AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 2 owner reports

Engine sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Only 2 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 2
With an odometer reading 2
Reports per 1,000 built 6.8 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $180–$900
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 30th

When engine sensor failure gets reported

There are 2 reports of engine sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500, 2 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 30th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 2 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 81,098 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

Putting it right typically runs $180–$900 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 4 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2009, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2002 at 85,000 miles.

By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 16; the 2004 has 0. 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.

Median
  1. 2001 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 53k
  2. 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 83k
  3. 2003 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 150k
  4. 2004 (this one) 81k
  5. 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 38k
  6. 2009 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 12k
  7. 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  8. 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure 71k
  9. 2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 engine sensor failure
    no odometer readings given
    —

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.

This is how it started.. I have a 2004 chevy silverado 2500 hd. As I drove down the road the doors would lock and unlock on their own, and the truck would lose RPM's and would act as if the truck shut off and restarted itself. Also the check engine light would blink with the locking and unlocking of the doors. Did this off and on a few times as we babied it home. Got it home in the driveway and it threw 2 codes camshaft position sensor high volts and low volts. So we replaced the camshaft position sensor. Truck drove fine for 4 days. However on the 5th day we attempted to drive the truck and as we were driving down the road this time the engine light came on and stayed on and doors started locking and unlocking again on their own as well as the dic read service brake system and the truck completely died in the middle of traffic, we were able to pull over into a parking lot and truck restarted long enough to get home. At this point the gm dealer wasn't sure of this problem and what causes it but stated to unplug the battery and reset the computer(after speaking to 4 different gm dealers mind you). Wow low and behold fixed the…

81,098 miles NHTSA complaint 724472 filed 2009-06-21

This is how it started.. I have a 2004 chevy silverado 2500 hd. As I drove down the road the doors would lock and unlock on their own, and the truck would lose RPM's and would act as if the truck shut off and restarted itself. Also the check engine light would blink with the locking and unlocking of the doors. Did this off and on a few times as we babied it home. Got it home in the driveway and it threw 2 codes camshaft position sensor high volts and low volts. So we replaced the camshaft position sensor. Truck drove fine for 4 days. However on the 5th day we attempted to drive the truck and as we were driving down the road this time the engine light came on and stayed on and doors started locking and unlocking again on their own as well as the dic read service brake system and the truck completely died in the middle of traffic, we were able to pull over into a parking lot and truck restarted long enough to get home. At this point the gm dealer wasn't sure of this problem and what causes it but stated to unplug the battery and reset the computer(after speaking to 4 different gm dealers mind you). Wow low and behold fixed the…

81,098 miles NHTSA complaint 724471 filed 2009-06-21

Also reported on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Instrument cluster or gauge failure

69 reports median 65k

Loss of braking

60 reports median 91k

Other brake problem

38 reports median 65k

Brake line, hose or caliper failure

29 reports median 102k

Other electrical problem

25 reports median 78k

Exhaust leak or fumes in the cabin

20 reports median 81k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 2 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 2 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 engine sensor failure happen on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is engine sensor failure on the 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

2 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 6.8 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