In December of 2005 my wife asked for and I bought her a 2006 Z71. I would have preferred a Suburban having owned a few in the past but she was in love with the Av design so we did the deal and drove home in our brand new truck. Our kids were 2 and 4 years old at the time and have grown into adults having spent a lot of time in our Av. My now 17 year old daughter drives it occasionally and I'm teaching my 15 year old son to drive it. Over the years I've had to do a lot of maintenance on the Av and being an old gear head I prefer to do my own work whenever possible. Living in the Chicago area we have to endure some harsh weather and lots of road salt in the winter so vehicles tend to take a beating around here. Among the problems I've had to deal with over the years I've replaced numerous parts on the Av including: Radiator, harmonic balancer, fuel pump, water pump, numerous sensors, brakes and brake components, belts, hoses, etc. I've tuned it up and cleaned it and changed the fluids, repaired rust on the body and performed numerous troubleshooting nightmares and through it all I've come to love this vehicle as much as I sometimes hate it. I've never had a relationship with a vehicle like the one I have with this Av and she's now getting up in years (only 150,000 miles but hard miles) to the point where I started thinking about perhaps getting rid of her which breaks my heart. My wife now travels on business frequently and I drive a company vehicle so the Av doesn't get a lot of attention any more. I told my wife recently that we should think about a new car for her and she begged me to keep the Av going for as long as possible (cue the bell in the Rocky movie). She's been out of town a lot lately and we experienced some really cold weather during which the battery died on the Av. I put that Interstate in about 10 years ago so it seemed prudent to get a new one which I did and then I noticed the voltage gauge acting strange and fluctuating a lot more than usual. A little testing and I made the decision to replace the alternator as it was obviously on it's way out also. This is where the story gets weird (perhaps I should have posted in the maintenance section?). Among the many minor problems I've had over the years this vehicle has always had electrical issues and based on the posts I've read here over the years the Av is famous for such issues. The stock radio/6 disc CD changer always caused minor headaches including draining the battery in a matter of 2 minutes if left on with the engine off. The heated seats always worked intermittently and eventually stopped working altogether. The heat and a/c blower motor would not turn on when the outside temps were really hot or really cold. There are other electrical issues but you get the idea and all of these things have been discussed at length in other posts and some had recalls. OK, the weird part. Being who I am I couldn't simply replace the alternator, I had to upgrade it so I ordered the 160 Amp A/C Delco from Rock Auto and installed it last week. The stock alternator was the 145 Amp. Since putting in the new battery and alternator, all of the electrical problems described earlier and some others have completely disappeared. We just had 3 days of sub-zero weather and 2 nights ago it got down to 50 below zero with the wind chill. The Av not only started right up (as I would expect with the new parts) but the blower came on immediately, dimming lights I had experienced in the past were no longer dim and the heated seats worked perfectly (I simply assumed the elements had burned out and we can live without them so I never replaced). I've checked again since and it does not appear to be a fluke, these problems are gone. I even ran the radio last night for 30 minutes with the engine off and the truck fired right up. OK, I'll wrap it up. This story is about how much I love my Av and I still do. I'm going to try to keep it on the road for as long as possible now and I'll probably start using it a lot more. I went on the rant above because after all these years of working on it, being frustrated with it and sometimes hating it I've come to the conclusion that GM screwed up in the design phase. I certainly can't prove this and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything but based on my relationship and experience with this truck I'm absolutely convinced that had GM made the 160 Amp alternator (or other better model) the stock alternator in the Av, a whole lot of problems would have been avoided over the years and I'd bet that years worth of frustrated posting would not have taken place here. All in all I love my Av and it's now my goal to get her to 250,000 miles. I hope all of you have had a great relationship with your trucks.
Thanks for listening. Sorry for the rant.
Thanks for listening. Sorry for the rant.
