1999 GMC Suburban

My 99 Suburban

Comfort Rating: 4 Performance Rating: 1 Interior Rating: 2 Reliability Rating: 1 Safety Rating: 4 Technology Rating: 1

I bought a 99 Suburban 8 years ago. It was 8 years old. It only had 100,000 miles on it. It was local. It also had a completely rebuilt transmission just weeks before I bought it. It is a 4 wheel drive and the 4 wd operates by a push button on the dash. I've read enough reviews and complaints about the push button 4 wd being problematic. This vehicle is bad on gas and very high maintenance. I'm a mechanic and so I save myself 1000's of dollars by doing repairs myself ; radiator, heater core, fuel pump, differential, and other mechanical and cosmetic repairs as well. I was willing to accept the fact that this truck would be more expensive to operate. I drove this truck 65,000 miles after I bought it then the detonator went off. it started back in January 2016 on a very cold day when the speedometer would not register when you first start it up and begin driving. Coincidentally the transmission would not shift out of first gear. This only lasted for a few seconds. By the time I reached 20 mph, the speedometer would begin working and the transmission would go into 2nd gear. This symptom would not occur again for another month and it would only last for a few seconds. Since I didn't know what was wrong, I took it to a local garage that I trusted and obviously they could not diagnose the problem because everything was working exactly the way it should. There were no engine lights on and no codes. Well when summertime came around it happened again accept in a huge way. This time you may be going down the highway and everything is working fine when the speedometer decides it doesn't want to work anymore. Well guess what ? You're going back into first gear, no matter where you are or how slow or fast you're moving. O it gets better. About a second or no more than 2 seconds later the ABS engages whether you have your foot on the brake or not. The brake pedal begins vibrating so bad that the sound it made would be very loud and you would have thought the brake pedal was coming out of the floor board. It still gets better. About a second or no more than 2 seconds later the steering wheel would try to lock up on you and then it would change and get very loose. It would be similar to playing a driving type video game at an arcade. I found out what that part was. There is a collar that fits around the steering shaft located close to the foot pedals. It supposedly regulates the flow of power steering fluid at various speeds. So there it is in that order. There is no need for me to take this vehicle to any garage since my 350 engine has thrown at least 1 rod bearing. I thought for sure I would be able to take this truck 200,000 miles. I've always used Mobil 1 synthetic oil, but this engine is not designed to run at 8000 rpms. I spoke to a "person" at the main plant in Michigan, but they could care less. Plus it's a 17 year old vehicle. I never had a car like this and never heard of anything like this happening with any brand vehicle. In my case. 1 computer sensor triggered another sensor. Just think about how much more complicated the computers are on new vehicles today. I guarantee you "if" the speedometer quits working on my 455 Olds, I'm not going back into first gear. I would like to know if there is anyone else in this world who has experienced the same thing.