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Old 05-03-2012, 07:02 PM   #1
Rivet Master
 
1960 22' Safari
in the wilderness , The great Mojave Desert
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Missed it by that much

Possible disaster that is.

Bought a used 2002 Suburban wit the 8.1 What a tow beast! Anyway I hitched up the trailer and went camping. Got home safe and sound and after unhitching I noticed the rear bumper had tweaked down a bit. Thought, Hmmm and went on about life.

Couple weeks later hitched up and went camping again. Got home and remembered the bumper tweaking down. So today I went over to Eckharts which is a really good hitch joint here in SoCal and told the guy my concern.

He crawled under and looked around and said... "Looks O.K. but the hitch itself is a real piece of s**t. Come over here." We walked over to a huge pile of GM factory hitches. Some looked O.K. others had small crack up to those that had HUGE cracks and an end would flop when the hitch was lifted.

For some reason I suddenly felt the urge to have my "Looks O.K." hitch replaced. The burb is now wearing a brand new level V hitch.
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Old 05-03-2012, 07:05 PM   #2
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Scary stuff! Glad to hear you got her fixed.
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Old 05-03-2012, 08:18 PM   #3
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These GM hitches have been a problem for years and subject to a recall. If you take your truck to a GM dealer they will look for cracks and replace it with another hitch of the same design. They claim the problem is a quality control problem with the welding on some hitches and they have tightened up the welding specs. on the hitches they make now. I have one on my truck and have put on about 40K miles about half towing an Airstream. My biggest unit is a 34 footer but I have put less that 6000 miles on it since I bought it. I check my hitch regularly for cracks but have not seen any. When and if they show up I will make a big noise to GM but will likely go with a better hitch.
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Old 05-03-2012, 08:32 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by dwightdi View Post
These GM hitches have been a problem for years and subject to a recall.
Does anyone know what models/years? I haven't seen any recall notices.
.
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Old 05-03-2012, 10:55 PM   #5
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Great catch! I'm glad you caught it and replaced it, better off knowing that you're safe!
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Old 05-03-2012, 11:22 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvite-F View Post
Does anyone know what models/years? I haven't seen any recall notices.
.
I believe it is all of the ones with the round bar between the frame rails.
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Old 05-04-2012, 06:33 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvite-F View Post
Does anyone know what models/years? I haven't seen any recall notices.
You might check Safercar.gov, a website by the National Highway Taransportation Safety Administration. Home | Safercar -- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) They keep track of every published recall for vehicles in the United States. I first found this site when checking for recalls on Airstream Interstates before I bought mine. As an aside, there was one, for the driver's seatbelt; the swivel mechanism for the seat could pinch the "buckle seatbelt" sensor and cause it to malfunction. It didn't affect mine, though, because the problem was fixed before mine rolled off the factory floor. But it was good to know this before I bought it, so I could check.

It may be that there isn't a recall, exactly, on your trailer hitch receiver. A recall is when they send out notices to the owners and say, "We've had problems with some, so come in and we'll check yours for free, because we don't want anyone else to sue us." More likely, it's just a GM internal policy of, "If someone comes in with a problem, we'll fix it for free, but since so many people don't even use the trailer hitch they have, we won't spend the money to fix it unless they complain."
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Old 05-04-2012, 07:09 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvite-F View Post
Does anyone know what models/years? I haven't seen any recall notices.
.
As of my retirement from a Chevy store in 2009 there were no recalls issued.

Give this thread a read to get a better handle on the problem.

I do know the later,(07 on), Suburban receivers have been re-designed.

Bob
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Old 05-04-2012, 03:06 PM   #9
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THere is quite a bit of info on WOODALLS about this. See contributor BenK in a search of this problem, title & post. (Towing and the Tow Vehicle sub-forums).

It's well worth the proper replacement. The DRAWTITE 45013 with a reducer sleeve would be my choice.

Here is a fairly recent one on this issue. See links several pages in.
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Old 05-25-2012, 09:01 AM   #10
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Sad to hear that; glad that you caught it!
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