Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 pickups equipped with the top-of-the-line 6.2-liter L87 V8 — High Country, RST, ZR2, Denali, AT4, and AT4X trims — are at the center of a nearly 1-million-vehicle federal engine investigation. If your Silverado or Sierra has developed a tick, lost power while towing, or already had its engine replaced under recall, here's what's happening and what it means for you.

The L87 is General Motors' halo gasoline V8 for its half-ton trucks: 420 horsepower, 460 lb-ft of torque, and Dynamic Fuel Management (DFM), a cylinder-deactivation system that can run the engine in up to 17 different cylinder patterns to save fuel. DFM relies on specialized hydraulic lifters — controlled by an oil-pressure-fed solenoid manifold — that collapse and re-extend to shut cylinders on and off seamlessly. It's designed to be invisible to the driver: full power the instant the throttle demands it, better mileage the rest of the time.

What GM has now told federal regulators, in writing, is that a meaningful number of these engines left the factory with defective internals. According to GM's own recall filing, the root cause is connecting rods and crankshafts that were contaminated with sediment during manufacturing or machined outside of specification. That damages the rod bearings, leading to abnormal wear, metal-on-metal contact inside the bottom end of the engine, and — in the worst cases — a seized engine and total loss of propulsion at any speed, including highway speed while towing. Separately, and consistent with GM's long history of cylinder-deactivation lifter problems in prior 5.3L and 6.2L trucks, owners and independent shops also report the DFM lifters themselves sticking or collapsing, which can chew up a camshaft lobe, pushrod, or rocker arm and produce the tell-tale ticking noise long before a full failure.

GMC Sierra 1500 accounts for the largest single share of the original recall population of any nameplate GM builds. Owners of 2019–2020 High Country and Denali trucks (built before the March 2021 recall window) reporting the same symptoms are not automatically covered by 25V-274, but should still document everything — those trucks may fall under the separate, broader AFM/DFM lifter class action described in Section 5, and independent lemon law claims do not require a recall to proceed.

Truck owners face a particular version of this problem: many bought the 6.2L specifically for towing and hauling capability, and a sudden loss of power under load — while pulling a trailer, camper, or heavy equipment — is both financially and physically dangerous. TorqueNews has documented owners of trucks stickering well over $75,000 calling the recall's oil-change remedy a "cheap band-aid" on a defect they believe lives in the metal of the engine itself, not the oil viscosity. A separate TorqueNews report profiled a 2026 GMC Sierra owner whose engine failed at just 6,700 miles, and another documented a 2021 Silverado suffering total engine lockup at 58,000 miles after a partial lifter repair.

Owners are actively comparing notes online:

•       SilveradoSierra.com hosts a dedicated "GM AFM and DFM Lifter Failure Class Action Lawsuit" thread specific to these trucks.

•       GM-Trucks.com forum members have reported dealership-level detail, including a widely cited post describing "L87 6.2L block failures up to 2/week at my dealer" for 2021-and-newer trucks, with the practical advice to "listen for ticks."

•       Reddit (r/Silverado, r/GMTrucks, r/Sierra1500) sees frequent posts whenever a new tick or stall is discovered, often linking back to the same NHTSA filings and news coverage cited on this page.

•       Facebook groups organized around Silverado and Sierra ownership (search "Silverado Sierra 6.2L Lifter Problems" or "L87 Engine Failure") have become informal repositories of repair-order photos and dealership wait-time reports for replacement engines — useful for gauging how backlogged your own dealer might be.

GM's Recall 25V-274 (filed April 2025) covers 260,874 Silverado 1500 and Sierra 1500 trucks built between March 1, 2021 and May 31, 2024 — the two largest nameplates in the entire 597,630-vehicle recall. The defect: connecting rod and/or crankshaft components that can cause engine failure and loss of propulsion. The fix is either a full engine replacement (for units that fail inspection) or, for passing units, an upgrade from 0W-20 to 0W-40 oil with a new filter and cap. NHTSA's newer Engineering Analysis EA26005, opened August 20, 2026, expands scrutiny to 997,743 total L87-equipped vehicles (2021–2026 model years, including trucks built after the original recall's May 2024 cutoff) specifically because the recall remedy does not appear to have solved the problem: 499 complaints allege engine failure after the recall repair, including 26 vehicles that had already received a full replacement engine.

