I wanted to give a shout out to Crazed Performance. I bought a 2017 Chevy Tahoe from a local dealer in March 2024.
After about a month of driving I got a Knock code and then a load ticking/banging sound that mimicked a bad lifter or push rod. Had it towed to two different local repair shops and they both looked at it for a whole of 15 minutes and declared bad lifters and they all needed to be replaced along with sending out the heads to be machined. The cheapest place quoted 7K to fix. After some research I decided to start with replacing all of the pushrods with the high performance push rods sold on this website. I ended up finding 3 bent push rods and one really bad one that was causing the issues. I have driven about 5K with no issues what so ever and the Tahoe drives better than ever.
Just changed the oil, no shavings no metal what so-ever so there does not appear to be any lifter damage as the repair shops tried to claim. I put in a magnetic drain plug and range AFM Disabler. I am writing this in hopes someone doesn't get ripped off by the repair shops for bogus expensive repairs because they see an newer GMC/Chevy V8 and immediately want to cash on on the known lifter issue. Spent $160 and saved about 7K. I am not sure if these shops are plain dishonest or just want to cover their bases to fix a potential future bad lifter issue. Thanks again!
Im thinking I may have some worn pushrods and rockers. On cold mornings (I live in the rust best) I get about 2-3 ticks on cold start. Wont do it the rest of the day, just the first cold start of the morning. I just completed my VLOM mod today and got my 2011 Avalanche back on the road but did notice there was a little bit of play on all of my rockers. I didnt check em with a feeler guage as I figured that they must be worn as the truck has 240k miles on it. But thinking I should just order up some rockers and pushrods. I did take a listen with the automotive stethoscope and at the valve covers I can hear a slight clicking, even when the engine is hot.