As a Tesla Roadster floats somewhere by the moon, we found it interesting that General Motors is here on earth developing a truck that will eventually drive enough miles to go back and forth between our beloved lunar satellite 14 times. Or to put it another way, a full seven million miles, according to engineers.
The 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 is still around 7-8 months from launching this year, but has already logged 475,000 validation tests. Moreover, GM plans on building around 800 test fleet examples of the 2019 Silverado 1500. These vehicles will be given to employees in an effort to shake out any remaining bugs and ensure the quality of the truck through its launch phase.
“Everybody’s gonna get them, drive them. We’ve already started early fleets to wring the truck out,” said one engineer.
“Our goal now is to spend the next 6-8 months to wring this truck out so that it never spends time at the dealership – for anything,” said another.
By comparison, only 200-300 examples of Capture Test Fleet models were built of the outgoing Chevrolet Silverado 1500, based on the K2XX platform. The 2019 Silverado 1500 rests on the all-new T1 platform, as will the 2019 GMC Sierra 1500. The 2019 Silverado 1500 is expected to launch with six engines and transmissions, spanning across eight different models. It’s also confirmed to introduce a new 3.0L inline-six cylinder diesel engine that will be built in Michigan, as well as updated versions of the current 5.3L and 6.2L V8 engines with Dynamic Fuel Management technology. Also known as Dynamic Skip Fire, it was developed by Tula Technologies, which GM Ventures invested in back in 2012. The new Silverado is also rumored to introduce a radical opposed-piston engine – if Ford doesn’t do it first.
The 2019 Silverado 1500 launch will also contribute largely to GM’s inflated $8.5 billion capital spending range estimate for 2018, whereafter the automaker anticipates a decrease in capital spending. It’s unclear if this heightened level of quality testing is to be a new standard for General Motors going forward.
Comments
That’s a lot of R&D which will catch a lot of bugs. Can’t catch them all unfortunately. It’s just impossible to create every real world scenario, but having employees drive them daily will come as close as you can.
Kudos, this is the right way to do things and while I do support Tesla, don’t like how they beta test their vehicles to customers…
Oy, the engineer should have said to MINIMIZE dealership visits…The cliché goes “never say never”…As one GM engineer stated: “Our goal now is to spend the next 6-8 months to wring this truck out so that it never spends time at the dealership – for anything,”…I’d take a Vegas bet that comment will come back to bite GM and/or this engineer as I doubt the Silverado will be the first “perfect” vehicle where 100% of them “never” visit the dealerships or unscheduled issues…
How does this compare with their normal process?
It’s an entirely new generation of truck. Future designs will be based off of this basic platform, so it stands to reason that they’d be particularly careful with the launch.
Per my information, GM, for years, even back into the 1950’s has done CONSIDERABLY MORE testing than their competition. Also, for what it is worth, my experiences over many years of GM vehicles have had extremely few recalls, or problems, and most all are in my possesion from new to 200,000 miles and then I find them a new home. SO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT SEEMS SORTA “NORMAL GM PROTOCOL”, to me. …. just one mans observations and opinion. …… gene
Absolutely any vehicle including the Elio or even the Dale can make it to 1,000,000 miles if you got enough cash…It’s not the scheduled maintenance, its the “unscheduled repairs” that are the problem…The Silverado’s 1st Gen AFM required expensive out of warranty repairs for many so hopefully the DFM works causes fewer headaches…
I hope this is a new standard for GM testing and that it constantly changes to keep up the pace, and doesn’t just adopt this standard so in 5 years its an old standard. I would love to know where the 7 million miles were driven. Also i find it interesting that the 800 test examples will be given to employees that work for GM. Will any of these test trucks be used for anything other than street driving on pavement. I wish the 800 employees could have sat in the vehicles before they are final. You know like the 15 Canyon, one of those 800 employees could have been asked to shift it into 4×4 wile driving on ice, I bet 700 of the 800 would have said you need to move that 4×4 shifter knob. Take the new Terrain how many employees would have something sitting on the heat seat buttons in the center or would all 800 have them completely clean all the time. I think you need this input before the design is final. If 800 people drove this 2015 Canyon in traffic at the same speed and situation the shift trouble would be fixed. I worked with an Engineer a few years back, in design who said in a meeting we need to think of what failure modes to design in so we can sell parts down the road. I said are you serious, these things are falling apart in testing. So the moral of the story is some engineers projects are like there babies they can do no wrong.