Silverado and Sierra owners are class members in Rittereiser, et al. v. General Motors, LLC, No. 4:25-cv-11481-SDK-KGA (E.D. Mich.), the consolidated federal class action over the L87 bearing defect.  (case page: hbsslaw.com/cases/general-motors-gm-l87-motor-engine-failure-defect). The consolidated complaint,  alleges GM knew about the bearing defect through three internal investigations (Feb. 2022, June 2023, July 2024) before disclosing it via recall in 2025, and that GM's remedy has not stopped failures from recurring. GM has moved to dismiss on the theory that a third-party supplier caused the defect and that only about 3% of engines have failed — a motion plaintiffs oppose by pointing to NHTSA's own newly opened investigation as proof the fix isn't working (Carscoops).

Owners of earlier (pre-2021) Silverado and Sierra trucks with cylinder-deactivation lifter tick may instead fall under the older, separate AFM/DFM lifter class action, which a federal judge kept intact in a March 2026 ruling specifically preserving the Silverado/Sierra V8 class. 

Silverado and Sierra owners generally have four overlapping legal theories available, and building a strong claim usually means documenting as many of them as apply:

Breach of express warranty — GM's 3-year/36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper and 5-year/60,000-mile powertrain warranties cover the L87's internal components. Repeated visits for the same ticking/power-loss complaint, especially a repeat failure after the recall repair, are strong evidence of breach.

Breach of the implied warranty of merchantability — a work or tow vehicle that can lose propulsion under load is not fit for its ordinary purpose, regardless of whether the manufacturer characterizes the failure rate as "only" 3%.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq.) — lets an owner bring a federal claim for breach of GM's written or implied warranty and, if successful, recover attorney's fees. Proof requires a written warranty, a qualifying defect, a reasonable opportunity for GM to cure it, and a failure to cure within a reasonable time or number of attempts — documented through the vehicle's repair-order history.

Deceptive/unfair trade practices claims (e.g., the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, which allows treble damages and fee-shifting, or New York GBL § 349) are strengthened considerably by the public record showing GM ran three internal investigations into this exact failure pattern beginning in February 2022 — more than three years before recalling the trucks — while continuing to market and sell them as capable, dependable work trucks.



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•       NHTSA, Part 573 Safety Recall Report 25V-274

•       NHTSA, Engineering Analysis EA26005 opening report

•       TorqueNews, "Silverado and Sierra 6.2L Nightmare: Why Owners Call the Recall Fix a 'Cheap Band-Aid' on a $75,000 Truck"

•       TorqueNews, "6,700-Mile Engine Failure: 2026 GMC Sierra Owner Reports Lifter Collapse Despite GM's 'Fix' Claims"

•       Autoblog, "GM Tried to Fix Its Troubled 6.2-Liter V8, Now Nearly 1 Million Vehicles Are Under Investigation"

•       Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, GM L87 Engine Failure Defect case page

•       SilveradoSierra.com, GM AFM and DFM Lifter Failure Class Action Lawsuit thread (owner community)

•       YouTube: "RECALLED GM L87 6.2L ENGINE TEARDOWN! Manufacturing Defect Causes INSANE Damage"

•       YouTube: "GM RECALL 6.2l Engine | What to know and what vehicles impacted"

Silverado 6.2 engine problems • Sierra Denali engine failure • L87 engine recall Silverado • GMC Sierra AT4X engine ticking • Silverado towing engine loses power • Sierra 1500 lifter tick • Silverado 6.2 replacement engine • GM truck engine class action 2026 • is my Silverado part of the recall • Sierra 6.2 engine knocking noise • Silverado engine seized while towing • lemon law GMC Sierra • NHTSA EA26005 Silverado

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Own a Silverado 1500 or Sierra 1500 with the 6.2L L87 engine?
If your truck's engine has ticked, lost power, been replaced, or failed again after the recall, contact the Law Office of Howard Gutman for a free case review.