truck owner:
Your situation is very similar to mine. I bought an 03 Silverado in 04 with 19k miles. They packed it with grease before I took it home. It was fine until about 50k miles which was about 2 years ago. I read some stuff online about packing it with grease was the only fix. Now I hear there is a re-engineered part out there. My truck currently has about 93k miles on it. In your post you say that your friend had 160k miles and they replaced the part with the new one. Did they replace his for free? Also, did he have to call the customer service number as you did, or did they just replace it. I am just figuring out what to do. I got 1 quote from a local dealership saying it would be $150 installed. I see that I can buy the new part for $55 on gmpartszoneonline.com and the instalation sounds pretty easy. But if I can get the dealership to do it for free since it really is their problem, I obviously want to do that.
Let me know.
thanks
Joe