Rust or structural corrosion on the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500
1 crash 1 of the 4 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.
Only 4 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.
When rust or structural corrosion gets reported
There are 4 reports of rust or structural corrosion on the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500, 4 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 120,000 miles. It is the 17th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 61,750 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 is 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 $500–$6,000 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1999, at a median of 60,000 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 95,000 miles.
By volume the 2002 carries the most reports, with 15; the 2006 has 4. 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.
During a normal stop at a light, just as the vehicle was getting close to a complete stop there was a noticeable bump felt in the brake pedal and release of brake application on its own while still pushing on the brake pedal. This occurred as vehicle was slowing, just before a complete stop was achieved . After researching the problem which seems to be well known in automotive forums and by gm. I removed the front wheel speed sensors, cleaned the corrosion from the mounting pads and reassembled. Before cleaning the sensor mounting the problem would occur 80-90% of the time brakes were applied. After cleaning it has not happened again. There is a recall on this very issue on earlier year models, clearly this needs to be expanded to more model years. If someone had been in front of me when this occurred there is a very good possibility I would have hit the back of their vehicle. *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2006 chevrolet silverado 2500. The contact stated that there was corrosion on the frame of the vehicle. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 64,000.
I was driving my truck on 3/30/16 another vehicle pulled out in front of me. I slammed on my brakes to avoid a wreck. At the next red light I noticed my brakes were soft. I pulled over to check my fluid. It was down about an inch. I decided to try to make it home. Then a service brake light came on. I did make it home. I crawled under the truck and brake fluid was from the front to the back of the truck. I noticed two compromised metal brake lines on the driver side frame rail that were rusted through. I touched the lines and they were falling apart and flaking off metal at the touch. I contacted chevrolet and it was towed to the dealer. They quoted me $1,100 to repair the problem. My truck is a 2006 I bought it brand new it has 59,500 miles on it and I paid right at $50,000 for my truck. It is unacceptable for this to happen in less than 10 years of ownership. This is a huge safety issue since chevrolet used inferior and cheap products in their trucks. There should be a recall on this. Someone could have been seriously injured or killed the other day when I was driving. I replaced all of the rotors and brake pads and one caliper…
Also reported on the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500
Other brake problem
Other powertrain problem
Loss of braking
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Blower motor or climate control failure
Radiator or coolant leak
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 4 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 4 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 rust or structural corrosion happen on the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?
Across 4 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 60,000 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 rust or structural corrosion on the 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?
4 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 66 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