Be sure to keep a close eye on the bottoms of your doors and fenders which have chip guard!!

This also applies to the 2014 GMC Sierra - so if you know anyone who has one - advise them as well.

Chevrolet/GM are keeping this quiet to limit repairing a lot of trucks. It is difficult to notice and even the Rep had a hard time finding it (when he knew about my warranty claim and supposedly has researched the history - aka, there's a picture in the Service Bulletin).

Our 2014 Silverado was roughly 16 months old with 10,000 miles when we first noticed a chunk of paint missing from the bottom of the passenger door (roughly the size of a nickel or dime). At first I thought something had hit it to chip the paint off but close inspection showed all the primer was perfectly intact and there was no door ding or dent in the area.

We have side steps which help protect from rocks and there is the “anti-chip” paint treatment just below it this area (isn’t that odd, the paint chips away from the “anti-chip” area). After observing things for awhile, the area was getting larger and larger and about the only thing I can think of is just normal car washes and drying it off is causing more little chips of paint to fall off. This vehicle doesn’t go off-road or travel any dirt/gravel roads.

I did some research and found out about PIT5313A (although the latest version is now PIT5313C). So I go to the dealership where we purchased the truck and to the body shop manager. He comes out, takes a look at it and states that he’s seen a few trucks with the same issue and they repainted roughly the bottom 1/3 of the door. I asked if it was always the passenger front door and he said no and went on to mention that he did one truck and the guy was back about 3-4 months later with the same issue on a door on the other side.

I continue walking him down this road. Do you know what was causing this problem on his truck? Nope, just repaint the lower portion of the door and sent him on his way. Do you have any theory on why the primer is perfect but the paint is chipping away? Nope, maybe it is just getting sprayed too thin (which, as a side note, I’d agree with because the thickness of the paint/clearcoat is really thin). I express my concerns that just painting the lower portion of my door doesn’t mean I won’t be coming back several more times as other doors start peeling. I didn’t spend ~$42k for a truck that needs it’s panels repainted on a regular basis and what am I supposed to do when I get beyond the standard 3yr/36k warranty? Heck, I’m having too many problems getting this door fixed and it is within warranty!

I fill him in on PIT5313, he looks it up and says that they are supposed to run 2” masking tape just above the “anti-chip” area and then pull it off quickly to see if the paint pulls off any of the other panels. Did he do that with the other truck which was in twice for repainting? Nope. He goes out to do this test on our truck and the other three doors don’t peel any paint. He and I agree about not being sure of the validity of this test without cleaning the area of all the stuff which may affect the masking tape from sticking (wax, grease, dirt, silicon, etc). He says they will degrease those areas and retest when the vehicle comes in to get the warranty work done. He agrees that PIT5313 calls for a full repaint of the door which would require blending into the fender/rear door. He says GM doesn’t specify that and isn’t compensating him to do that. With him knowing we plan on keeping the truck 8-10yrs, he’s concerned about his shops “Lifetime ownership warranty” on all their paint/body work. Since he doesn’t know the root cause, how far do they have to strip it down to ensure a quality repaint (all the way to the metal?).

I explain that my concern is with the adhesion between the base coat and primer and that I’m concerned it isn’t limited to the just the small area above the “anti-chip” treatment (since I’ve seen how easily the rest of the vehicle gets rock chips compared to our previous Silverado). I also stated that since they require a full door repaint – this too indicates agreement that the paint integrity of the entire door is in question. I’ve seen no explanation to the official underlying cause and why/how the paint to primer adhesion issue is related to the “anti-chip” area and not the rest of the vehicle? My suspicion is that with time, a rock chip or a deep scratch and the paint will start peeling on any panel of the truck. He says there is nothing he can do/suggest and that I should have to call Chevrolet.

Time to call a Chevrolet rep and you know this is a painful process. First call taker hits me with lots of useless questions before agreeing to transfer me to a Senior Representative. After holding on the phone for 20 minutes, she promises to call me back when she can get a Sr. Rep on the line because they are experiencing very high call volume (that’s not a good sign! A company makes the most money when its’ call center people have NOTHING to do). About 1.5hrs later, I get a call back and am connected to the Sr. Rep.

He gets a basic run down of the situation and asks why I’m not satisfied with the dealerships offer to repaint the door under warranty? I indicate that I can’t explain or negotiate what will make me a “happy customer” without talking to someone who understands the underlying cause of the paint peeling. Without knowing the cause, I can’t know whether it’s been fixed or if the repaint won’t stick any better than the factory paint – i.e. I’m only getting a temporary fix until it starts peeling again (which I’m sure they’re hoping is after warranty runs out). He doesn’t understand my concern and I ask him if he knows when my truck was built – yes, he does Dec ’13. I ask him if he knows where it was built – no he doesn’t. He wasn’t able to correlate the Z designation in my VIN to Ft. Wayne, so I provided that info. I ask if that helps him any with understanding my problem and it doesn’t. I tell him to look up PIT5313C and he can’t find anything in his system! Apparently, the onus is on the customer to research problems with their vehicle, capture that data, bring that data with them to the dealership and/or when they call Chevrolet/GM and educate their representatives on known issues with their product.

