2016 GMC Yukon Denali problems
Owners have filed 28 complaints with NHTSA about the 2016 GMC Yukon Denali. Lighting is the most reported problem area, at 25% of complaints. Next are drivetrain & axles (14%) and electrical system (11%).
At a glance
- Complaints
- 28 filed with NHTSA
- Most reported
- Lighting 25% of complaints
- Crashes and fires
- 3 and 0
- Injuries and deaths
- 3 and 0
- Typical mileage
- 45,000 miles 21 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 | 5 |
| 20k to 40k miles | 0 |
| 40k to 60k miles | 8 |
| 60k to 80k miles | 6 |
| 80k to 100k miles | 1 |
| 100k to 120k miles | 1 |
| 120k to 140k miles | 0 |
| 140k to 160k miles | 0 |
| 160k to 180k miles | 0 |
| 180k to 200k miles | 0 |
| 200k+ miles | 0 |
What the data shows
Of the 21 complaints that include odometer readings, half describe a problem before roughly 45,000 miles.
Safety-related details: 3 complaints mention a crash; 3 injuries reported.
Looking only at complaints filed within five years of the model year (so older and newer years are comparable), the 2016 ranks 10th most-complained-about out of 15 model years of the GMC Yukon Denali with enough data (26 complaints in that window).
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.
While entering parking lot of a walmart store, the front sensors did not show an object (while in blind area of windshield and door post). Driver hit concrete base of street light in parking lot going about 10 miles per hour in speed. Air bags did not deploy nor did seat belt tighten to restrain driver. Driver's body was thrown into the steering wheel with right arm taking the full impact.
Front brake calipers sticking causing premature wear out of pads and driver side rotor at ~11900 miles. After first repair, ~900 miles and three weeks later, while driving down a snow covered city hill ABS was engaged for a short period of time and then dash displayed a "brake failure" warning. After the message the front brakes locked up completely, causing loss of control of the vehicle and induced a slide of over 1000ft down the hill.
Oem LED tail lights have failed on my GMC with 40,000 miles on it. The bulb is good, yet the LED portion (which costs over $800 to fix) needs to be replaced. This portion is the entire rear brake light housing. This is very common among these vehicles heated seats quit working on denali. The backrests still heat up, but the bottoms don't heat up at all. Also, they will not turn on in remote start mode even though they are set to turn on in this mode.