GMC Sierra

Which GMC Sierra years should you avoid?

Going by 3,907 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the GMC Sierra years to avoid are 1999, 2001, 2000, 1995 and 2002.

• 1999600 complaints, 5.9× a typical Sierra year, most often about the brakes.
• 2001264 complaints, 2.6× a typical Sierra year, most often about the brakes; and 2.7× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (2 fires, 30 crashes, 5 deaths).
• 2000443 complaints, 4.4× a typical Sierra year, most often about the brakes.
• 1995261 complaints, 2.6× a typical Sierra year, most often about the visibility.
• 2002249 complaints, 2.5× a typical Sierra year, most often about the brakes.

3 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2011 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →