Top 5 Problems GMC Sierra 1500 Truck 1st Generation 1999-2006

In this video, I'm going over the top five problems on this first-generation GMC Sierra 1500.

Now there's nothing wrong with this truck. There's nothing wrong with buying one or owning one. All vehicles have their problems. These are the top five that we have found.

Number one, the headlight switch. The headlight switch is located right here in the dash, and you may notice that your headlights aren't working properly no matter what you do. If you switch the switch around, and you wanna double-check the bulbs, and double-check the fuses, but most likely, it's just the switch itself. And it's really not that hard to replace this. All you have to do is take this trim piece off. And then, you can access the switch itself. Disconnect the connector. Put the new switch on. Put it back together, and you'll be good to go.

Number two, the turn signal switch. You may notice while you're driving down the road you hear a little bit a clicking noise coming from the turn signal switch. Where it sounds like it's trying to activate the turn signal switch, but it's not. And in the event that you have that condition the only solution for this is to replace the multi-function switch or the turn signal switch.

Number three, front wheel bearings. You may notice while you're going down the road it sounds almost like a helicopter or an airplane. And there's this loud type noise coming from the front of the vehicle. And you may notice that it also changes from going side to side. If you're taking a left turn or right turn it may get louder or quieter. Sometimes the wheel bearings will be noisy and have play, and you can grab the top of the tire and the lower of the tire, and just shake it like this one. It's got a lot of play. And sometimes they'll be quiet and have play, and either way, the wheel bearing needs to be replaced. To replace the wheel bearings, you need to take the front wheels off. Take the brakes apart. Take the caliper and the rotor off. And then, you can access the wheel bearing. Replace that, and put it all back together. You should be good.

Number four, the encoder motor. It's located on your transfer case right here. Now the symptom you're going to find is your four-wheel drive isn't working, and you probably have a service four-wheel drive light on. And if you scan that light you probably have a code C0327. What that code actually means is there's a sensor inside the encoder motor that tells the computer where it's located, where the transfer case is, whether it's in four-wheel drive or two-wheel drive, and that sensor's not working properly so it shuts everything down. If you have this problem, you always want to check connectors, and you always want to check wiring out. But most of the time what you can do is take the transfer case encoder motor out. You have to remove the front driveshaft. Take the encoder motor off, and you can actually take it apart and replace just the sensor.

Number five, the front impact sensors. Now in this vehicle, there is two of them located right here and right here at the base of the radiator. If you only had one, you're gonna have one in the middle. The symptom you're gonna notice is the airbag light on, and you probably have a code for those front impact sensors. Replace the sensor, it's pretty easy. You just want to disconnect the battery first and then disconnect the sensor. There is a little lock tab right here. You have to pull that out. Disconnect the connector. And then, there's a 10-millimeter bolt that holds the sensor on. Then you want to take that 10-millimeter bolt out. Take the sensor down. You can put a new sensor in. Put it back together. Reconnect the connector. Connect the battery, and you should be all set. One of the reasons why these sensors go bad is corrosion where the bolt actually goes through the sensor, corrodes, and cracks the sensor. Moisture gets in there and breaks the sensor.

So there's our top problems for this GMC Sierra. If you've had one of these trucks, and you've had similar problems or different problems, leave us a comment below. If you enjoyed this video make sure you subscribe to our channel, ring that bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.