SabrToothSqrl

I imagine, the correct way to do it would be to stiffen up the suspension if you press the tow button.

jimgeb

FYI - I was ready to buy a 2015 Tahoe LTZ about 2 months ago but after a road test of two different models plus a Denali, all with 22" wheels, I found it like riding over small rumble strips when on a smooth road. My wife noticed it too even without me saying anything about it. It may have been the magnetic ride suspension or the 22" wheels or a combination of both. Even though one dealer offered to change to the 20" wheels, I decided to get a fully equipped LT with the standard suspension and air leveler included with the max trailering package. It rode much smoother. Saved some money in the process.

Leo Gundogdu

I have a 2015 Chevy Suburban LTZ, 68K miles, I have already replaced 2 front struts @47K and this week I had to replace the right strut again. So when they replaced the right strut, I notice that I was experiencing the bouncing of the right front side similar to all the complaints that you guys are experiencing here. So what I did was I lowered tire pressure from 37 to 33 this didn't help as much as putting weight into the car and going for a trip roughly 5 miles. What this means is that you should load the car with as many people (heavy) as you can safely and go for a ride. This worked, improved it by 50%. But still having problems but not as bad before.

I also scheduled an appointment with my dealer regarding this link, next week or google TSB #PIT5429:

Cadillac Escalade Amends its Bad Ride Manners - Consumer Reports

hopefully this helps you guys!

dmillerj

I've found a TSB that addresses this condition. PIT5429 Good luck attempting to find out anything about what the repair includes. I have 42,000 miles on my Tahoe and I expect it to be fixed at no charge.

Wade Wellborn

I have just had my ride problem diagnosed as a blown left front shock and the right shock is fully locked. (Mag ride shocks) This is what is occurring with the rough ride. About a 1600$ repair. just far enough out of warranty. I also have three friends with the same problem one is on a Denali. That one also has a shock leaking and the other fully locked. Makes it pretty dangerous to drive. What are the chances of me and three people I know having the same repair on similar vehicles. It has to be a manufacturing defect or software bug. I believe the computer locks the shocks full on then doesn't release them then one or both of them blow. If you experience this get it to a dealer as soon as possible, My fear is that it will occur again after the shocks are replaced. This is my 6th suburban/ Tahoe and they have all been great until now. This is a terrible manufacturing flaw!!! Gm should assist with the repair of this with it occurring at 50 -60 thousand miles and being an apparent design flaw

dmillerj

UPDATE ON 2015 TAHOE ROUGH RIDE ISSUE. Recap: TSB 5429 was performed. New shocks & springs. No improvement in ride. Spoke with Erick from GM about my satisfaction with repair. I explained the service manager at the dealership agreed these parts did nothing to address the rough ride issue. I received a call from GM. Spoke with Erick again. For some reason his questions were more similiar to what a layer would ask instead of a factory rep interested in helping me get my vehicle repaired. I was very careful how I answered his questions. He seemed to be wanting me to blame it on the dealer and possibly remove GM from any further attempts to fix my vehicle. GM requested I take the Tahoe to the dealer and leave it for a couple of days. I took it back and left it for as long as they wanted it. After two days I receive a call from the service mgr informing me of what they had done. They removed 20in wheels & tires from a new Tahoe and installed them on mine. NO difference in ride. They disabled the Mag Ride and I was told the difference in the ride was like night and day. Service mgr went back to GM to let them know the results of disconnecting the Mag Ride Suspension as directed by TAC. The ride improved dramatically. GM told the service manager "the failsafe is soft ride is the reason and at this point the situation would be considered normal operation. Ain't that a kick in the head?

Typerod

Wow, that is something....so can you have the dealer leave it disabled?

dmillerj

I suggested they leave the Mag Ride disabled and the service mgr told me they couldn't do that. The ride was much better but it would create an unstable condition on curves and hwy speeds. I spoke with the GM rep today on phone. He's going to talk to the service mgr and will call me tomorrow. Everybody is saying and it has been confirmed that the problem is in the Magnetic Ride Suspension software programing. However it appears that GM is hesitant to admit this due to the number of vehicles with this problem. I will post updates so anyone that visits this forum may be able to avoid going through what I'm going through. I would trade it if I could but any used car manager that would appraise it would no something is wrong with it when they drove it. And anyway the problem is becoming very well known in the industry and used car managers are avoiding these vehicles as if they were Pinto's.

