Tony_V.

Just sent a private message to Chevy customer Service. let see if they can help me.

moron958

FYI guys, I'm having them do it.

Cost $216 including new part and labor.

Part Cost alone is $273 on gmpartsdirect.

The part is warrantied for 12mnths/12k miles.

I will get pics of the new part before it's installed to make sure it is the reinforced design.




I HATE Paying for something, but it's a big job, lots of potential broken clips so I'm just going to have them do it. :shrug

73shark

Sounds like a fair deal for a seven year old truck. I realize that GM could have done the right thing and come up w/ a program instead of stonewalling and letting owners fend for themselves.

Some here are probably old enuf to remember the first padded dash attempts in the mid-fifties. Looked good for a couple of years 'til the vinyl started splitting exposing the foam which quickly deteriorated and left a mess. No recalls.

Then there's the vinyl roofs in the sixties. Who can forget them? The unfinished sheetmetal underneath the vinyl rusted and there goes the vinyl. Who could have foreseen that?

What about the headliners that were fabric bonded to foam bonded to the fiberglass shell? The foam deteriorated and the fabric dropped down.

gruvenparts.com

yeah $216 isnt too bad. Please do take pictures of old and new dash in crack areas and post them.

So your truck had 48K when you reported it to GM ? What model year, and are you the original owner ?

You did better on your "Wheel of GM Customer Service Fortune" spin than I did...

The past (and present) are littered with examples of design flaws in nearly every product made. Its how the man'f handles the issues that is most important. For instance, call Crutchfield sometime and go through an order with them. They might have the BEST service of any company Ive ever come across. Have I had issues with the products they have sold me? Yep. But they handle it every time in a clear, concise manner. Guess what? I buy a lot from them because of that. Contrast that experience with GM. Its a night and day difference. Its sad when a company you want to succeed takes advantage of their size and position to exploit their customers like GM has in this case (and many others).

Im as patriotic as it gets, but I will have no issue buying a foreign made vehicle and justifying my decision based on this experience. GM does not deserve my future business.

moron958

I started talking with GM customer care (here via pm) at 48k. I didn't get it to the dealer till 53k (GM Customer Care 'accidentally' got my phone number messed up and the regional specialist and the dealer both insisted they had contacted me and I ended up correcting the number (finally) after a month of BS (that month included a 2500 mile xmas trip from IL to MI to TN and back to IL).

Not sure which mileage number they used...service guy looked at the odo and said '53'...so probably that one (ugh).

I'm not the original owner, nor did I buy it from a GM dealer. It's a 2010 Avalanche LT.

When I talked with the dealer service guy I mentioned it's a $1200 job, mostly labor (part cost is $260 on gm parts direct)...he said it's much less than that. Not sure if I got lucky and this dealer has a 'dash specialist' lol.

Other factors (not sure if applied). Both my parents are GM employees, I am an 'ex' employee from my college days. I own two other older GM vehicles ('91 sierra and a '71 opel GT). Doubt that matters but I did plee these facts to the regional specialist.
I also mentioned I'm a design engineer, and I've seen a definite design change in the part indicating a known issue, with poor performance, so I even asked to talk with GM's design engineer to make sure the new part has a proper fatigue life and to see if these fatigue tests were ran in varying temperature and to the min and maximum tolerances that you would see in assembly.

Not sure if using those big words mattered either, but it made them know I'm not a moron (contrary to my username...)


PS. I'm a BMW owner as well, and a big enthusiast there. Luckily I have older BMW's...friends and family with new BMW's and Merc's have horrible issues as well. I'm not sure what the worlds coming to, but even the 'euro luxury' companies are being pretty crappy. (there's even a youtube video of an owner beating up his brand new M6 infront of a BMW dealer due to poor service.).

So I think the real answer is don't expect much. Buy used. Learn to DIY. I work for a machinery company that has a vastly different take on service, and how and what that means to the customer. It's light and day vs. the auto industry and that sucks. But unless you can drive a bull dozer to work everyday...that won't help lol.

in2pro

The truth is you need to view your vehicle much like a mobile phone... your supposed to use it for a period of time and then throw it away... phones are about 6mo to 2 yrs... vehicles 4-7 yrs.... complain all you like about how much you spent to buy it, it was never meant to last as long as you would like...

Those days of buying something and "owning it" are long gone.... you can't even fully repair your own vehicle anymore, unless you are willing to buy the programmer (thousands of $$) and pay for regular software updates...

robcentral

Yea , just found out the cost to the dealer for the dash is $298.00 and can do the labor at their cost for $99. Warranty cost is $700-800 depending on dealer.

gruvenparts.com

Sounds about right, thats why GM is offering to replace for $400-$500 range in most cases.

They want to break even rather than pay for their mistake. They can keep their $400 and loose a $50,000 sale on my next vehicle. Dumb asses.

So has anyone posted up a DIY to replace this crap dashboard yet ? Mine is almost split in 2 across the instrument cluster !

T.Sickles

I think it really comes down to how nice your regional GM rep is on a particular day, how much you can influence them, how good your local GM dealer is, and how much experience they have had before with the issue. This is why you'll see prices for replacement fluctuate so much on these boards.

Unfortunately the rep I was working with seemed very hesitant and unwilling on compromise. Then I was out of the country for a few months and lost contact. I guess GM considers that a win in their book.

Anyway, my dash is cracked in three spots. One in each corner of the airbag, and a huge one on the center of the instrument cluster about 3/4 the length of it. I have an LTZ which has the center dashboard speaker (which seems very unsupported), and I think this also exaggerates the cracking with the additional weight.

I wouldn't mind replacing the damn thing myself - I can just imagine all the broken clips and rattling my dash would have afterwards if a local GM dealership changed it out. The only thing I question is: Has GM actually revised replacement dashboard to prevent cracking? Or are they just the same molds that will crack again?

Then why do manufacturers offer warranties? Why are some of us cracking our dash within the powertrain warranty period? If the car isn't even supposed to last that long, then why is GM even offering powertrain warranties that long?

in2pro

I was probably more cynical then I needed to be with that statement, however even with warranties it about making money... the warranty companies are betting your vehicle last long enough for your warranty to run out or you sell it prior to it running out, either way you are out your $1800+ dollars... put that warranty money away in a rainy day account and if you don't need it, you have 1800+ dollars in your hands... if you do need it its right there for those same repairs.... that is my take on extended warranties you are just paying for any repairs in advance...