2011 GMC Sierra problems
NHTSA has received 67 complaints about the 2011 GMC Sierra, and 15% of them involve air bags. Next are engine (12%) and body & structure (12%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 67 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Air bags 15% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 1 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 2 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 45,000 miles 63 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 | 17 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 10 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 15 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 13 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 4 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 3 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 1 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 0 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 63 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 45,000 miles.
Safety-related details: 1 complaint mentions a crash; 2 injuries reported. Its complaints are less severe on average than those of 85% of model years in our database.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2011 ranks 15th most-complained-about out of 26 model years of the GMC Sierra with enough data (66 complaints in that window). It is also covered by 2 safety recall campaigns.
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.
I own a 2011 GMC sierra 3500 6.6 duramax diesel truck. When the truck is "regen-ing" the "dpf", raw fuel leaks from an exhaust coupling located at the turbo and down-pipe saturating the hot exhaust pipe with fuel. When you come to a stop while it is in this regen mode white smoke boils out from under the hood and enters the cabin inducing a coughing fit and burning eyes. I took the truck to a GMC dealer in san angelo tx and told them about the problem.
We were driving on the interstate in houston at approximately 60-65 MPH approaching a hill. When reaching the top of the hill, there was a parked car in the middle of the highway and we slammed into the back end of it. Both vehicles were totaled. Fortunately, we were wearing seat belts and were not terribly injured. Just real jarred up.the air bags never deployed. With a hit that hard they should have.
Three out of four tires had separation. The tires are goodyear wranglerlt265/ 60r20e1. Two tires were replaced on 2/21/2014 due to separation of left rear tire. We chose to replace both rear tires. On a recent vacation to florida from texas, the front left tire, same goodyear type tire, separated. Our spare replaced the front left tire. On the return trip from florida back to texas (same vacation), the front right tire began separating when we were on the east side of louisiana.
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.