Top High Mileage Issues 2001-06 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Truck

Do you have a high mileage Chevy Silverado 2500 HD that's between 2001 and 2006? Well, in this video, we're going over some of the issues that you may have with your truck. Let's start with under the hood. Let's talk about batteries. This vehicle actually has two batteries. One of them is located right here and the other one's over there. When you're testing the batteries, you wanna disconnect one of them. You don't want them interfering with each other. Visually, look at the battery, see if there's anything leaking, and see if there's any major corrosion. If there's a date code on it, check the date code. Batteries only really last about five years give or take. So if it's much older than that, you're gonna need a battery. Check the connections, make sure they're nice and tight. Disconnect the connections. And there could be corrosion inside there that you don't even see.

Now we're gonna talk about this fuse box right here. Take this cover off. You can see where the chart is, where the fuses are, and if you have any fuses that are blown. Now, the problem with this fuse box is rodents like to get in here, whether it's in from the bottom or from up top. And normally, you can see some evidence that they've been in there. If you see that, what you wanna do is take this piece out of here. There's four bolts, two up here and two here. They're 13-millimeter socket, take those off. And then this whole cover lifts off. And then you can check and see if there's any rodent damage chewing any of the wires. If you have a weird electrical problem that you can't figure out or pinpoint, it might be because the wires have been chewed by a mouse underneath this panel. While I'm talking about electrical issues, another thing that can give you some electrical problems is this ground right here. If it looks like this where it's green and corroded, it needs to be replaced. Sometimes you can even grab it and just pull it and it'll just crumble in your hand. This one's not at that level yet. But definitely check that out. That'll give you some weird electrical issues.

There should be another ground that goes from here to the hood. That one's not as crucial. It's a good idea to replace it, but it's not gonna cause any weird electrical issues. Checking over your fluids, your washer fluid's right here. You wanna top off that. Over here, you have your brake fluid. If it looks dirty, it's gonna need to be flushed out. You can generally just give this a little wiggle so you can see where the line is. There's a min line and a max line. Check the power steering fluid down here. Put the vehicle off, take the cap off. Just wipe it with a rag. And there's a cold line and a hot line. So depending on the temperature of the vehicle, you wanna adjust the level according to that. Put it back in. Check your oil level right here.

Here's your dipstick. Slide this out, wipe it off. Make sure you're on a level surface and then recheck it. Should be in between these hash marks. So this is a little bit on the low side. So we want it closer to the top. When you're changing the oil, you can check the cap to see what type of oil to use. It's always best to use a synthetic, but you can use conventional oil, it's 5W-30. Check the transmission fluid. You want the engine running while you're checking the transmission fluid and it's best to warm up the vehicle. Let it warm up. Wipe the dipstick, reinsert it, take it out, and check the level. It should be in between those two hash marks. Adjust accordingly. This vehicle requires DEX 6. And your coolant level, check that out. This is where the coolant reservoir is. You can check this when the vehicle is cold and adjust accordingly. You wanna make sure not to open this while vehicle is hot. And for this, you're gonna use Dex-Cool.

The air filter is located right here. It's very easy to change these four screws. You pull those screws up, take the old air filter out, put the new one in, you're good to go. Check the serpentine belt out, see if it looks like there's any cracks on it, or see if it's glazed. This looks a little bit glazed and I see some cracking. So you're gonna wanna replace that. If you see any coolant leaking in this area or even coolant on the belt, most likely it's from the water pump. That'll need to be addressed. And just take a general look over underneath the hood, see if you see any fluids leaking in this area that needs to be addressed, or even over there. For your spark plugs and wires, if it's been a while since they've been replaced, take a look at those, see if those need to be replaced. And also, while you're in this area, the backside of the exhaust manifold, a lot of the bolts break, and that's gonna cause an exhaust tick. So if you're going to accelerate the vehicle and you hear a ticking noise, could be because of that exhaust bolt.

You wanna check out, see if there's any play in the front end, just grab the wheel, give it a shake side to side. That'll tell you if you've got a bad inner or outer tie rod. And then also up and down like this, and that'll check your wheel bearing and see if your wheel bearing is loose. And sometimes your upper ball joint, you can see if that. For the lower ball joint, you actually have to support the lower control arm and then use a pry bar and pry up on the tire, see if there's any play in there. And there's actually a spec, so it could be within the spec even if there's a little bit of play. With the tire off, take a look at your brake pads, see how those look, and your brake hoses and brake lines. Make sure there's no cracking in the brake hoses and if the brake lines are excessively rusted, make sure there's not too much where you're actually gonna have a leak. While you're under the vehicle, check for any leaks. Some common areas are the transmission cooler lines right here and also the oil cooler lines.

The front differential is located right here and your fill plug is right there. You wanna take that out before you take the drain out if you're gonna flush the fluid out. Make sure you can actually put new fluid back in. And you're gonna use conventional gear oil for the front. You can use synthetic when in doubt if you wanted to use synthetic instead of conventional. The transfer case is located right here and there's the fill plug and the drain plug. So take that out again before you take the drain plug out. The rear differential, you have a fill plug right here and the drain plug down here. And all these fluids, you wanna check your owner's manual to make sure you use the right fluids. Every vehicle is a little bit different.

You may see some rot on the rear shields. These like to right away. And if you see some fluid in this area, then it's probably axle fluid from the rear axle seals. It could be brake fluid too, so double-check to make sure your brake calipers aren't leaking. Check all the brake lines, see if any of those are corroded. This one right here that goes behind the gas tank normally gets a lot of moisture and will rot away. This is part of the old blind. Someone has replaced this one before. Take a look at the shock, see if you notice any leaking from the shock, any fluid leaking, or if you notice that there's excessive bouncing while you're going down the road. Some places to look at that you may have some rust or rot, underneath, especially the cab corner area right there. This looks pretty clean on this truck, but a lot of times you'll see holes in there. And then the frame, anywhere on the frame area, just look around the frame, see if there's any rot, especially in the corners. Moisture likes to collect underneath there. But this one looks pretty good.

Those are all things you should check on your high mileage Chevy Silverado. If you enjoyed this video or it helped you out, make sure to subscribe to our channel, ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our videos.