2019 Chevrolet Silverado 15004th gen (2019–), first year

Updated 2026-08-31NHTSA counts read on this date — 1059 complaints. They rise over time.

No Recall on the 2019 Silverado Covers the Engine. 275 Filings Are About It, and 77 Say It Was Replaced.

Ten recall campaigns cover this model year. Three are tires, two are seat belts, two are brake software fixes, one is an air bag, one is a battery cable and one is a driveshaft weld.

The two largest things owners filed about are the transmission, at 326 filings, and the engine, at 275. Nothing on that list touches either one.

The engine section is also the one that arrived late. Nine filings in 2020, seven in 2021, seven in 2022, then 21, then 31, then 122 in 2025 — six years after the truck was built, and the tallest year on this page.

Owners have filed 1,059 complaints with NHTSA about the 2019 model year. Chevrolet sold 585,582 Silverados in calendar 2018 and 575,569 in 2019 — that is the whole Silverado line, not just the 1500 — and 2019 trucks were sold across both of those years. 1,059 complaints against a few hundred thousand trucks is not a failure rate, 1,059 filings are not 1,059 owners, and the number is only worth anything because every other year in this series is counted the same way.

The basics

This is the first year of a new truck. New frame, new body, new interior, a 2.7-liter turbocharged four and a ten-speed automatic behind the 6.2.

It is also two trucks. GM kept building the previous-generation pickup through 2019 and sold it as the Silverado 1500 LD — 5.3-liter V8, six-speed, extended cab only. NHTSA files complaints on both under the same name, “Silverado 1500.” Only the VIN separates them, and 54 of the 1,039 that decode here are the LD.

Specs

Displacement and cylinder count are from NHTSA’s vPIC catalog, which holds what the manufacturer submitted. Fuel economy is EPA, city / highway / combined, in mpg.

EPA rates the LD separately, and it comes one way: the 5.3-liter with a six-speed, 15 / 22 / 17 in two-wheel drive and 15 / 21 / 17 in four.

What owners filed

Sections below are sorted by count. Each complaint is counted once, assigned to the first section it matches in a fixed order that runs steering, brakes, transmission, engine, electrical, body, air bags, suspension — the same order on every year in this series. The cross-year table on the model page uses NHTSA’s own component labels instead, so a section here can be bigger than the matching row on that page.

The sections below add up to 956. The remaining 103 are spread across the smaller categories, and the last section below breaks them out.

Configuration comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing. 1,039 of the 1,059 decode, and 1,025 of those come back as a crew or extended cab — 76.7 percent crew and 23.3 percent extended. vPIC calls the Double Cab an extended cab, and so does everything below. Regular cabs, and filings whose VIN does not give a cab, are not in any of the cab percentages below.

This is not a failure rate by configuration. Nothing here divides failures by how many of each cab GM built, because the complaint record does not contain that. What the sections below show is how far each one moves off that 76.7 percent baseline.

Transmission — 326

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged power train, plus those that name the transmission, a shudder or the torque converter.

102 describe a hard shift, a bang or a clunk. 90 describe a shudder or a vibration. 24 name the torque converter.

ODI 11757996:

“Transmission has jerked and shuttered ever since I bought the truck. Sometime when you push on the gas the truck doesn’t immediate go, then suddenly jerks into gear and speeds off! It has gone in several times but all they do is software updates. They also said I needed a transmission flush at only 43,000 miles stating an inferior trans fluid was originally used; however they wouldn’t covered it under my extended warranty”

315 of the 326 list a cab, and 74.9 percent of those are crew, two points under the baseline.

Engine — 275

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged engine, plus those that name a lifter, cylinder deactivation or a misfire.

The engine section doubles as a share of the year. The 2018 has 64 filings here out of 514. The 2019 has 275 out of 1,059.

74 name a lifter. 52 name the camshaft. 50 describe losing power while driving. 77 say the engine was replaced or rebuilt. 30 put a dollar amount in the filing, and 17 of those are $10,000 or more. The largest is $20,000.

