Two weeks ago, the dealer replaced the steering shaft after I brought in the TSB's about the steering issues. I started having "moans" from the steering column again so I brought the beast back to the dealer this morning. They recreated the problem and are now in the process of installing a new gear box. Fortunately, they provided me a free loaner vehicle so I came home to wait it out. Hope they finish this today. I also asked them to check the Pitman arm and the idler arm assemblies as well. At this point, the entire steering system will be replaced with 29,800 miles on the vehicle. Needless to say, I am disappointed about the quality of the vehcle and it's durability. I had expected a lot more. I have owned 3 Dodge Cummins diesels with hundreds of thousands of miles and no problems. I must say that the dealer's service department has been excellent in their desire to diagnose and correct these problems and have been very courteous.

Welcome to my world......... took mine in with a leaking input shaft. Instead of just replacing the seal and bearing (like the TSB said), they put in a rebuilt steering box and told me to come get it. I drove off the lot, made it about 3 blocks and pulled a U-turn right back to the service department. The new steering box had more play in it than my 25 year old dodge 4x4. They took it in the back to see if the tech could adjust the play out of the steering box (maybe he should have checked it BEFORE they called the customer:mad: ), and after 30 minutes they came back and said there was too much play in it and it could not be adjust out. So they gave me a loaner and put in another gear box. So this makes the 3rd steering box........ It's still not as "tight" as the OEM one as I have to "bump steer" the thing on the highway, and to top it off the darn input shaft seal is now leaking like the first one did.

The problem is with who ever GM uses to rebuild these gear boxes...... They don't replace the input shaft bearing (which is too loose and allows the input shaft to have excessive radial play) when they rebuild them. They just replace the seals and put some black paint in it and off to the dealership they go. So after a while the input shaft seal starts leaking again because of all the play (side to side) in the input shaft destroys the seal. I guess GM warranty dept does not want the techs to "fix" the problem by replacing the bearing and seal, and just pays them to replace the entire unit.
The Tech also destroyed the rubber boot on the pitman arm by using a fork to seperate it from the drag link instead of a puller type seperator. I found it when doing an oil change after the work was done. The top manager at the dealership got his ear chewed on a bit and I got a letter stating that they would replace the pitman arm the next time I had my truck in thier dealersip for any other work. I do all my own PM, so it won't be back until something covered under the GMPP breaks.

GM does not build the gear boxes on our trucks..... I believe it is Saginaw. Word is that Saginaw was really pissed at GM when they went to the rack and pinion steering on the 2003 and up GM 1/2 ton trucks as they lost all the business......

BTW my truck has 45K miles on it.......... going to try to force GMPP to put a new unit in this time and not a rebuilt one.