I just got back from the Chevy dealership... still pretty pissed off. I go in there, and the guy in front of me was asking about the same thing (piston slap). The reason why I went was to see if they will really give out a 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. The guy was playing dumb when I asked him and he handed my a piece of paper...

"Information on Engine Knock on Cold Start"
Some of the vehicles listed (4.8, 5.3, 6.0, 8.1) may exhibit engine knock noise that begins in the first several thousands of miles of use. (They say some more crap bout how it only does it when its cold, then goes away. Mine stays all the time, and gets worse when it is warm at idle.

"This noise may be caused by the interaction between the piston and the cylinder wall. GM powertrain Engineering, and an analysis of engines returned with this condition, has confirmed that the noise is not determental to the performance, reliability, or durability of the engine. The noise does not have an effect on the longetivity of any of the engine components."

"At this time, replacing the engine assembly or pistons will not eliminate this noise."

This letter is a bunch of bull S#!^. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="gr_images/icons/mad.gif" /> I am getting tired of people telling me there is something wrong with my truck when they hear the noise. I only have 11k miles, and I am not satisfied with this engine at all. OK done yellin for now. If Chevy has given any of you a 100,000 warranty on the egine because of this, please let me know.
thanx

 

01 Silverado, I have the same problem. Have you noticed any loss of performance in you truck? I did get a 100,000/5yr worranty on my trucks engine and its internal parts. However, I believe its worthless. What makes me think they are going to fix my engine with this warranty, if thay worn't fix it under the standard 36.000/3yr worranty.

 

Yeah... its really starting to **** me off even more now, relizing that they won't fix it or even give me an extended warranty. I told the guy there will be lawsuits coming, and he just walked back inside. I will find out if my performance has gone bad when I race my friend soon who i have raced before this problem has gotton worse. This is my 1st truck, and I want it to be a good memorable experience, not one dealing with some **** chevy service guys. Next time I go in, I am bringing my friends dad who will yell at the guys for a while until he gets his way haha. Maybe something will happen then.
What dealership did you goto for the extended warranty?? Thanks
-Kurt

 

It doesn't hurt performance or longevity so they are right.

Mine does it when I start it and then it goes away. The truck still pulls like a gorilla and all the oil analysis's I've done at each oil change are coming out clean.

Essentially all it is is nothing more than metal hitting metal until oil pressure is returned.

 

CMNTMXR57:
how much does it cost to do an oil analysis? and where do you do it? also what exactly will it tell you, when you get the results back?

 

yeah im curious about this oil analysis as well, guess i should find this out and double check to see everything is ok before i do anything crazy to it <img border="0" alt="[judgement]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_judge.gif" /> lol

 

We do oil analysis on our backhoes at work. I don't know if there is a big difference or not, but our analysis basically give a reading of all the elements that were found in the oil and if any are abnormal. I was shocked to see all the different things that is in oil. I have been wanting to do this on the truck, but have not yet got the chance.
About the whole piston slap problem. I truthfully think that GM overbored a cylinder or 2 in all the LS1 based engines and no one in QC caught it until it was too late. There are 5000 different things GM states it could be, but this one is the only one that I think might be legit. I have heard of a few people that have got new engines fighting with the overboring argument. It happened on the 3.1L Impala and they recalled the engines. The LS1 engine is in a lot more vehicles, and GM does not want to recall them all. Just my .02 Feel free to flame away <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="gr_images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

That oil analysis sounds pretty good... if I find out who does it, I will let you guys know. I would really like a new engine or this problem fixed. I guess for most people who's slap goes away once warm, it isnt toooo much of a problem for them. For me and the others who the slap remains every time the engine is running well... is pisses the hell out of us. Right now I am e-mailing back and forth with the customer service manager from Chevrolet.com. I will let ya know if anything important comes out of the e-mail's.

 

kurt, like i told you already... you have some very big hopes in wanting a new engine out of this.

 

yes it is getting to be a real problem, my 2000 has the same thing. but i see a fix for the problem, i work at a caddy dealer and have seen many new escalades with out this problem. so i looked up the specs for the cylinder to piston clearance and whammo it is differant that all ls1 truck engines. first of all the pistons are coated with some type of teflon. and second the piston to cyl wall clearance is a lot tighter.
so i guess all we have to do is to bore the cylinders out to fit the escalade pistons and make sure you use the escalade 6.0 head gaskets because they are diffenant than the 4.8 5.3 gakets