I can’t believe GM’s Customer Service Reps don’t automatically have access to all recalls, bulletins, service notes related to each VIN for a call case they are working. When they open a case #, the VIN should be used to populate tabs which would allow them to quickly and easily assist the customer with information from their knowledge base. Whether they are organized by recalls, bulletins, service notes <or> brakes, engine, interior, paint, etc is an implementation decision.

He’s going to give a call to the dealership’s Customer Experience Mgr and have him get in touch with me to see what we can work out for a resolution. I honestly have no expectation of satisfaction or being a happy Chevrolet customer again.

We’ve been diehard Chevy NASCAR fans for 30 yrs. A few months ago I got rid of our 35th Anniversary 2002 Camaro T-Top which had the bad welding paste which seeps through the roof paint – for almost 14 years that paint wept and wept. You could wash/detail this car and a day later it is weeping oily spots along the roof welds. The Chevrolet dealer where she bought it never wanted to fix it, didn’t accept responsibility for it – so she gave up, stopped driving it, traded her S-10 for a Silverado, made that her daily vehicle and the Camaro sat and sat and sat. I didn’t come into the picture until the vehicle was almost 5yrs old (garage kept and only 12k miles) – Chevy/GM played the “out of warranty” card even though they now knew this was a documented manufacturing defect. Her 2006 Silverado was a good truck but considering two of the last three we bought had major paint issues … I thinks this Silverado may be on our last Chevrolet. I recently traded our Camaro (14 yrs old with 35k miles) for a Toyota Avalon Limited (instead of a loaded Lumina).

Sorry, back on topic … if they only paint one door panel, then, at a minimum, I need an extended warranty just for “paint peeling” to protect us past the basic 3yr/36k miles. I’m pretty sure that this thin paint will peel away from the primer on any/every panel of the truck. The wife thought she’d love this Silverado as much as her last one, for 8yrs/65k miles but it isn’t looking good.

I was promised either the Chevrolet Customer Rep or the Customer Experience Manager from the dealer that sold us the Silverado would be in touch by Wednesday, 11/4. Nope, didn’t happen – evidently, we as the customer have to initiate, follow up and drive the process for resolution of their known defects under warranty.

Called Chevrolet Customer Service on 10/30 to create case #.
Called back on 11/4 – haven’t heard anything back.
Called back again on 11/5 – haven’t heard anything back.
Still haven’t heard anything and it is 11/15.
Does anyone think GM, Chevrolet or the Dealership even care?

I’ve seen GM reps jump in on other threads regarding this same issue … sure could use some help from someone who understands how this “paint peeling at the ‘anti-chip’ area” phenomenon, how it is affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty. I’m having flashbacks to the paint peeling of the 80’s/90’s  Unfortunately, my hunch is no GM or Cheverolet rep will care or try to help their customer.

 

That's really bad. No one has called you back huh?
Maybe you could go on facebook or something else public to write a post about the issue, or ask on their facebook page if other owners are having the same problem.
Hope it works out.

 

Oh no!! I quit buying Chevrolets for 20 years because of this kind of customer service. I've bought three Silverados since 2007 and have been pretty much satisfied but I have not had many problems and certainly not anything like this. It's easy to provide good service when nothing goes wrong but the true test is when they have to really fix something. I hope they step up and take care of your problem. I also have a '14 and so far, it has been a good truck. Good luck with it and let us know how it goes.
Slim

 

This is a hilarious new low for Chevrolet. Mike Hewlett (Don Hewlett Chevrolet dealership part owner) is taking the position that they will only deal with the wife on any/all warranty repairs, phone calls, conversations and meetings because she is the owner in their database. I guess they figure that they can out-talk, out-wit and take advantage of a woman. Never heard of that before. Wow.

 

If they want to play that game I think I would go online and get a power of attorney form, fill it out and get motorized. You should be able to speak for her then. Sounds like you also need a new dealer. Good luck.

 

dwaterdog, I can understand where you're coming from here. Understandably you want to know the root cause of why the paint didn't adhere to the primer properly. That is something that only GM engineer would truly ever come to know. Unfortunately for the body repair business, the GM bodyshop that you're dealing with really cannot know what exactly cause the lack of adhesion between the two materials. The painter did not lay down the primer, and hey didn't lay down the color or the clear coat. All that being said, if the repaired the other customer's truck by just repainting the lower 1/3 of the door, does that mean they also replaced the primer? Because the way I see it, is if they have a contaminated primer coat, there isn't any paint in the world that will adhere.

So if I were to attempt a fix, I would say that it needs to be sanded to steel, respray the primer, color and clear coats. That way you have a locally sourced primer material, color and clear coat that has been successfully used on all the other body shop repairs that have been done. Unfortunately for you though, your truck is painted "Summit White" if I'm not mistaking. That color is somewhat difficult to match, so feathering the paint into the fenders and rear door/bed would not be a favorable option in my opinion. Personally, I would want a single door to be painted and risk having a single door being slightly off hue from the other paint.

Just my two cents. Hope you get some resolve for this problem.