Steering Gear Box Shaft Pitman problems of the 2016 Chevrolet Silverado 3500

Excess play and sloppy steering. Loose and worn pitman arm and idler arm needed replacement at 37,844 miles. Vehicle is lightly used and not abused off road.

Steering is always a bit loose. At only 70,000 the abs and stabilitrak warnings came on. Took the vehicle to the dealer and learned that the pitman shaft is backing itself out of the steering assembly. Not covered by warranty. Yet, chevy has 6 tsbs on this issue (the latest saying to use some lock-tite on it); they had a newly designed part; and, checking inventory you learn that dealers have new steering assemblies in inventory for 2016 and 2017. Seems as though chevy knows it has a serious safety/steering issue and have made a business decision to not recall until there is a catastrophic failure and people die. There are other reports on this site of failures at mileages from 1700 on up. This clearly is the results of a design or system flaw and is systemic. This matter needs to be investigated.

The safety concern on this issue is the significantly elevated potential for loss of vehicular steering control. After the truck was driven to 1,700 total miles on the odometer, the truck's steering control became sloppy in 70mph + interstate highway driving resulting in highway wander similar to driving in wind gusts of 60 mpg+ (where at times it is difficult to maintain position in your highway lane). Subsequent examination of the steering box showed that the steering gear pitman arm lash adjustment screw on the steering box had backed off approximately 3/8", the steering had excessive play and the steering box was leaking power steering fluid. The steering system on this truck is a digital steering assist system. The truck was returned to the dealer and unsuccessfully (no change in functionality) repaired under gm TSB #pit5501c (replacement of the steering box) and subsequently successfully repaired (to date) under gm TSB #pit5501d (replacement of the steering gear pitman arm shaft with an updated design gm p/n 84240812. Currently have approximately 5,500 total odometer miles on the truck.