I guess there must be some Dmax owners out there who can't drive..

Anyway, you can debate that fact till the cows come home, but the 505 ft-lb trucks have embarrased a fair share of Stocker DMs. Different animals, different pulling manners. Odds are the one you were messing with was a 460 ft-lb auto.. I digress.

I was still impressed with the display of the self saving programming of the 6.6. Even after near melt down temps, it kept running. Its an idiot proof system really.

 

I did build rockets in junior high

I exited the freeway all the way from left to right because it was clear to do so and the ECM had limped my engine. Since there was nobody beside me or behind me for over a mile, I thought exiting would be best rather than riding an 80 MPH freeway at 20MPH on the flats and uphills and 40 MPH on the downhills where any moment an 18 wheeler travelling 80 vs my 20 MPH would run over me from behind.

So to you it would have been "safer" crawling the freeway like I was after exiting?

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Each has its strengths and weakneses, and are both good powertrains. Each has leapfrogged the other in the past few years of the current "power war" they are all in. Even the Ford has led at times.

Yeah, they have a very smart engine control package. It will shut you down 99.9% of the time before you can damage it. I didn't even reach the real shutdown point, only the alarms, defuel, and A/C restriction.

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You nailed it, the answer is it took 100% power to just reach 70 MPH and even the slightest hill required downshift in order to find leverage to maintain speed. Most people do not realize the wind resistance that huge, flat uhaul backend presented out in the open like that.

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You must remember, since I was the one making the video, it was also me that gets to chose what is seen and how it is portrayed.

Make no mistake, I am very familiar with the Duramax and how it functions, especially the cooling system and its protections. But, the objective of the video was to demonstrate to a judge that the truck is a POS.

So, its what you didn't see and what you didn't notice in the video that counts. I knew exactly why it limped. I was already done video'ing what I wanted, and had put away the camcorder, when right before I crested a steep hill the trucked limped. I was very low on fuel, if you go back and look at the video, you will see where the computer is reporting a range of 19 miles. I figured at the time it was due to the low fuel and that the fuel pick up had been uncovered on the last hill, BUT it was also a golden oportunity.

I grabbed the camcorder, filmed the limp, and played it to the hilt. Also it gave me more testimony by a Duramax owner on the phone talking about limping his truck for 300 miles, so I added it to the overheat video. The limping had NOTHING to do with the overheating, but like the guy said earlier, a non-gearhead would think it did.

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If I were you, I would be very careful in choosing my words on these forums. GM has deep pockets, and they could sue you, and take everything you own. Don't think for a minute they the big three don't monitor most if not all these sites.

 

Mike you're thinking the same thing I am.

 

TxChristopher,
I commend you for your move to stand up to something you believe in, like all of us, we work hard and expect more in return from the things we use daily.

You have tactfully shown respect to all DTR members on a non-duramax forum. I appreciate that. These boards are meant to be informational and educational, I hope this thread doesn't get locked due to misguidance.

The issue at hand is simply, a stock duramax 04-05 cooling system is faulty.
I see the proof, accept the matter, now lets move on and discuss something else thats more important.

What I must admit, any truck buyer should have done research before buying any vehicle, I did my homework, I accept responsibility if it fails due to my negligence.

I'm no engineer, but common sense would tell me, if the truck can't pull that load, buy a bigger truck, or modify it to work better if you plan to keep it.

Running 5+ minutes with an alarms and overheated messages is just nonsense. or IMO the computer should have defueled drastically and cut power in 1/2. I would like to see EGT readings and so on, did you have any? Just curious.

While I understand you have considerable knowledge of the dmax, in my book more power to everyone, please share the knowlege, Heck I'd like to hook up a laptop to my truck

Overall, I think on behalf of everyone here at DTR, please keep the forums friendly, I would like to learn more about this issue, not just the cummins vs dmax thing.

 

I have three cell phones, that particular one is what I call my "private line" as in very few people have that number.

Lucky for me and not for you, I also have a smokin' hot much younger than me wife who likes to set the ringtone on that particular phone so that every time it rings I think of her, so if her message to me is for me to "loosen up her buttons", then I am ALL for it.

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That really made me laugh. When I started reading replys to this thread today and saw that you had joined the discussion, I just knew you were gonna comment on my post. Thanks for giving us inferior dodge owners something to talk about. You think we are bad go check out the f**d forums. You seem like a pretty smart guy. I understand why you were driving like that, but it still bugs me. And congrats on coming up with a fix to help yourself and the other LLY dmax owners, thats more than most would do.

 

More history:

I am generally the first guy to buy new vehicles, I have all new vehicles and like to check out the new technology, from my Accord Hybrid to the new LMM we will be getting to the new G35 on order for wifey. So when the VVT came out, which was the start of the LLY, I went and picked one up. There wasn't any way to research it more than I did, and obviously no way to know when you are buying it that if it is held above 90% output consistently for more than 5 - 6 minutes in outside temps above 90* that it will overheat.

This was the second engine in this truck, the lawsuit started because the first engine blew a head gasket. In their infinite wisdom, GM customer service told me to drive the truck to the nearest GM dealer, even though I told them it was puking coolant out at about a gallon a minute. I told them to come get it with a flatbed. They said no, if it runs then we will not pick it up, just drive it in.

