Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 11 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When fuel tank, filler or evap failure gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 report fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure at a median of 50,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 88,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 110,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 100,594 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7,359 miles | 13,000 miles | 52,000 miles | 75,000 miles | 107,953 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,800 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 19 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 155,000 miles.
By volume the 1999 carries the most reports, with 27; the 2004 has 11. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
Dt: 2004 chevrolet 6500 truck. The consumer states there is a design flaw in the step to get into the vehicle. He fell off the truck and broke his hip. The fuel tank on the vehicle is round, and the steps are mounted to the side of the tank. The second step the safety grip does not extend all the way to the edge. The caller does not own this vehicle, the VIN is not available. *ak
Dt: the contact stated, the break pedal was positioned almost to the floor, making stopping difficult. Also, there was a loud popping sound, (ba-bang) from the area of the fuel tank, within a few minutes of turning off the ignition. Both issues have been addressed with the dealer and no solution was found for the breaks and changing the brand of fuel was suggested for the popping sound. Both issues continue unresolved.
Dt: the contact stated, the break pedal was positioned almost to the floor, making stopping difficult. Also, there was a loud popping sound, (ba-bang) from the area of the fuel tank, within a few minutes of turning off the ignition. Both issues have been addressed with the dealer and no solution was found for the breaks and changing the brand of fuel was suggested for the popping sound. Both issues continue unresolved.
Also reported on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Loss of braking
Other brake problem
Other electrical problem
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Steering column or shaft failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 11 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does fuel tank, filler or evap failure happen on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 50,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 15,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is fuel tank, filler or evap failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 1500?
11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.4 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed