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2002 CHEVROLET SILVERADO — Complaint #558367

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NHTSA Complaint about TRAILER HITCHES:FIFTH WHEEL ASSEMBLY filed October 12, 2005

NHTSA complaint #558367 (ODI reference 10139522) concerns a 2002 CHEVROLET SILVERADO and was filed on October 12, 2005. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 10, 2005. The report was geocoded to Michigan based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as trailer hitches:fifth wheel assembly, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.

The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.

Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same CHEVROLET SILVERADO cohort independently describe similar trailer hitches:fifth wheel assembly failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2002 CHEVROLET SILVERADO shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2002 CHEVROLET SILVERADO
Component
TRAILER HITCHES:FIFTH WHEEL ASSEMBLY
State
Michigan

Complaint Description

GM OEM HITCH FAILURE. SQUARE RECEIVER TUBE IS BENDING UP-WARD. WELDS AT ROUND CROSS TUBE JOINTS ARE SHOWING SIGNS OF CRACKING. DEALER STATED IN THEIR INVOICE AFTER CHECKING PROBLEM THAT "TRAILER HITCH IS STARTING TO BEND UPWARD. HITCH BENT, INSPECTED AND FOUND THE REAR WELDS MOVED 1/8 INCH". DEALER TECHNICIAN STATED HE DIDN'T RECOMMEND PULLING ANYTHING HEAVY DO TO THE CONDITION OF THE OEM HITCH. DEALER STATED THE HITCH IS OUT OF WARRANTY PERIOD, NEW AND/OR REPLACEMENT HITCH WOULD BE CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITY. TRAVEL TRAILER CONNECTED TO GM OEM HITCH FALLS WITHIN ALL MANUFACTURERS VEHICLE AND HITCH SPECIFICATIONS. I REPLACED WITH CLASS V AFTERMARKET HITCH, AND NOTICED UPON REMOVING THE GM OEM HITCH THAT THE TRUCK REAR BUMPER CROSSMEMBER WAS BENT AT THE POINT WHERE THE ORIGINAL OEM HITCH MOUNTED. *NM

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 558367
ODI Number 10139522
Date Filed October 12, 2005
Failure Date October 10, 2005
VIN 1GCHK29U02E

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.