So I did, and of course it was out of coolant within a mile or two. I got to the dealership and mentioned the magic "overheating" word and GM automatically raised shields. I already knew that they had a strategy of denial of the overheating, and by early 2006 no work could be done on any LLY for overheating unless approved by the AVM (area vehicle manager).

Well, my truck sat there and sat there, after 3 days I was getting upset, 5 days of no action I was getting mad, and after 8 days of them refusing to work on it I was edit and picked it up, which again meant several miles driven with NO COOLANT in it.

I sent certified letters to GM demanding they fix the truck, and if they could not, then buy the dang thing back, and if they did nothing I would sue them. They chose the "screw you warranty is void" route. I have 3 attorneys, one of which is a board certified consumer law attorney, so we sued them. They refused to touch the truck for 4 months, so it sat there parked unuseable for 4 months while I continued paying $700 a month for it on top of the $1200 a month rental I got to replace it. Only after we threatened to sue further for breach of warranty did they decide that maybe they should fix it.

Again I told them they needed to send a flatbed for it, but they again declined. It took me 4 hours to get it to start, because it had coolant in the cylinders, and so again it was driven without coolant to the dealership.

GM took three more months to repair it, and they never offered us a replacement vehicle. They put a new engine in it, because according to their engineer at trial, the original engine had warped heads from driving it with no coolant in it. Go figure. They also applied their documented TSB overheatig fix, which consists of the 06 intake along with moving the overheat warnings up higher and cutting power more when it gets hot, but I already knew from other owners it was not a true fix. I sell a cold air intake that works better than theirs, I knew it wasn't a fix. So basically they stalled until winter was here and 30 days before trial they gave me back the truck then said "here ya go, this one cannot be overheated". Well I knew that all LLY's will overheat if worked hard, my first one did and so would the new one. I deal with hundreds of people that own LLY's that overheat, its no secret, and I have tested and thermally mapped the engine extensively. The video only scrapes the surface of what we presented at trial.

I spent 2 years building a case on GM over the overheating, and we were several steps ahead of them at very turn. Someone said that GM may read this and sue me, I say bring it on, make it easy on yourself, because I will have my attorney file the LLY overheating class action suit we had ready for them when they acted like they were not gonna pay up after losing the first decision. Then we will see who has deep pockets.

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Thanks for the history, its great to know how things got rolling and why your at this point in the resolution of hopefully better things to come. It makes alot more sense now, as to why and what your doing.

From my perspective, at first time when I saw the video, it was simply to hard to hold a credible bias, given I didn't have enough information and facts. It just came out in the wrong angle I guess.

I really feel for your situation, and really feel like you got the wrong end of the customer service deal all together. I will admit, I for one *know nothing about the dmax* besides what you've told and shown to all of us here.

So I must ask, is this the first lawsuit like this? Are there other "persons" involved, and if so how many?

Please let us know the truck setup, what tranny/gears, mods if any?, did you have any other gauges, recording egt/boost during your tests?
Also whats the "normal" operating temp with no load, or say 1/2 load? How did you hook up your laptop, is there software you can buy?

This is honestly the first word I've heard about overheating, I have heard of the warped heads and headgaskets, and injector failures. But having a stock truck that just gets overheated pulling an 'above avg' load is a tad unacceptable.

 

For all that you've been thru with GM, I commend you for fighting and winning. And I think you should get a truck that won't put you thru this again. You know what I mean... (and I don't mean Ford)...

 

Oh, quick question Tx, have you or are you gonna get a different truck now? Same truck, or go with another brand? Thanks

I see your also marketing a cooling system upgrade, did you develop that yourself, if so, how are you getting them made, custom home brew? or manufact? When did you start marketing your upgrade? Whats the overall consensus from owners? Has your product fixed the overheating all together? Whats the difference in the new 06-07 models, do they have overheating problems also?

 

Tx Im really curious who from GM was at the hearing? Were they big corporate people or the actual engineers? What did they (if engineers) have to say about it? Any explaination or "we have seen LLY's overheat before"??

I still am confused by the whole "inadequate cooling system" statement. Mine has never overheated towing 11-12k so I never bothered to read any LLY OH threads. I just found it amazing and annoying that with all the hundreds of pages, all there was was arguing and people telling about their own OH expriences. I dont think I saw ANYONE write ANYWHERE the EXACT ROOT CAUSE of OH'ing. All people could say was "the cooling system was inadequate". HOW is it inadequate? Its the same as an LB7. WHAT makes the LLY different? WHY do SOME LLY's overheat and some dont? Rick Lance had what, 4 LLY's, and 3 OH'd and 1 didnt. Why?

I realize you "fixed" it and I applaud you for your work and dedication to it, but no offence, all you did was increase the cooling systems capacity to the point that the "root issue/problem" could not overcome the stock coolingsystem. If someone found the ROOT issue/cause and addressed that then you wouldnt need to increase/improve the cooling system in any way.

Maybe a bad production run of turbos or SOMETHING in the engine? No late-build 05's had the problem I dont think.

GM would have seen teh OH'ing in their initial testing of the LLY, and as dumb as theya re about some things I find it VERY hard to beleive they would release the LLY if they experienced the same problems you did in that video. Who knows..???

ben