GM Lawsuit 5.3L oil burners

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Aug 4, 2011
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2,572
Just found this posted on a GM site and was surprised to see this. I'm not a GM owner but from the people I know who do own GM products I've never heard of a 5.3L having oil burning issues.
Has this problem effected anyone on the forum ?

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Most of the older ones didn't use oil but it is somewhat common on the newer AFM engines. Some of the time the issue is fixed by an updated valve cover with updated pcv.

A coworker has a 2010 with 260k miles on it, bought new. It started to burn oil about a month after their super duty broke down and they had to use the 1/2 ton to pull their skid steer which was a couple thousand pounds over its towing capacity. His son who's very hard on vehicles usually drove it.

He hasn't had any problems with the AFM at all though.

IMO it's no different than how a number of Toyota engines are affected by oil usage. It's not a problem if you keep the level up and much less likely to happen if you do regular oil changes.
 
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Most of the older ones didn't use oil but it is somewhat common on the newer AFM engines. Some of the time the issue is fixed by an updated valve cover with updated pcv.

A coworker has a 2010 with 260k miles on it, bought new. It started to burn oil about a month after their super duty broke down and they had to use the 1/2 ton to pull their skid steer which was a couple thousand pounds over its towing capacity. His son who's very hard on vehicles usually drove it.

He hasn't had any problems with the AFM at all though.

IMO it's no different than how a number of Toyota engines are affected by oil usage. It's not a problem if you keep the level up and much less likely to happen if you do regular oil changes.


Negative. The older 5.3's that burned oil burned it because of piston slap and the bore becoming very slightly oval shaped. The GMC and Chevy dealers were basically told to lie to customers and tell them that piston slap was normal and wouldn't cause any long term wear issues, blah, blah blah.
 
Hmmm … my family and I have owned many 5.3L's up to 400k while slapping

Had my last one 8 years and I have two now … oil burners = none regardless of slap or not …
New versions do not slap … very quiet
Two things I grow less and less likely to trust … lawyers and what I read here

I'll take baby powder for million$, Alex …
 
My guess is that it stops at 2010 due to the bankruptcy.

Had a 2011 Silverado. It burned oil on all the afm cylinders. It was an issue with highway drivers.
 
Originally Posted by kstanf150
Just found this posted on a GM site and was surprised to see this. I'm not a GM owner but from the people I know who do own GM products I've never heard of a 5.3L having oil burning issues.
Has this problem effected anyone on the forum ?

Are those AFM engines? Seems somewhat unusual for a maintained non-AFM to be a big time oil burner.
 
Originally Posted by bullwinkle
Originally Posted by kstanf150
Just found this posted on a GM site and was surprised to see this. I'm not a GM owner but from the people I know who do own GM products I've never heard of a 5.3L having oil burning issues.
Has this problem effected anyone on the forum ?

Are those AFM engines? Seems somewhat unusual for a maintained non-AFM to be a big time oil burner.



Sir I have no idea to be honest. Someone that's a lot more knowledgeable than I am on GM engines needs to answers that question. Cline would be a good person to address this topic I'd think ðŸ‘
 
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bullwinkle
From what I can find researching I'd say yes it a problem with AFM engines
 
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
Originally Posted by caprice_2nv
Most of the older ones didn't use oil but it is somewhat common on the newer AFM engines. Some of the time the issue is fixed by an updated valve cover with updated pcv.

A coworker has a 2010 with 260k miles on it, bought new. It started to burn oil about a month after their super duty broke down and they had to use the 1/2 ton to pull their skid steer which was a couple thousand pounds over its towing capacity. His son who's very hard on vehicles usually drove it.

He hasn't had any problems with the AFM at all though.

IMO it's no different than how a number of Toyota engines are affected by oil usage. It's not a problem if you keep the level up and much less likely to happen if you do regular oil changes.


Negative. The older 5.3's that burned oil burned it because of piston slap and the bore becoming very slightly oval shaped. The GMC and Chevy dealers were basically told to lie to customers and tell them that piston slap was normal and wouldn't cause any long term wear issues, blah, blah blah.


I don't think so. I worked at a GM dealer around 2005 and piston slap is a known condition of a lot of these engines. Oil burning and Piston slap can be mutually exclusive. They last a long time even with piston slap.
 
Am I the only one who thinks launching a class action lawsuit on what is now a 10 year old vehicle for something that isn't a safety issue ridiculous? Yes it sucks, but c'mon really?
 
It is the AFM engines. Does it a lot more on the highway drivers when half the engine is shut down.

The piston slap is a non issue. My WS6 does it, my 98 Z28 did for 156,000 miles, with over 500 12.2 1/4 mile passes on a dry 100 shot of nitrous and it never used any oil. My old 02 6.0 slapped never used a drop of oil. Surprisingly the Caprice is really quiet, but I have AFM removed, it didn't use any oil either way.

The 6.0 from those years is not involved because no AFM, no oil burning issues.

Tons of 300,000 mile plus 4.8/5.3/6.0/LSx (ls1, ls2, ls3 etc) running around with piston slap.
 
The lawyers are fishing
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Oil spraying on the underside of the pistons was corrected in 2010 will a shield over AFM oil relief valve, And some of the '07-'09 AFM engines were retrofitted with a shield along with a updated diver side (PCV) valve cover.

AFM/Cylinder Deactivating engine are going to burn some oil & are more prone for the rings on active cylinders to gum up, A piston soak with GM Top Engine Cleaner works wonders for this.....Just like it did with the Northstar engines!!

The Gen V engines are using oil too, Every one I pull plugs on at 100,000+ miles have oil deposits, It's the fact they hold 8 quarts of oil that fewer notice.
 
True here^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If they happen to win- the Lawyers will get a cool two to three million, and everybody else a free coupon for an oil change........................................
 
Originally Posted by CKN
True here^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If they happen to win- the Lawyers will get a cool two to three million, and everybody else a free coupon for an oil change........................................



So true
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They do have some issues, but for comparison to similar model years of Dodge and Ford, here are some numbers. I've always found the numbers on this site to pretty closely reflect what I had seen working in the automotive repair field (left it about 5 year's ago.)

If I go back to 2004/2005 (right in the middle of my favorite trucks (99-07 gmt800) the difference gets even larger, since Ford was right in the worst of their 5.4 3v issues.

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Originally Posted by 4WD
Hmmm … my family and I have owned many 5.3L's up to 400k while slapping

Had my last one 8 years and I have two now … oil burners = none regardless of slap or not …
New versions do not slap … very quiet
Two things I grow less and less likely to trust … lawyers and what I read here

I'll take baby powder for million$, Alex …

Are you the one averaging 26MPG on a Silverado? If so of course it's going to burn oil you are not driving you are lugging.
 
Originally Posted by dave1251
Originally Posted by 4WD
Hmmm … my family and I have owned many 5.3L's up to 400k while slapping

Had my last one 8 years and I have two now … oil burners = none regardless of slap or not …
New versions do not slap … very quiet
Two things I grow less and less likely to trust … lawyers and what I read here

I'll take baby powder for million$, Alex …

Are you the one averaging 26MPG on a Silverado? If so of course it's going to burn oil you are not driving you are lugging.


You can easily average 25 mpg on the highway in a Silverado if you keep it at 70ish mph.
 
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