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2004 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN — Complaint #635967

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NHTSA Complaint about STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT PITMAN filed August 26, 2007

NHTSA complaint #635967 (ODI reference 10200775) concerns a 2004 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN and was filed on August 26, 2007. The owner reports the failure occurred on August 23, 2007. The vehicle had 35,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as steering:gear box:shaft pitman, 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 SUBURBAN cohort independently describe similar steering:gear box:shaft pitman 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 2004 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.

Vehicle
2004 CHEVROLET SUBURBAN
Component
STEERING:GEAR BOX:SHAFT PITMAN
State
Virginia
Mileage
35,000 mi

Complaint Description

TERRIBLE KNOCKING IN TURNING STEERING WHEEL--REPAIRED UNDER WARRANTY--STATES SHAFT, INTERMEDIATE REPLACE-MILEAGE WAS 35K NOW AT 55K SAME PROBLEM ONLY LOUDER AND WHEEL SEEMS LOOSE--CALLED DEALER--NEEDS TO REPLACE SHAFT AGAIN FOR A COST OF $300--I DRIVE MY GRANDCHILDREN TO SCHOOL AND TAKE LONG TRIPS--DEALER SAID CAR IS SAFE-I AM ABOUT TO MAKE ALONG TRIP AND CANNOT GET THE CAR SERVICED UNTIL MY RETURN IN A WEEK--THIS IS WORRISOME WHEN I FEEL I COULD LOSE CONTROL OF THE CAR IF SOMETHING SHOULD BREAK-WHY WOULD A SECOND DRIVE SHAFT BE FAULTY AS WAS THE FIRST. I HAVE READ OTHER COMPLAINTS ABOUT THIS AND MY DEALER SAYS IT IS HAPPENING TO A LOT OF 2004 SUBURBANS AND THEY EXPECT A RECALL. *TR

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 635967
ODI Number 10200775
Date Filed August 26, 2007
Failure Date August 23, 2007
VIN 1GNFK16Z84J

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