The CAR WIZARD Shares Top 10 Issues with LS Truck Engine

welcome back to the wizard shop we've got this 2002 Chevy Avalanche in here today for service and it just kind of brings to mind that there's a lot of these on the road with this engine in it literally millions of them there's Sierra's Yukons Suburbans Escalades I mean the list goes on the 4.8 the 5.3 and the six liter LS series of truck engines I'd like to go over some of the common issues that I've had to repair over the years over and over and over again the same problems so this can help you if you're in the market for vehicle what to expect or if you currently own the vehicle what to expect on repairs on one of these vehicles [Music] so this is a common sight on any Escalade yukon suburban sierra silverado some Trailblazers and Pallas even have this motor in them just as a 5.3 motor and like I said they've been in they use these in millions of vehicles one of the first common issues I'm going to go over on these as intake gaskets you go to start the vehicle in the morning it runs really rough misfires and as soon as the engine warms up that goes away 99% of the time is intake gaskets I've probably replaced literally a hundred and fifty sets of them so the intake has to come off is fairly easy job you just they just unclip off the intake you clip new ones on bolt it back together it's a very simple job no coolant is spilled anywhere it's dry so a couple hundred bucks it's not very expensive it doesn't take very much time I can have the intake off in 15 or 20 minutes I can have the whole job done in an hour or less so that's a common problem number one another common problem on these where the intake also has to come off as the NOC sensors and as you see in the picture the intake has to come off and that's a good time if you haven't changed the intake gaskets to go ahead and do so because that's also a common problem but typically water gets in there and gets into the little wells that the knock sensors hide inside there you replace them with a new and a new wiring harness and then usually you silicone the little cap back on and there's little foam little bricks kind of that go under the intake I typically throw those in the trash because all that does is hold water it allows it to seep down into the NOC sensors take it to your parks store and they check the codes and it says NOC cents or one or two or you can go ahead and put your money down at your NOC sensors need to be replaced the intake has to come off and that job typically 250 bucks 300 bucks I'm around in there it's not super expensive but you know that's what that common issue number two is come an issue on these on the side of the motor down here right above the oil filter there's a little it's either an oil cooler line block or a little block off plate there's two ten millimeter bolts that go in those typically leak oil down the side of the motor and it's easy to think someone who's inexperienced so they've got a rear main seal leaking or something bad happening but I've seen those leak over and over again it's just two bolts and a little gasket and like I said it sits right above the oil filter trace it up to there and usually the problem there that's problem number three problem number four this one's a little bit more involved this you get an issue one of these said get a John the engine they got low oil pressure and you think that's disastrous or something big as it's gone bad but the truth is there's a little ring right in front of the motor on the oil pickup tube right where it mounts into the oil pump there's one bolt that holds that on the tube to the pump and it will ring gets lat and it starts sucking air and you're getting low oil pressure you have to take the timing cover off and drop the oil pan a little bit to get down and get that replaced a lot more involved but it's a common issue on vehicles that have higher mileage it's just an upgraded o-ring and you put it back together and typically takes care of that problem so the next common problem on these is that you're going down the road your air conditionings blowing ice-cold and all of a sudden it goes warm you think something disastrous this happened and in some cases maybe so but most of the time not on these what happens is there's a very small serpentine belt run off the main pulley to the AC compressor that's separate from the main serpentine belt it has a tiny little tensioner in tint typically the tensioner goes bad it locks up it throws the belt off you just put a new tensioner and a new serpentine belt in you're back in business it's not very expensive you're probably probably looking at a hundred 125 bucks in a shop to get that done if your AC quits on you have one of these vehicles take a look at that very likely it could be your problem so problem number six is here at the gas station you're trying to fill up and it keeps stopping on you relock the trigger and it stops again and you say what in the world is going on here the common problem on these the general motors put the evap vent right over here on the rear of the gas tank where dust and dirt and everything gets blown all around and ends up plugging and destroying the vent solenoid or either plugging the vent itself sometimes the canister it also gets destroyed it gets plugged up with dirt I've probably replaced myself a hundred of these or more it's a common problem and it may be where you get a check engine light and it tells you there's a problem before you get to this point where it's locking up on you but many times I get a phone call hey I can't fill up my gas tank it keeps clicking off on me I already know what's wrong if it's one of these vehicles it's a vent solenoid or the vent so that's number six hey problem number seven is the gauge cluster so many of these have were the tachometer speedometer or a fuel gauge is all out of whack and it's just completely it's reading readings that are completely unfathomable like ten thousand rpms or something crazy and what's wrong is you the little stepper motors in there go bad typically what you have to do is pull the cluster out send it off to us people that there's services out there they rebuild them they send them back and you put it back in that's I think it's typically $300 350 to get that done most of that is to serve rebuild service but uh it's not a hard job it's easy to get that out but if your gauges are all out of whack it's not a sense it's usually not a sensor it's not your computer it's the cluster needs to be sent off and be rebuilt 99% of the time I've probably sent off sixty of these or more so a lot of them problem number eight is also on the cluster you go driving down the road everything's fine and happy and then your abs and your brake light come on at the same time that happens over and over on these what it is is the ABS control module typically it sits right under the drivers seat on the frame and you have to take it apart I can rebuild these myself in house I take it apart resolder the power connections and the ground connections on the circuit board I've repaired a lot of these but maybe your mechanic may have to send it off and get it done or maybe just replace it all together I can repair them in-house and then that that issue with the lights coming on when you're driving down the road is gone issue I'm going to tell you that I've experienced on these vehicles it's actually kind of a combo there's a ground wire that sits directly under the driver's seat on the frame that gets corroded and that causes gauges to act funny or or lighting and things in the dash to act crazy it's just a ground wire it sits right under on the frame right under the driver's seat there's just a small little ground strap that's a common problem and while you're in that area you will see another common issue is the exhaust manifolds where they bolt to the engine the bolts break off with age and it's always the back ones always the ones that are hardest to get to it typically have to take off the manifold and get to take the wheel liner out and get in there to drill those out I've drilled out numerous numerous bolts for that the labor under removal of the manifold plus an hour per bolt and let's just relieve some of them come out by hand and you get lucky it'll be cheaper but usually it's drill amount so I found a lot of issues with these cars in this engine that you could you could expect to have to fix at some point but the truth is a really a good engine I recommend them personally over any other brand as far as easy ease of maintenance and cost of parts and really they don't have any serious issues other than that so thanks for watching hit the subscribe button hit the little bell and if you have any friends or anybody it might be interested share the video and I'm sure they'd be enjoy it as well any of the tools I've been using you can go through my amazon affiliate at the link below so I'll back this car out and then we'll what was that what in the world was that oh my god this is a third guy this week oh man what in the world am I gonna do now man you always pop up at the most inopportune times don't you that's talent a talent it's a challenge so this is like the third guide this week that has had an accent here at the shop don't worry that thing they were bearing out of here place boobies uh it's Range Rover Range Rover yeah perfect place to dispose of this oh you're just gonna put him in the Range Rover and buried it up no problem have my boys come clean this up for you here so well if you could do that I'll make it worth your while of course yeah stop digging habit of this yeah I'm gonna make some phone calls we'll get this cleaned up for you in a jiffy well I sure appreciate it no problem man I'll put an ad out and see if I get another guy in here this week [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Car Wizard

