marine_man

Hi!

My 2007 Chevy Suburban (5.3L engine, 4WD) vehicle has developed what I am pretty confident is a transfer case problem.

While driving it earlier this week I passed a vehicle, and while decelerating from the pass, felt a slight high speed shutter. When I got back on the accelerator everything seemed normal. While declerating to a stop from highway speed (all coasting) I felt another shutter. This was all while in 2wd.

After driving it a little more to try and figure out what was going on I started to hear what could best be described as gears / splines trying to engage, but not being fully engaged. I also noted a ratchet / clicking noise while in reverse, but reverse still functions as normal without any slipping sensation.

While cycling through the 4wd settings (all which seemed to work fine with minimal noise except the noise in reverse and an occasional trying to engage splines / gears noise.

When I got to 4 low, I had almost no traction. The only change in speed related to the engine speed was at shifts in the transmission. I'm pretty certain there is no traction if I would push against the vehicle.. it feels like the transfer case is definitely slipping in 4 lo.

Any thoughts on what the issue could be?

To me (and perhaps it's wishful thinking that it's not the whole transfer case) it seems like the rotary encoder has "slipped" and it's reporting that it's in 2wd, while the transfer case is somewhere between 2wd and 4wd (explaining the sound like engaging splines / gears), and when it's in 4low, it's between 4 low and neutral in the transfer case.

I've done quite a bit of searching here and on other websites and haven't found many if any reports of transfer case problems to date with the new body style pickups or suburbans... I am aware of the encoder & motor issues with the past body style.

Any help would be appreciated... thanks!

marine_man