ODI 11705993:

“While driving at a speed of approximately 55 MPH, the vehicle suddenly displayed a flashing check engine light, ESC error light and stability control warning light on the driver cluster. The vehicle made a loud series of noises and suddenly lost power. The loss of power reduced my ability to control the vehicles acceleration while in traffic creating an immediate traffic hazard. Garage recovered vehicle by tow and found lifter failure, camshaft and cam bearing damage with significant metal shavings throughout engine requiring engine replacement. Repair is estimated at $12,000”

ODI 11745855:

“While driving, my 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 with the 5.3L V8 suddenly lost engine power approximately a quarter mile from my home. The vehicle has only 35,000 miles. A check engine light indicated a misfire, and I confirmed cylinder 7 was misfiring. I replaced the spark plug, plug wire, and coil pack, but the misfire continued. The dealership diagnosed a failed lifter in the Active Fuel Management (AFM) system and is disassembling the engine to assess further damage. This matches the widely documented AFM lifter failure pattern in GM 5.3L V8 engines. The sudden loss of motive power while driving created a safety hazard. All maintenance was performed at GM dealerships.”

267 of the 275 list a cab, and 80.9 percent of those are crew, four points above the baseline.

No campaign on this model year covers any of it.

Brakes — 170

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged service brakes, plus those that name the vacuum pump, the brake booster or brake assist.

The brakes changed with the truck. On the 2016, 64 brake filings named the vacuum pump or the booster. Here one does. What replaced it is electronics: 61 of the 170 mention ESC, StabiliTrak, ABS or stability control, and two of this year’s ten campaigns are brake control module software.

34 put the failure at low speed — backing up, a parking lot, a driveway, a drive-through. On the 2016 that was 136 of 252.

164 of the 170 list a cab, and 84.1 percent of those are crew, seven points above the baseline.

Steering — 81

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged steering, plus those that name the power steering, the steering assist or StabiliTrak.

This is the strongest cab skew on the truck, and it points at extended cabs. 78 of the 81 list a cab and 60.3 percent of those are crew, sixteen points below the 76.7 percent baseline.

Electrical — 74

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged electrical system.

One of the ten campaigns is here: 19V888000, the battery positive cable, which GM says can stall the truck.

Body and structure — 13

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged structure.

Suspension — 11

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged suspension.

Air bags — 6

Counted as filings NHTSA tagged air bags.

The rest is thin

103 filings. The largest groups are 58 that NHTSA tagged unknown or other, 9 exterior lighting, 6 visibility and wipers, 5 back-over prevention, and 5 tires.

Recalls

NHTSA carries a separate model name for the LD, but asking for its recalls returns nothing — every campaign on this model year comes back under “Silverado 1500,” so the list below covers both trucks. Ten campaigns, and they cluster in the truck’s first three years — the newest is from December 2021.

Across all ten, 28 filings say the owner’s VIN was not included in a recall they had read about. Counted as filings where “VIN” shows up in the same sentence as “was not included,” “not covered,” “not listed” or “not in the recall.”

Brake software, twice

19V889000 — December 2019. An error in the brake control module software can disable stability control and the antilock brakes.

“If the driver operates the vehicle unaware that ESC and ABS are not functioning, there is an increased risk of a crash.”

20V055000 — January 2020, and this one is a recall of a repair: trucks that received updated brake control module software got a version with an error in it, and the electronic brake assist can be disabled as a result.

A weld and a cable

20V650000 — October 2020, the driveshaft. “One of the driveshaft joints may not have been properly welded, causing the driveshaft to separate while the vehicle is moving.” GM’s stated consequence is a loss of propulsion.

19V888000 — December 2019, the battery positive cable. Too much adhesive on the cable’s ring terminals can leave an intermittent connection to the alternator, which GM says can stall the truck or cause electrical arcing.

Restraints and an air bag

19V814000 — November 2019, and it is the strangest one here. On trucks with carpeted floors, hot gas vents through an opening in the front seat belt pretensioner bracket and can ignite the carpet.

“A vehicle fire could result if materials ignite inside the vehicle.”

20V792000 — December 2020, seat belt brackets that may not be secured to the seat frame in the front-row center position.

18V868000 — December 2018, and crew cabs only: a passenger-side frontal air bag module that may have been damaged during assembly and may not inflate properly.