Views: 537,343

Rating: 4.9469719 out of 5

Keywords: car wizard, david long, hoovies garage, tyler hoover, car issues with tyler hoover, chrisfix, omega auto clinic, scotty kilmer, car repair, car maintenance, tavarish, Doug DeMuro, VINwiki, Tahoe, Silverado, Avalanche, Sierra, Yukon, Escalade, Suburban, Trailblazer, 4.8 Chevy engine, 5.3 chevy engine, 6.0 chevy engine

Id: 3uvc5v4ssJM

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/r_golan_trevize]

My 220,000 5.3L Sierra's Scoresheet:

• Intake gaskets: Yep. First thing I had to do when I bought it to clear up a bad misfire.
• Knock Sensors: Sort of. They got wet and threw a code after they got wet flushing the cooling system. They eventually dried out on their own and fixed themselves.
• Oil leak from filter housing. Nope. Haven't seen that yet.
• Oil pickup O-ring. Probably. Every once-in-a-blue-moon the oil pressure will drop after a cold start when the RPMs drop down to low idle. It jumps back up when the RPMs go up so I just throw it in neutral and blip the throttle a few times. Fingers crossed.
• A/C tensioner. Maybe? Need to look at this one again. A/C wasn't working when I bought it. I assumed the compressor was locked up but I threw a belt on just for the heck of it and it started making horrible noises...
• EVAP blockage. Nope. No problems with the EVAP system.
• Wacky gauges. Sort of. The fuel gauge is the only flaky one and I believe that is a sending unit issue. All the other gauges are rock solid.
• ABS/Brake light. Yes. Thank you, now I know what to look for.
• Ground strap. Maybe. When I bought the truck, I found a homemade ground wire running from the battery to the firewall and without it, nothing worked right. I bet the frame to cab ground was bad and that was the previous owners solution.
• Exhaust manifold broken bolts. I don't think so.

7/10

[u/jaymee777]

Aka Hoovie’s main man!