2002 silverado 2500HD 8.1 L gasser
While driving or at a stop w/ engine running the engine quits running. I stop and shift into either park or neutral and it restarts and that won't happen for a couple days.It's been to the dealership ...
Forum Discussion
This is a classic symptom of the Crankshaft Position Sensor going bad, and is exactly what mine did when it started to fail. There was a recall on the 01-03 8.1 engines for this.
Apparently when the sensor goes intermittent, the PCM loses track of where the crankshaft is and kills the engine before it can store a code, making diagnostics difficult. The dealer hooks up the scanner and gets no active or stored codes and diagnosis stops there. Even if the dealer had the scanner connected while it was running and died, they wouldn't see any codes. Seems illogical, but apparently a quirk in the software that allows this to happen without storing a code.
When this sensor quits for good, the truck won't restart after it dies. I had mine replaced years ago by Rocky Mountain Chevrolet while on vacation with the camper.
Trust me on this one, replace that crank sensor before you get stranded. FYI, if you DIY the new sensor, you still need to do a crank re-learn with a scan tool, so my experience it's just easier to have the dealer change the sensor and do the re-learn.
Apparently when the sensor goes intermittent, the PCM loses track of where the crankshaft is and kills the engine before it can store a code, making diagnostics difficult. The dealer hooks up the scanner and gets no active or stored codes and diagnosis stops there. Even if the dealer had the scanner connected while it was running and died, they wouldn't see any codes. Seems illogical, but apparently a quirk in the software that allows this to happen without storing a code.
When this sensor quits for good, the truck won't restart after it dies. I had mine replaced years ago by Rocky Mountain Chevrolet while on vacation with the camper.
Trust me on this one, replace that crank sensor before you get stranded. FYI, if you DIY the new sensor, you still need to do a crank re-learn with a scan tool, so my experience it's just easier to have the dealer change the sensor and do the re-learn.
