2011 GMC Sierra 1500
This year drew an ordinary 63 complaints for a GMC Sierra 1500 — the model's median is 54. What they were about is the unusual part: 25.4% of them mention cracking, against 6.2% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 63 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 54 |
| Involving a crash | 1 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 4/5 |
| EPA combined | 16 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- cracking — 25.4% of this year's complaints, against 6.2% across the model's other years (4.1×). Owners wrote it as: cracking, send, eyes, bad tires.
- dashboard — 19% of this year's complaints, against 3.7% across the model's other years (5.1×). Owners wrote it as: dashboard, large, cracking real, real bad.
- voltage — 6.3% of this year's complaints, against 0.1% across the model's other years (31.7×). Owners wrote it as: voltage, returning.
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
Safety factor dash is cracking manly. around air bag on passenger side. across dash behind instrument panel. If air bag deploys it would send plastic before air bag, destroying your face even eyes. the GMC dealer said cracking happens on all chevy and GMC truc…
LARGE AND NOTICEABLE CRACK BY MY PASSENGER SIDE AIRBAG ON MY DASHBOARD. COULD SEE THIS BECOMING SHRAPNEL IN THE EVENT OF THE AIRBAG DEPLOYING. GM WILL NOT ISSUE A RECALL, NOR TAKE ANY SORT OF RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ERROR.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 21V050000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 21V054000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V267000 EQUIPMENT Fixed free of charge.
- 10V643000 SUSPENSION Fixed free of charge.
- 11V007000 SUSPENSION 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 2011 GMC Sierra 1500? What happened to yours?
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