The 475,000 pickup validation tests, along with the 800+ test fleet, should also be useful info for the next generation full sized SUVs.
Both Pickup and SUV volume, add up to more than 1.5 vehicles in North America alone.
No amount of testing will ever make some people who buy these trucks happy. They will always find something that they don’t like and want it to be changed. Even thou that system is working as designed.
I think it comes down to the fact that people will never be happy unless they have something to complain about.
I look for GM to flush out all of the major problems so this truck can dominate the truck market. The T1 is going to be the best truck that GM has ever built and will be the best truck on the market!
I agree that all people will not be happy all the time, but just take the refresh changes on different models. Like rear air on this new truck (fixed), Rear USB (fixed), shift trouble on 16 and later Canyons (fixed) 4X4 shift location /indicator Canyon (fixed) Heat seat buttons off the door panel Silverado (fixed) and on and on. It is disheartening that customers can’t feel comfortable buying the newest model because they are left for dead when the new model refresh fixes everything. Some of these things seem simple, and if they are just people complaining WHY do they get changed or (fixed) on the refresh. GM needs a better feedback system from customers to help design. And stop calling changes for the better complaints. If they are truly complaints WHY does GM (fix) them on the refresh. I never could understand WHY some people look at constructive input as complaints. We would all be pulling carts with horses if people didn’t want better. And by the way I think those horse people called the automobile people complainers. WHY aren’t they just happy with these horses, all they do is complain, they will never be happy.
So GM will spend the summer finding the bugs, and then it will take a few months to find a fix for each one and be able to get replacement parts produced, which will either delay the launch by a few months, or they will ship them (and have dealers starting their 90-day interest free period on the floorplan) and put a “STOP SALE” on the dealerships until they find a fix for the issues. They will likely leave it to dealers to explain why trucks on the lot can’t be sold, or are being sold with already known defects.
Yeah, I have a bitter taste in my mouth from the last launch in 2014 when they told us now many millions of miles of testing were done; yet somehow completely missed the vibration issues, freezing exhaust baffle issue, 4×4 actuator issue, seat belt issue and the streams of other recalls the 2014 and 2015’s had.
I agree it is a good idea to get some in the hands of daily drivers, but the problem is they won’t be used in -30 temps over the summer. The rattles, squeaks, vibrations etc don’t show up until the truck is put under stress. Hard to put it under stress at plus 20 degrees on nice warm summer days as a daily driver to work. Sure it will find some bugs, but real issues won’t be found until owners buy them and use them for work. Much like how they moved the turbo’s and exhaust to the front of the new generation 4 cylinder engines in the Cruze, Equinox, Trax, etc and now they are having freezing issues due to humidity in cold temps. The initial fix for the Trax was to cut some cardboard and tie it to the grille until they actually came out with a plastic grille cover. That installs faith in an owner. We now see it in the Cruze and new Equinox. GM’s recommendation is to run the remotes start the entire 20 minutes (2 cycles) so engine heat will hopefully evaporate any moisture. So owners now have to spend more on gas, pollute the air more, just to fix an issue they knew they had 2 yrs ago on the new gen engines.
I agree!
Honestly, what are these “daily driven trucks” actually going to be used for…… going to the shopping mall? driving to and from work? I would like to see a focus group of contractors and “off-roaders” who will actually use the trucks as intended.
Put this group of test engineers in-charge of the sierra testing, and put the Chevy truck through its more work oriented paces.
Funny…The 2011 Cruze had a couple million miles of validation, yet those things are trash.
For the comment about them being “pavement driven” by the employees and that not being a harsh test….I would encourage any of you to drive the roads that surround the tech center. …pavement is a vast overstatement of those roads!