Bernman

HELLO FORUM
I'm just chiming in here because this is one of the few active links remaining on this topic. I recently acquired a 2015 Tahoe LTZ on a good deal (Out of Warranty) and noticed the ride being a little bumpy during the test ride but was told that they had recently reset the computer and it would take time for it to re-calibrate and learn the road/driving habits etc...Sounded plausible enough at the time but as time went on and the ride failed to improve, I went googling around the internet and found there are issues with the ride among other things with the LTZ's Denali's and Cadys... Well, some of these particular autos have the Z95 option suspension. If you have that code on the sticker in your glove box then you might have the same problem.
Terminology:
Z71 and Z66 codes are primarily standard suspension LS and LT usually (These usually don't have problems)
ZW7 codes use Premium ride suspension (more widely used), it incorporates Air-leveling and uses matched springs
Z55 and some Z85 codes use Autoride (Higher end vehicles), involves electronic Magride shocks and Air-leveling systems.
Z95 is the newest version of Autoride and appears to have the rough ride issue
All these codes and more can be found on the sticker in your glove-box, there are even codes for each shock and strut on these systems because they distinguish between left and right (which leads me to believe their different in some way.

That being said I'm out of warranty and it's too late to take it back; I've always been the type of person that would rather fix a problem rather than pass it on so I went to work.

1. I looked at what others had done:
a. What had Chevy done? the answer is not much! They intentionally made the ride more "Sport-like" (Translation-Rougher Ride) and had initially refused to acknowledge the issue. Acceptance being the first step to recovery, they did acknowledge that some people are more sensitive than others and issued an "Information Bulletin" (PIT5429) to the dealers concerning the rough ride. The bulletin outlines about 7-10 hrs worth of diagnostics.$$$$
-First they'll do "Road force Balancing of the tires which is a fancy way of saying, "we're blaming it on the tires" $$$$
-Then when that doesn't work, they’ll run some sensor diagnostics test with and oscilloscope $$$$
-As a last resort they will swap out the front struts, springs, rear shocks and update the Magride computer.$$$$
-Many have reported that even this doesn't work. I have no warranty so I'm not footing the bill for this $3500 experiment, just to see if it works. When I looked up the parts in the bulletin that it would have taken to apply this fix on my vehicle 23267007 and 23312155; they were no longer available....So, that's telling me that even GM doesn't even believe the parts they are replacing will fix the problem and have removed them from their available parts list. I'm a loyal GM owner and have had 14 in all, you can see from my listed vehicles, I've hung onto many of them I liked. COMON GM your letting me down!

b. Others on forums had changed the springs: not as hard as you would think


c. Some had changed tire and wheel sizes some had 20 and 22" wheels and went back to 18" with marginal effect.
(More rubber does not equal a softer ride) at least it didn't make it soft enough to counter-act the poor suspension.
d. One of the most useful things posted was the manipulation of the Magride Sensors


e. Others have waited for GM to do something and have sense died from holding their breath. It is rumored that this and other issues plague the 2016-2018 models and will hopefully be fixed by 2020 when they next projected body change comes.

2. So then I experimented:
First of all, my ride is stiff. It just felt like every bump I hit was NOT being absorbed by the springs and the shocks didn't seem to be damping the effects of the springs as they were intended to do. So a jolt from the rode would come directly up through my spine and a crash back down with no sign of relief. The front seemed low about 4 1/2 inches from the finder to the tire and the rear was closer to 7" from the finder to the tire.



a. I changed the tires, because it needed them anyway - it did nothing for the ride. 20" wheels stock size tires (DID NOT WORK)
b. I tried to create a Magride sensor spacer for the front. The idea was; if you make the computer think it has a lot of weight on the front, it will electronically increase the dampening of the front struts. (THIS WORKED) I'll try to post a pic that was on another site that shows a spacer between the A-frame of the truck and the sensor bracket. I also used a 1 3/4-inch spacer and 6MM X 60MM bolt. The front was much more controllable but the back end was awful.

