2003 Chevrolet Suburban 2500 problems
NHTSA has received 26 complaints about the 2003 Chevrolet Suburban 2500, and 54% of them involve brakes. Next are electrical system (12%) and drivetrain & axles (8%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 26 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Brakes 54% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 0 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 0 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 88,000 miles 23 complaints with mileage
Source: NHTSA owner complaints
Where the complaints are
Share of this model year's complaints by the part of the car involved. One complaint can name more than one part, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.
When problems show up
View the numbers
| Mileage | Complaints |
|---|---|
| 0k to 20k miles | 0 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 0 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 4 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 6 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 3 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 2 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 3 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 1 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 1 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 3 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 23 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 88,000 miles. For brakes specifically, the median reported mileage is about 97,000 miles (12 complaints with mileage).
None of these complaints report a crash, fire, injury or death. Its complaints are less severe on average than those of 100% of model years in our database.
What owners wrote
A few complaints as filed, shortened and with personal details removed. The first ones are among the most serious reports for this model year; the rest are typical.
Without prior warning, the transfer case started switching from 2 hi to 4 hi and 2 lo at highway speeds and by itself. This is extremely dangerous as it can result is a sudden lost of control.
When starting the vehicle the oil is out of the valves causing it to sound like a diesel motor. Therefore needing to leave the vehicle running for at least 15 minutes before you should put it into gear.
2003 chevy suburban 2500 (3/4 ton) - the instrument clusters are junk and dangerously unreliable - faulty. It is absolutely criminal that GM and NHTSA not issue a formal recall on GM 2003-2006 instrument clusters. Mine began failing at 40,000 miles in 2005 (fuel gauge reading wrong or empty if idling more than 30 seconds, speedometer pegging or reading wrong intermittently). I mentioned this to the dealer but they lied and said that had no other reports of such.
While driving my 2003 k2500 chevy suburban, another vehicle pulled out in front of me from a side street while I was traveling about 35 MPH and I pressed the brakes very hard - hard enough to lock up at least one wheel, but avoided an accident. I continued on, but just a few seconds later, I approached an intersection, and the brake pedal went to the floor, with very little braking power. I was able to get the vehicle stopped by pumping the brakes quickly and ran slightly into the busy intersection.
I will be driving down the road both hwy and city. The suburban will go into reduced engin and lose all its power and speed. I have to pull over and cut the car off and restart it and it's fine to go for maybe a mile and it does it again. They can not pin point what the problem is . It's very dangerous.