2018 GMC Sierra 1500
This year drew an ordinary 296 complaints for a GMC Sierra 1500 — the model's median is 426. What they were about is the unusual part: 30.1% of them mention transmission, against 11% across the other years of this generation.
Last year of its generation. This GMC Sierra 1500 ran from 2014 to 2018, so it had the whole run for its faults to be found and fixed. Last years are usually the most sorted of a generation.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 296 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 426 |
| Involving a crash | 10 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 7 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
What the complaints were about
- transmission — 30.1% of this year's complaints, against 11% across the other years of this generation (2.7×).
- gear — 18.6% of this year's complaints, against 6.3% across the other years of this generation (3×). Owners wrote it as: gear, shift, rpms, shifted.
- shaking — 6.8% of this year's complaints, against 2.1% across the other years of this generation (3.2×). Owners wrote it as: shaking, violently.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
THE FIRST THING THAT HAPPENED WAS THAT ALL OF THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS ON MY TRUCK WENT OUT AND MY TRUCK WOULD NOT START. IT FINALLY STARTED BUT IT WOULD NOT MOVE FINALLY IT WOULD MOVE BUT VERY SLOWLY THIS HAPPENED ON 11/20/2019 I HAVE DOCUMENTATION THROUGH ONST…
WHEN THE TRUCK IS DRIVEN FIRST THING IN THE MORNING THE TRANSMISSION SHIFTS FROM FIRST GEAR INTO SECOND GEAR THE TRANSMISSION SHIFTS VERY HARD OR HESITATES CAUSING THE DRIVER TO SURGE FORWARD ALMOST AS IF THE VEHICLE WERE HIT FROM BEHIND.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V645000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 19V761000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 20V603000 SERVICE BRAKES, HYDRAULIC Fixed free of charge.
- 24V756000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 25V432000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 26V166000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 26V325000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the GMC Sierra 1500 was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2018 GMC Sierra 1500? What happened to yours?
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