Other engine problem on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500
1 fire 1 of the 3 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 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 other engine problem gets reported
There are 3 reports of other engine problem on the 2003 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 95,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 150,000 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
Of these reports, 1 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 $300–$4,000 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 27 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2026, at a median of 1,700 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 190,000 miles.
By volume the 2021 carries the most reports, with 129; the 2003 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.
Tl*the contact owns a 2003 gmc sierra 1500. The headlights dim and the engine shuts off when the contact depresses the brake pedal. The steering wheel does not move and the contact was almost involved in a crash. The dealer could not determine the cause of the failure. The manufacturer would not assist the dealer in locating the failure. The current and failure mileages were 80,845. Updated 4/2/08 *cn the consumer stated when the engine shuts off and vehicle is still, the steering wheel becomes inoperable. Updated 04/02/08 *tr
Tl* the contact owns a 2003 gmc sierra. The contact stated that while driving 65 MPH, a fire erupted from the undercarriage area. The local fire department was called to extinguish the fire. The vehicle was then towed to the contact's residence and had not been repaired or diagnosed to determine the cause of the fire. The manufacturer was not made aware of the incident. The approximate failure mileage was 150,000.
I was driving along and all of a sudden the truck sorta hesitated and lost all engine power at which point I noticed the reduced engine power warning came on and I tried accelerating to try and maybe travel along to pull over at a safe place and come to find I could not accelerate at all, I had to coast to the side onto the grass alongside the road but my fear is that I live close to orlando, fl and travel there at times luckily this has not occurred while there as there are 3-4 lane highways potentially putting me & others in a fatal position if I am caught in a center lane but I try to avoid this for the most part, I either travel on the far left or far right giving me access to the emergency shoulder if needed, but not sure what to do in regards to this problem as I bought this vehicle used and not sure how to go about checking if this is a safety recall issue or not as I am not able to afford a problem like this right now financially...and this has occurred like after I bought the vehicle like in three months following the purchase and continued like every other week for like three months straight it has now cut down to like…
Also reported on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500
Instrument cluster or gauge failure
Loss of braking
Brake line, hose or caliper failure
Other brake problem
Rust or structural corrosion
ABS module or sensor failure
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 other engine problem happen on the 2003 GMC Sierra 1500?
Across 3 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 150,000 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 other engine problem on the 2003 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