5.3 V8 valve spring issues?

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Bthnc

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It is concerning but what we don’t know is the failure rate. GM hopefully has a pretty good idea. While there are a lot of posts in various forums, that doesn’t really tell us much about failure rate. The mean time to failure seems extremely short (obviously there are exceptions), but if there is a hypothetical 5% vehicle affected rate (vehicle with at least 1 faulty valve spring) and 90% of those fail within the first few hours, then ‘only’ 50 vehicles out of 10,000 would potentially be at risk (because we can assume all possible vehicles have a few hours on them by now), or about 0.5%.

Of course we don’t know the real numbers. Also, I’m not sure what is involved in changing valve springs. Based on your other posts you are going to lemon law the truck and I’d do the same.

Yukontruckman, I don’t know if there is a reasonable way to check valve springs. Could be if it is broken, you’d know it; and if it you need to check them you might as well replace them. I’d be curious to know how easy they are to replace just for my own curiosity.
 
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Fireman591

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Been doing a little digging on this and it seems the failures are occurring very early. Vehicles with 100, 200, 300 miles. Is it safe to assume the springs are (probably) ok for now if no issues at 4K miles? I'm going to have the dealer check them soon either way.
There is no reason to open up the valve covers to check them. If you are going to go through all of that just change all 16 springs. If a valve spring fails you will know it withing seconds. If you are lucky all you will get is a rough running engine and a check engine light. If you are unlucky the valve will drop into the cylinder and collide with the piston destroying your engine. I am waiting to hear from our regional rep Monday or Tuesday this week. I will either get good news that GM is buying mine back and ordering another Tahoe with a diesel or shopping around for a Lemon Law Lawyer :) I am hoping GM does the right thing without having to go to court. I hate lawyers and GM has no defense in this case. They already had my vehicle in the shop well over the laws 30 day mark.
 

avalonandl

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The engine sticker is on the rear of the drivers side head. The first 2 digits are the year and the next 3 numbers are the day it was built. My engine was built in 2020 on the 161st day (June 9th). My vehicle according to GM was assembled June 30th. So I have the faulty springs in my engine :(

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You have a 5.3 and use different valve springs. Its only 6.2 engines.
 
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Fireman591

Fireman591

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UPDATE-------- Customer service reached out again today to gather more information about ALL the issues we have had with our Tahoe including the fuel control module and fuel pump issue that took our Tahoe out of service for more than 30 days thus qualifying us for Lemon law buy back or vehicle replacement. The rep stated she will be gathering information from our dealership who did all the service and sharing that info with a regional rep who will decide yay or nay on the buyback or replacement. I also got the ball rolling with a law firm that specializes in the Lemon Law. I'll be sending them copies of our purchase info including all the dealer receipts from the four visits this past few months. I hope I don't have to go the legal route because it takes close to 8 months. Hopefully GM will do the right thing and buy ours back. If they do I will order a new Tahoe with a diesel as soon as I get it in writing. If they don't and I have to go the legal Lemon Law route we will most likely take the money after our case is settled and purchase from another company. By then the new Jeep Grand Wagoneers will be out :) LOL
 

clarkebkr

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No you are wrong. The last updated TSB still includes most of the V8 engines across most models and brands that use the V8. https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10182580-9999.pdf
After following the other thread where you explain your fuel problems. I experienced the exact same issue this weekend, got text & e-mail from On-Star after the vehicle wouldn't start. Tried starting a handful of times there after with the engine turning and eventually turning over to die. Waited until Monday to get it up to the dealership we bought it from, and it fired right up with the check engine light on. Got it to the service center and the rep saw the engine light. By the time it got back to the actual shop the check engine light had turned off, and there was no historical code stored in any of the vehicle's systems. Driving it back to the house I noticed it wasn't running the smoothest, but I have no clue what to do now that there is no historical code and the service department saying they can't find any problems.... fingers crossed we don't got caught in a bad spot. Looked in the spots referenced and turns out it was built in July.
 

Bthnc

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After following the other thread where you explain your fuel problems. I experienced the exact same issue this weekend, got text & e-mail from On-Star after the vehicle wouldn't start. Tried starting a handful of times there after with the engine turning and eventually turning over to die. Waited until Monday to get it up to the dealership we bought it from, and it fired right up with the check engine light on. Got it to the service center and the rep saw the engine light. By the time it got back to the actual shop the check engine light had turned off, and there was no historical code stored in any of the vehicle's systems. Driving it back to the house I noticed it wasn't running the smoothest, but I have no clue what to do now that there is no historical code and the service department saying they can't find any problems.... fingers crossed we don't got caught in a bad spot. Looked in the spots referenced and turns out it was built in July.

How many miles?
 

Norm 427

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I wonder why if the 5.3 breaks a valve spring just that one spring is to be replaced. But with the 6.2 if one spring breaks all 16 are to be replaced. Why?
 

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