The Tahoe is my work vehicle, but it's mine. I bought it at 98k miles and it had no issues until 118k when the check engine light turned on. Didn't seem like a big deal; it was behaving as if it was misfiring. I drove it home and made an appointment to get it into a shop. Shop looks it over for a couple hours and calls to tell me it wasn't a misfire and they suspected a bad lifter. I was told if it was the lifter, I probably needed a new engine. Queue the panic.

I then called a family friend that is a certified Chevy mechanic and asked what he thought. He confirmed that the shop was probably right. Both the shop mechanic and the family friend pointed out Chevy's gen 4 5.3 engines were known for this issue. After having the family friend check the Tahoe, he confirmed the Camshaft had been shredding itself and throwing metal throughout the engine. My Tahoe now needs an entire engine because of a known issue that should have been fixed/recalled by Chevy.