AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 14 owner reports

Other electrical problem on the 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

3 fires 3 of the 14 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.

Reports of this failure 14
With an odometer reading 13
Reports per 1,000 built 0.5 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 31%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 3rd

When other electrical problem gets reported

Owners of the 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 report other electrical problem at a median of 65,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles, from 13 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 5,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 145,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 135,400 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.

31% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 13 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
7,400 miles 21,000 miles 66,000 miles 89,000 miles 142,800 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, 3 a fire 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 $250–$2,000 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 23 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2021, at a median of 300 miles, and latest on the 2014 at 100,000 miles.

By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 43; the 2008 has 14. 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. 1997 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 150k
  2. 1998 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 79k
  3. 1999 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 193k
  4. 2000 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  5. 2001 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 64k
  6. 2002 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 41k
  7. 2003 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 92k
  8. 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 78k
  9. 2005 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 74k
  10. 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 71k
  11. 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 30k
  12. 2008 (this one) 66k
  13. 2009 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 48k
  14. 2010 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 32k
  15. 2011 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 62k
  16. 2012 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 23k
  17. 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 50k
  18. 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 99k
  19. 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 2k
  20. 2016 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 65k
  21. 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 20k
  22. 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 4k
  23. 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 60k
  24. 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 36k
  25. 2021 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 261
  26. 2022 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem
    no odometer readings given
    —
  27. 2023 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 84k
  28. 2024 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem 2k
  29. 2025 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 other electrical problem
    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.

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 chevrolet silverado 2500. Upon exiting the vehicle, the contact receives severe electric shocks. He fears that the severity of the shocks, when in the presence of gasoline, could ignite the vehicle and increase the risk of a serious safety hazard. The dealer stated that the failure was a normal characteristic of the vehicle. The manufacturer did not assist. The VIN was unknown. The failure mileage was 2,500 and current mileage was 11,000.

2,500 miles NHTSA complaint 714569 filed 2009-04-02

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 chevrolet silverado 2500. The contact stated that the cd player had been replaced nine times but he was continuously having problems with it. The compact disc became stuck in the compact disc player but would function correctly in a different vehicle. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer who stated that they would contact him when they determined what caused the failure to occur. The vehicle had not been repaired when the complaint was filed. The failure mileage was approximately 4,000. The current mileage was approximately 37,912.

4,000 miles NHTSA complaint 789794 filed 2010-05-26

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 chevrolet silverado 2500 lt. The vehicle was parked idle in the driveway when it caught fire. The contact stated that he could hear the vehicle attempting to start independently. The vehicle had an automatic remote starter that he would use frequently. The fire department was able to extinguish the fire. There were no injuries. A fire report was available. The insurance company stated that a representative would inspect the vehicle to determine the origin of the fire. The manufacturer was stated that they would respond within ten days. The failure and current mileages were 21,000.

21,000 miles NHTSA complaint 798822 filed 2010-07-12

Also reported on the 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Airbag inflator rupture

75 reports median 62k

Other body or interior problem

15 reports median 57k

Other powertrain problem

11 reports median 47k

Other steering problem

5 reports median 56k

Other fuel system problem

4 reports median 62k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 14 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 other electrical problem happen on the 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

Across 13 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 65,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 90,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other electrical problem on the 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

14 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 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