AtWhatMileage
Electrical · 5 owner reports

Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Only 1 report 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 5
With an odometer reading 1
Reports per 1,000 built 0.3 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $700–$3,000
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 3rd

When control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure gets reported

There are 5 reports of control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure on the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500, 1 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 92,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 1 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 170,000 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 $700–$3,000 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 9 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2024, at a median of 100 miles, and latest on the 2004 at 215,000 miles.

By volume the 2024 carries the most reports, with 9; the 2013 has 5. 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  2. 2003 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 84k
  3. 2004 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 215k
  4. 2005 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 124k
  5. 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 121k
  6. 2007 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 135k
  7. 2008 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 47k
  8. 2009 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 148k
  9. 2011 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 61k
  10. 2012 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  11. 2013 (this one) 170k
  12. 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 153k
  13. 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  14. 2016 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 35k
  15. 2018 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  16. 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  17. 2020 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  18. 2023 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure
    no odometer readings given
    —
  19. 2024 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure 50

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.

The vehicle has been running poorly and throwing many codes (evap, stabilitrak, ABS, cam, ignition, injection, and even throttle errors for the past three months. The transmission has also been bumping (not slipping) in 2nd gear under load. Yesterday the truck started running really rough and the transmission started shifting really hard (up and down) just before the message "reduced engine power" and the "stabilitrak came on again. I shut the truck off and it would not restart. I am towing a 30' tow behind camper with this vehicle and this has effected everything from my fuel economy, handling and now even basic operation of the vehicle. Stabilitrak happens while the vehicle is in motion or stationary. The repair facility has informed me that the ecu/ECM is the most likely culprit and therefore it is being replaced because I will not place myself nor any of my family members or others on the road into harms way nor do I want to end up a statistic of another manufacturer known defect.

170,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1243919 filed 2015-12-08

Also reported on the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500

Other fuel system problem

8 reports median 130k

Other brake problem

6 reports median 50k

Other engine problem

5 reports median 133k

Other electrical problem

5 reports median 50k

Other body or interior problem

5 reports median 55k

Fuel pump failure

4 reports median 12k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 5 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 5 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure happen on the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

Across 1 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 170,000 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 control module (ecm/pcm/bcm) failure on the 2013 Chevrolet Silverado 2500?

5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.3 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