Liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure on the 2002 GMC Sierra 1500
Only 3 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 liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure gets reported
There are 3 reports of liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure on the 2002 GMC Sierra 1500, 3 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 82,000 miles. It is the 14th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 82,000 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 $250–$1,500 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 6 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2023, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2020 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 2023 carries the most reports, with 36; the 2002 has 3. 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.
I sat on my tail gate and the tail gate fell down. When I looked I had one broke cable and the other side the bolt was missing. I bought two cables from advance auto replaced one side but I could not get the bolt back in the other side. I was planning to take the truck to the dealer the following weekend for the recall but the gate fell off the truck and I did not know it had fell off and I dragged it down a dirt road for about half mile or more. I tried to get gmc to replace the tail gate but they just wanted to replace the cable saying that the cable did not cause the tail gate to fall off and the damage was not due to the cables. I feel that the cable problem caused the tail gate to fall off. *jb
2002 gmc sierra the galvanized steel support cables that retain the tailgate in the open position corrode through and break where cargo or people on the tailgate may fall. Cargo falling of the tailgate very nearly struck a nearby person and injury was luckily avoided. This has occurred twice on the vehicle, the first time gmc replaced the cables under warranty and suggested that this was a random failure. Most recently they have refused to correct the problem. Gmc was notified of this and refused to take corrective action.
The spare tire hoist failed causing my spare tire to fall off. Luckily this happened in my driveway. If this had happened on the road it could have caused a fatality to anyone behind me. The cable appears to be the same material that the tailgate cables were made of. The cables were already recalled by gm. *tr
Also reported on the 2002 GMC Sierra 1500
Other brake problem
Loss of braking
ABS module or sensor failure
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Parking brake failure
Rust or structural corrosion
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 3 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 3 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 liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure happen on the 2002 GMC Sierra 1500?
Across 3 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 liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure on the 2002 GMC Sierra 1500?
3 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 3.1 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