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Well here I go again, it seems no matter how careful you are... your going to get screwed. I was a happy camper when I drove my new 2005 Canyon crew cab pickup off the lot. Runs good (so far) looks good, now that I had the dent repaired left by a shopping cart at Wally world (but they paid for the repair), had a nice 650 watt amp install with upgraded speakers and sub woofer and all was well then it happened. I lost my radio functions, heck it didn't even light up. Totally gone, I'm telling ya. What a bummer. No the fuse didn't blow and I had the Hightech Hi-Fi installation rechecked to make sure it wasn't something they did. They spent and hour going over what they installed and it came out clean. It seems I know everyone at Lane dealership on a first name basis because I been back there so many times. Some was for ordering some goodies, but most was for service, one problem due to my fault, but the rest is on their plate. Well now that I think about it, this one problem really could be placed on their (GMC's) plate because they have such sloppy tolerances in the window channels. But maybe I'll touch on that later. Soooo, let me tell you about GMC's wonderful radio installation or design we'll call it. Did cha know that the damn thing is tied into the computer and you can't upgrade to an after market radio? Yepper.... how about that. If you want to upgrade, you have to take the stock radio out, locate it in another (preferably hidden) area, run the original "data communication" line to it, so the poor little computer don't get confused. Yes-sir-re-Bob, that's what you have to do. Can you believe some dimwit thought that up. By George, I bet he has a college degree and he said, "so be it" and it was done. So now I have to wait until service looks at the truck, and says "somebody altered the system, that's why it don't work" DUH! so they'll give me a raft of you know what, then I will have to call Hightech ( the installer of the amp) and get them involved. So in the meantime, I ride music-less. Damn that sucks. I love my music. I opted for a high power amp that they didn't have to cut any wires except the speaker output from the radio. Instead of the radio output going to the speakers; it is re-routed to the amp then to the new speakers. Yes the amp will take a high level input. so that leaves all their precious data lines in tact, yaddie, yaddy... yaddy. The funny part about this whole thing is, this is my first new GMC truck and at the rate it's going, my last. I don't want any company to dictate to me what I have to have or not have. This is crap. (Update) after the dealer stating that the radio did indeed died and waiting 3 weeks to get a radio from the factory (back order) it was finally installed at no charge. Hmmm, back ordered. You think they might have a radio problem? After waiting 4 to 5 hours for GMC corporate tech heads to call Lane dealership back with the code to fire up the radio, I was finally on my way. Yeah that's right, U cannot personally change your own radio if it dies on you, cause you need the data terminal to put in a code to get the damn thing to work. So your stuck when it's out of warranty. I'm even having a fiasco getting info to hook up a brake controller. No one seems to know which of the two switches on the brake pedal will do the trick. But U have to pay $60 a hour for their brilliant service. Whew, maybe I'll go back to Dodge. At least U can change their radios and stuff without all this crap-o-la. More on this later. Then the next thing that happens is some lazy fool was to tired to put the shopping cart back in the coral at Wally Worlds and yepper, the cart banged right into the side of it. Well that didn't make me feel all shiny inside because GM has a problem with body molding sticking on, so they opted not to install any on the 2005 series. You guessed it, that's were the cart hit. Dented the rear passenger side in two places. However and that's a big however, Wally World gave me no problems and they fixed it and even paid for a rental car. How about that. So now you say what's the bitch, well when I took it back to the dealer to have it repaired, they did a real good job; BUT... the overspray got all over my brand new Tonneau cover and inside the door post. It took me twelve hours to clean the Tonneau cover. Why did I do it? Well I didn't discover it until I was at my dads house which is 115 miles from where I purchased the truck and I had to get it off quick before the sun baked it on. Besides that, I really don't trust the dealer anymore. Well, lets get back to the window channels. I had window vent visors installed. The kind that goes inside the window track. So after about a week of watching the window go up crooked I started to check it out. The drivers side had about 3/8" to 1/2" movement left to right throughout most of it's up down travel. So when it caught the tip of the vent visor, it cocked the window enough where, if you were running about 60 mph, the noise was extremely loud. Not to mention water coming in with heavy rain. So I called Truck City back and they took them back and ordered out the outside mount type. All is well. Not what I wanted for the looks, but they're functional. Next I went to install a brake controller. Ha-ha, what a fiasco that was. I emailed GMC corporate for some info and they pretty much said "sorry can't help you". So after four calls to the dealer I got the info required. You would think that GMC could afford to add that extra wire for the brakes and install a 7 pin hookup for the trailer brakes. Naw, not them. That might bring good customer relations. So I had to buy the hookup from etrailer.com whom by the way are outstanding for their customer service. The connector gave me ample trailer wiring in the package and plugged into the dealer installed harness. All I had to do was run the two brake wires up to the battery and module which was very easy. All is well and it works great. After that deal, I went to purchase the fog lights from the dealer. well as you might have guessed, no way Jose, you have to mount the switch some where other then where it really belongs. Oh yeah, you also have to install relays etc as they didn't allow for that either. So lets see now, lets cover the paint on this turkey. You know that the paint is so thin that if you get just a minor abrasive mark on the painted surface you can't polish it out because of how thin it is? It seems all the canyon and Colorado's are the same. Now we're to the engine. Nice engine, plenty of power, pep and great gas mileage. However, it would be nice if they could get that damn steering wheel vibration at idle out of it. Service said, no go. can't do it etc. Well maybe I won't have to stop to many times. Alrighty then, were up to the sweetheart of problems. I had three people verify this and I have not gone back to the dealer yet for this. Frankly I may not. Have you ever gotten that sinking feeling when you say, geez, no problem, they'll take care it. Yeah right. Oke here it is, the truck is 1/2" lower on one side in the back then the other. Yes sir re Bob. I took measurements from the spring leaf mounts to the ground on both sides and come up a 1/2" short on the drivers side which makes the truck tilt that way. I thought it was my driveway. NOT! I also noted this on some other Rado's and Canyons as well. So I believe they have an inherent problem in that area as well. Check it really carefully if you buy one before you sign on the dotted line. There is some minor warranty/dealer issues such as, if you change out your exhaust system for a Flow-Tech or Magna Flow and you start popping error codes. Some dealers won't do anything until you put the old system back on. Happened to a buddy of mine, so he put everything back to original factory specs and he still had the problem. Cost him $495 for a factory problem. How about them apples. I have a few more things to add, but I'll do them at a later date after I check out a few more facts. Update: 02/25/05 Inserted key started the truck up and noticed that the radio and dash lights were off. Then I saw that the daytime running lights were not on as well. Tried the manual switch and everything worked oke, but still no radio or dash lights. Placed the switch back in auto, then I had no daytime running lights, but the radio and dash lights were on. I then shut of the truck took the key out. Restarted truck, Radio and dash lights came on, running lights on. This is the second time for this occurrence, and I really didn’t notice it the first time or I should say I didn’t pay any attention to the dash lights. I though I was losing the radio again. So I just made a mental note to call the dealer and let them know I might need another radio. Sometimes it's suck to be me. I will report this to the GMC dealer, but I’m not going to take it back until it happens again. So that's the long and the short of it for now. Update for the truck sitting on an angle (07/06/05) : The dealer had to install a lowering kit on one side of my truck to make it sit straight. They even had a P/N for it, so how about that. They knew about the problem, but don't know why it's occurring. Although they did the work it still is not sitting right. It's closer then what it was, but it's still not right so another trip back is required.
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