Yeah I’m that guy and I agree with you on some pavement being bad. This past summer my wife and I hit a heat heave on the highway at 70mph. Well we probably were not at 70mph by the time I braked, but we bent both front wheels ( broke one of them) and took out of alignment our 2014 ATS. You know those run flats. Well 2 new rims, 1 new tire, and an alignment later, away we go. But I would also like to say we live on 2 miles of county gravel road. 2 miles in 2 miles out every day. Washboard gravel 2 in 2 out every day. The airbag in the steering wheel, and the suspension on my 2015 Canyon just vibrates the whole way, 2 in 2 out every day. The rock chips to the fenders on this Canyon are unbelievable. You know that plastic piece around the fender on my 2017 Denali 2500 is worth its weight in gold. So again constructive criticism. It very well may be that your roads surrounding the tech center are worse than my 2 in and 2 out country gravel, because if they are worse then we will get the plastic on all models of new pickup when there is no paint left on yours. And the new pickup wont rattle on my road when I buy it because yours rattled on your road and you may use bolts to hold it together instead of those plastic push pins, you know the ones. We finally wore out those run flats on our ATS and installed NOT run flats MY GOD what a difference.
Man do I wish I could work for GM, I would love to drive these trucks every day to *test* them out..
Considering the current extreme cold weather situations in most of the US, its probably fair to say these trucks are getting tested under adverse, yet normal conditions. As far as where they are being test driven-most trucks are used for back and forth to work and the malls on a daily basis and all that stop and go driving, with people in and out of the truck repeatedly is very indicative of what most trucks will see in a their lifetime. Yes, it would be great if they handed a slew of them out to construction/forestry/oil patch workers, hunters and fishermen and rv people who will put these trucks through some normal use and abuse-then publish their reviews and what the engineers do to solve any issues. Mind you , we can’t expect an everyday pavement princess vehicle of any kind to stand up to constant, extreme off road use-they don’t use stock trucks to run the Baja races afterall.
I’m just curious then, is that what these new trucks are ” pavement princess vehicles”? It doesn’t always make sense to me what GM does, I had a VP of engineering friend tell me once ” that’s why I get the big bucks to make these kind of decisions”. But form history when GM made a pickup it was a small work truck. As humans evolved and used them for different things so did models of pickup. Silverado, Cheyenne, Custom Deluxe, LT, LTZ, Z71,WT, High Country, and more I’m sure I missed. All for a different user right ? So doesn’t it make sense to test the most by how they will be used ? Sure the Cadillac of pickups the High Country ” pavement princess” test, but the WT maybe construction site, farm / ranch site, ETC. It seems to me that you would want to push anything you engineered or designed to failure, then and only then do you truly know what your dealing with. But that’s only one persons opinion, and everybody has one. I would love to see GM get these new vehicles on the road. Then when they fail fix them, don’t make up an excuse, just fix them and move forward. Make the customer truly feel you are helping them, build a relationship with them. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER you stick with me i’ll stick with you. Quit moving backwards, you can’t offer things people want and like, than take them away only to find out people wanted them. ( rear A/C vent). Sometimes to me it seems GM cuts, cuts, cuts, to find out where the bottom is and then has to fight back. O well enough said good luck.
I disagree with your idea of testing methodology. I think all the trucks should be tested exactly the same, it should make no difference what the trim level is as this has way too many implications. A Denali/High Country should be able to do everything a WT can do, just with a lot more “bells and whistle”. Of course there are limiting factors such as tire/rim combos and different weight capacities of the trim levels, but otherwise the trucks should all be able to endure practically the same environments. Give a Denali to construction workers and have them slide in and out of the seats to test the durability of the leather and tow a trailer/load the bed with 4+ people riding in the cab day in and day out. Give a High Country to loggers to bring offroad on the unmaintained “roads” they bulldoze through the woods to test the suspension and NVH of the interior. I say all of this because there are people out there that purchase these expensive high end trucks and do use them for work, for driving offroad, and in rough environments and the very common mentality that I see is people saying “well my truck that costs $X should be able to do anything a truck is advertised to do.”
I agree 100% Steve,
I would think you would want to push anything you engineered and designed to failure then you would know what your dealing with. Because I use a Denali 2500HD for work and I want it to do everything all the rest of the trucks do only with more bells and whistles. ( like rear USB,& A/C vents)
Will the transfer case seals last more than 6 months before leaking?
I agree with you