Heard pinging - sounded like the spark knock in my old 1998 Dodge 1500 with a 5.9 Litre V8 on regular fuel.

Went for a test drive with shop foreman from the dealer today, he couldn't really make out what I was telling him - but part of that was wet roads making it hard to hear. They put it on the scanner anyway and I was right - one injector is dying. They want to replace it.

One injector. Just one. The one that is bad.

My question is - I heard this is an 8 hour operation. I also heard on here once that they usually only replace all at once ... not onesy twoesies. The dealer said if I have any problems down the road - they will replace any others as they come up?????!!??

Is this just my dealer? He told me they definitely do NOT replace all 8 as a standard procedure, when one fails. Is this true?

Truck has only 35,700 kms on it. It is a 2003 Chev Silvarado 3500 Dually w/ Allison.

Thanks for all your posts - if it wasn't for this site I would never have known what to listen for.

Any advice on dealing with this now?

BAM http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Just talked to my Service Mgr. today. He said that he trys to get all eight replaced. He has to ask the District Serv Mgr for permission to do so. I guess they do it on a case by case basis. Because you only have one bad, it might be tough to justify all eight.

Check thid thread http://dieselplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20736&page=2&pp=10&highlight=injector+replacement

i just had mine replaced and they did all of them... fwiw

I believe the TSB says to replace all eight.:)

I have been wondering about this for a while.....I have the juice and I hear pining all the time when the motor is cold or I jump on the throttle hard.....I thought it was just a timming thing.......my truck has done this since day one.....a little....juice or no juice....kinda seemed like a normal noise for this motor......

Then I hear of guys that hear this knock.......get it checked out and it's bad injectors?

My impression of the really bad injectors is that the injector body actually springs a leak and dumps a ton of fuel into the crankcase.

So are the injectors that are "out of spec" actually bad? are they dumping fuel into the crank? or in GM's attempt to solve this problem have set a very sensitive standard for injector balance rates?

Can the typical diagnostics predict an injector body failure?

I'm just full of questions!:blahblah:

I am just too ignorant to know how worried I should be:D

The "replace all 8" is for certain problems only, such as, fuel in oil, certain codes, hard starting. But most dealers want to do all 8, so they only go in once...

Yeah this pinging worked up gradually, and literally sounds like a spark knock from my old Dodge.

I have a great relationship with my dealer, they do all the work on my truck and I trust their efforts. I have no complaints about them but I am not impressed with GM - I called their "Customer Service" line today to ask a few questions and I think I just got a call center with a guy that was reading from a script.

I have a trust issue with the truck now. You see, the reason I bought the thing in the first place is because I am in construction, and the type I do is roads and bridges and mining infrastructure. I had a 2500HD GMC with a 6 Litre Vortec gasser. My territory is the entire top 3/4 of British Columbia ... literally tens of thousands of miles of resource roads.

In Feb 2004 I was out at a remote site. It took 2 1/2 hours to find my way in to it on a radio-controlled forestry road. When I left that night, it was already dark and it started to blizzard - white-out conditions. I got lost and ended up driving into abandoned cut-blocks. It was pitch black, -25 degrees, white-out, I was driving about 30km/hour, I could only see through a 2 inch swipe on my windshield because the wipers were frozen. I had no emergency equipment, food or blankets. I took so many wrong turns I was out there in the forest 5 hours. I had not seen another vehicle for 4. Thankfully I had my VHF radio and raised a plow operator. He talked me out of where I was. I was shaking like a leaf. 6 hours later I made it out to the highway, following a mine ore-haul truck. :eek:

I walked into the dealer two days later and told them I wanted to turn in the GMC and get a reliable diesel truck - so that I can have the extra mileage / range and if I get into trouble again I could siphon diesel out of logging equipment I come across out there.

My last job was 1400 kms up the Alaska Highway in the winter. This spring I have to drive to a remote minesite 500 kms from the nearest town on a radio -controlled road. If my Duramax pops a wobbler out in these places I have to go, it could be really dangerous.

So the reason I am disappointed in GM is ... they have to know they have a problem with the injectors. They extended the warranties on the 2001-2002 model years. For 2003 - no word yet. However, they want to handle my truck on a one-by-one basis.

:rant: Well, if I am 700km up a forest service road, and the thing won't start, chances are there won't be any "Roadside Assistance". I will no doubt have to pay for a truck to tow me back into civilization with a chain. Then there is down time. Who do I invoice for my time and charges?

I think instead of monkeying around with handling this one injector at a time, they should just replace the 8 and be done with it. Do I have time to bring my truck in for a tear down for each injector? NO.

Sorry for ranting but thats my reality. :o:

Any other stories?

BAM

On warranty work they (dealer)do what the factory tells them to do.

My '03 Silverado 3500 DMax started pinging at 10K and the dealer found 2 bad injectors....relaced all 8 and said thats what is called for.