This may be why there is a problem: When I looked up the springs on the GM website the application is for Tahoe 5.3L, Suburban 5.3L/6.0L, Escalade 6.2L, Denali Trucks. If the springs were designed to hold up a truck with a 6.2L engine then they are probably a little stiff for something with a 5.3L engine.




c. When I moved the sensor on the rear, it didn't work the same. Here's why: The Autoride system has auto-leveling built in. In the event you tow a trailer and weight is placed on the rear of the truck, the air pump increases the pressure in the rear shocks in an effort to compensate for the sagging rear-end. This just made it worse, the springs were too stiff and the shocks were now inflated making is more stiff, if that was possible. (DID NOT WORK)
d. I lowered the rear shocks: WHY? I noticed that when the rear shocks were unbolted they still had spring pressure inside even after I released the air from the shock, you still couldn't compress them without a hydraulic press. If they were providing lift as well as the harsh springs, by lowering them, you essentially take their spring action of the shock out of the equation. This did help some but you didn't have any damping for the rear springs and it was still harsh on the small bumps and bouncy on the big ones. (DID NOT WORK) But I did learn that it was the springs that were too harsh regardless of whether the shocks were in place or not. I looked up the springs and they are AAS2 type springs used on many Tahoe's, Suburban's, and full size trucks. Again, the Tahoe is the lightest of the class of vehicles to use these springs and would be impacted the most by their harsh ride.
e. I lowered the rear: WHY? There were several reasons:
-1. With stock suspension, the rear was 2 1/2 inches higher than the front, not sure why, it’s just the way they make them.
-2. I wanted to get rid of the stock spring because it appeared to be the problem.
-3. If I put more weight on the shock, I thought it may ride better.
I ordered 3" lowering springs, I really didn't need to lower it 3 inches but I also knew the shock would take some of the load so if it went down 2 1/2 inches, it would be level anyway. These kits often come with lowering shackles for the shocks....I did NOT get them because I wanted the shocks to take some of the weight....If I would have lowered the shocks, it would have lowered the full 3 inches. Remember the Auto-Leveling system would compensate for any lowering of the rear by inflating the shocks with more air....So, to counter-act this, I made a bracket from flat metal and bolted it to the existing bracket; then I drilled a hole 1" lower than the original, thereby lowering the rear Magride sensor 1" (THIS WORKED) This is the outcome: It lowered the rear 1 3/4 inches and it placed more weight on the shocks, it rides incredibly smooth in the rear. I was almost thinking about using 1" lowering springs on the front with a one inch lift kit just to get rid of the factory springs (haven't done this yet).



Truthfully, I don't think there is anything wrong with the MAGride system, I think they just went too heavy with the springs. I had to fool the Magride on the front to get it to compensate for the stiff springs, if I swap the springs in the front with aftermarket items, I could probably just leave the Magride alone. I haven't pulled a trailer or anything but NOW I don't mind paying the payment for the ride I get! I've seen horror stories about the dealers having these vehicles for 27 days of first 36 days of ownership; it did take a while to do all this but it was an extra vehicle, not a daily driver so I had time to work with it and tweak things in. The rear springs were $130 on eBay and they really only took 15min to put in; WAY easier than I thought, look up a YouTube video on it. If you have jack-stands and some metric tools, you’re in business. Rather than making extension or lowering brackets for the Magride sensors they also have longer and shorter rods you can install; they sell them where they have lift kits and lowering kits, but you have to know exactly what length you need. I also know that not everyone may be able to do this but if you're footing the bill, you may be able to have someone handy or a local shop do this for you rather than paying $3500 in diagnostic fees to help GM figure it out.
GOOD LUCK!

dmillerj

After reading your post I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I don't have the expertise to tackle anything close to what you did. It all makes sense but it would take me months to even figure out what parts I need. I really don't believe GM will ever fix this problem unless we can demonstrate this problem creates a safety issue. I have owned Toyota's for 30 years and never have I ever had a problem beyond regular maintenance. Put 270,000 miles on a four runner and brakes and an alternator are the only thing I did to it. My problem is that I have a 75,000 lb camper to pull and Toyota doesn't build anything that would safely tow this amount of weight. I'm considering trading in for an LT which most do not have this Magna Ride suspension but that's a pretty expensive fix for a rough ride. Very disappointed in GM at this point. An interesting story surrounding this issue. My Tahoe had 8000 miles when I purchased it. I have asked the mgr who was driving it about the rough ride. He told me that he never notice a rough ride and actually thought it rode better than any new vehicle he has driven. The service mgr looked at him and laughed out loud.