Three tire campaigns

21V115000 and 21V423000, both from 2021, are tires that were cured too long in production, which GM says can lead to a sidewall failure or a belt separation. 21V985000, December 2021, is narrower: on trucks sold with accessory wheels, the 17-inch spare does not match them, and driving on it can keep the antilock brakes from working right.

What doesn’t show up in the complaints

The new truck scores lower in the crash tests than the one it replaced. NHTSA gave every cab of the 2018 five stars overall and five in the frontal test. On the 2019, the frontal rating is four stars on every cab, and the crew cab drops to four overall. The regular and extended cabs hold five overall. The LD, rated separately, gets four overall.

Nothing in the complaint record argues with that either way. Owners do not file about crash ratings.

The 2.7-liter turbocharged four is the mileage leader in this lineup at 21 mpg combined in two-wheel drive, ahead of the 4.3-liter V6 by four.

What the complaint curve says

2019  105     2022   62     2025  273
2020  148     2023  107     2026  145
2021   85     2024  134

The line goes up once, falls for two years, turns, and then climbs faster than it fell. 2025 is 273 — more than the first two years put together — and 2026 is at 145 with four months still to run.

The engine section is most of that turn — 31 filings in 2024, 122 in 2025, and 78 so far this year. Nothing in the recall list arrived to explain it: the newest campaign on this truck is from December 2021, three years before the climb starts.

A rising complaint count can mean owners got a recall notice, not that the trucks got worse. That is not what this looks like. Of the 122 engine filings from 2025, 91 put the failure itself in 2025 and another 25 in 2024, and half were filed within 23 days of the day it happened. These are trucks at six and seven years old breaking that year, not owners going back through old trouble after a letter.

Complaint databases collect complaints. Nobody files to say the lifters are quiet. You cannot compare these numbers across models unless you count them the same way on both. What this data supports is the ranking inside this truck and the shape of its curve.

If you’re looking at one

Ordered by what it costs you if it goes wrong, not by how many people filed.

Listen to it start from cold, and ask what has been done to the engine. 77 filings say the engine was replaced or rebuilt. 30 put a dollar amount in the filing and 17 of those are $10,000 or more. There is no recall, so a repair sits in the service records as warranty or customer-pay work, never as a completed campaign.

Drive it long enough to feel how it shifts under light throttle and on the way down to a stop. 326 filings are the transmission, 102 describe a hard shift or a clunk and 90 a shudder. No campaign covers the transmission. The one power train campaign here, 20V650000, is a driveshaft weld.

Check whether it is an LD before anything else. The LD is the previous-generation truck sold alongside the new one — a different vehicle with a different crash rating — and NHTSA’s complaint record is the one place that does not say which you are looking at. Run the VIN through NHTSA’s decoder at vpic.nhtsa.dot.gov; the LD comes back as its own model.

Ask whether both brake software campaigns were completed, and in which order. 19V889000 and 20V055000 — the second one exists because the software from the first had an error in it. Give the service department the campaign number and your VIN; they may know it by GM’s own number instead.

Ask about 19V814000 by number if it has carpet. The campaign is about hot gas from the seat belt pretensioner igniting it, and GM’s stated consequence is a vehicle fire.

Numbers worth writing down

The 2020 truck is next, with 708 filings and the same engine.

Sources

• NHTSA complaint database — 1,059 complaints for the 2019 Silverado 1500, quoted above by ODI number
• NHTSA recall API — ten campaigns, quoted from the campaign summaries and consequence text
• NHTSA vPIC — model, engine, cab and drive type, decoded from the VIN attached to each filing
• NHTSA safety ratings — 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Silverado 1500 LD
• EPA fuel economy — city / highway / combined
• GoodCarBadCar Chevrolet Silverado sales figures

Complaint counts and quotes come from NHTSA’s public database, retrieved 2026-08-31; each quote lists its ODI number so you can look it up. Configuration comes from decoding the VIN attached to each filing — 1,039 of the 1,059 decode. Recall applicability depends on the VIN — check yours at nhtsa.gov/recalls. This summarizes what owners reported. It isn’t buying or repair advice.