 2015 Suburban. The first one was a nightmare that ended up filled with mildew and mold due to the factory not sealing off an intake on the firewall so every time it rained it ran straight in on the carpet. We did not find the mold until it had landed both of my girls in the ER with breathing problems. That was a 6 month battle with Chevrolet that finally ended in them replacing that Suburban with this one. I have always been a Chevy fan but with these 2 problems with 2 different NEW Suburbans I am getting a little leary of what is making its way out of the factory. Any thoughts, advice, suggestions on the matter appreciated.
Tuck

73shark

Yours is the first I've heard of transfer case going bad. Not sure if GM does but some manufacturers recommend putting it in 4WD at least once a month. Not sure if that would have helped in your case. I would try to find out from the dealer what caused the failure.

cleveland63b

the recall is just reprogramming the software in the module, nothing actually gets replaced. Do you drive it around in auto? Without knowing the actually cause of failure theres not much to say other than I haven't seen or heard of this at all yet on the newer ones.

ksigtuck

No it stays in 2wd all the time. Not sure what would cause it, hopefully have some answers from the dealership by the end of the week.

Mad Dawg

I have a friend who bought a '15 GMC Yukon XL new and the salesman told him NOT to use "Auto" for anything. Only 2-High or 4-High. The salesman told him that they have seen a lot of transfer case failures come in for repairs. My friend asked the salesman why bother with the option if it will cause premature failure. The salesman could not reply.

SabrToothSqrl

Auto should be used for when road conditions vary. I believe that in auto, the front hubs are engaged to spin the front diff, but the transfer case is not yet engaged.

Running in Auto 24/7, when not needed, will result in added wear/tear, and reduced fuel economy.

A use example would be a snowy day, when some roads have been plowed, and you don't want to manually manage 2 or 4WD.

Most car drivers couldn't begin to tell you how a transfer case or hubs or even a driveshaft works, so many companies make ***** with symbols... see the Ford one which just has icons for "snow" "rocks" "mud" etc... you match the **** to the road, call it a day.

ksigtuck

Well I called the dealership today since it has been a week and I hadn't heard anything. They said that they put the new transfer case in and it did not fix the problem. They are now saying that it needs a new transmission. This seems insane with this low of mileage and again worries me to death with the warranty running out in the next 11,000 miles. At this point I am not sure if I trust keeping it once it is "fixed" for fear of what is going to happen to it next.

cleveland63b

powertrain warranty is 5yr or 100,00mi. so you shouldn't be worrying about that.