tow/haul issue

[youngun]

my brother is having an intermittent problem when he puts his truck in drive it will sometimes turn on tow/haul mode. he can put it back in neutral and then back to drive and it will go off and operate like normal. anybody had this is on their truck and if so what needs to be checked repaired? it sounds to me like a wire has gotten rubbed raw and is shorting to turn on tow/haul when the shift lever is pulled but i haven't had a chance to look at it for him yet. oh yeah, it's a 2000 gmc z71 if that makes a difference but i doubt it.

[Kansas T]

my brother is having an intermittent problem when he puts his truck in drive it will sometimes turn on tow/haul mode. he can put it back in neutral and then back to drive and it will go off and operate like normal. anybody had this is on their truck and if so what needs to be checked repaired? it sounds to me like a wire has gotten rubbed raw and is shorting to turn on tow/haul when the shift lever is pulled but i haven't had a chance to look at it for him yet. oh yeah, it's a 2000 gmc z71 if that makes a difference but i doubt it.

Your diagnosis is correct. I've seen that on several trucks. You'll probably have to replace the shift lever to fix it.

[youngun]

ok. thanks for verifying that!

[2Kchevy]

No need to replace the entire shift lever. I have a 2000 RCSB silverado 1500 and just ran into the same issue a few months back. The tow/haul worked intermittently.

You'll need a small torx driver (I forgot what size) to remove the bottom cover of the steering column. Then push the boot around the shifter out of the way and you should see some orange wires going up the shift lever. The break is usually right at the shift lever. Remove the plastic guides for the orange wire and you will then see it contains two very small gauge wires (less than 22 gauge). If both wires are broken, as they were in my case, make sure you know which was connected to which. Re-attach the wires how you see fit...I used insulated butt connectors. I also did not re-attach the plastic guide and just left the wires as is in the column. Not sure if that was a wise move but I could not re-attach anyway since the butt connectors were in the way. As a note, there is not much extra length on the wires for the repair, but if you pull slightly you can get another inch or so to work with. Hope it works out for you. It worked for me and so far so good for a few months now. Good luck.