GM is recalling its new electric Silverado and Sierra pickups over steel wheels that can crack while driving

General Motors is recalling a batch of its newest electric pickups after discovering that steel wheels installed on the trucks can develop cracks. The flaw traces back to how the wheels were manufactured, and a fracture that goes unnoticed could compromise a driver’s control at highway speed. The campaign covers the electric versions of two of GM’s flagship truck nameplates, the Chevrolet Silverado EV and the GMC Sierra EV.

A manufacturing defect at the wheel’s vent holes

The problem centers on steel wheels that may contain a defect capable of producing cracks around the disc vent holes. According to an account of the recall filing, the supplier, Topy America, uncovered hairline cracks during fatigue testing and traced them to the piercing and coining steps used to form the vent openings. Wheels drawn from specific suspect production lots are the ones at risk.

Because the cracks begin as fine fractures rather than obvious breaks, they can be difficult to spot without inspection. That is why the remedy is built around checking the wheels rather than assuming which ones are compromised.

Why a cracked wheel is a steering hazard

A wheel that fractures while a truck is in motion can lead to disc separation, and losing part of a wheel reduces a driver’s ability to steer, raising the likelihood of a crash. As coverage of the safety risk explained, that failure mode is what elevates a component defect into a recall rather than a routine service bulletin. Heavy electric pickups compound the concern: their large battery packs make them substantially heavier than comparable gasoline trucks, placing greater sustained load on every wheel.

Inspect first, replace only if needed

GM’s fix begins with an inspection rather than an automatic swap. Dealers will examine the spare wheel on affected Silverado EV and Sierra EV trucks, and on steel-wheel Silverado EV models they will also check all four road wheels, looking for units that came from the supplier’s flagged lots. Any wheel identified as coming from a suspect batch is replaced free of charge. That targeted approach limits replacements to the parts that actually carry the risk instead of changing every wheel on every truck.

According to a technical summary of the campaign, the recall population is relatively small because the affected wheels come from limited production runs rather than the entire model line. Owners will be notified and can arrange the inspection through a GM dealer.

How a supplier’s testing caught the flaw

The defect came to light not through a road failure but through the supplier’s own fatigue testing, a laboratory process in which a wheel is subjected to repeated stress cycles that simulate years of driving. During that testing, the manufacturer detected hairline cracks forming at the vent holes, then traced the cause to the specific forming steps used to punch and shape those openings. Catching a fault at the testing bench rather than after crashes is the outcome safety engineers aim for, and it allowed the recall to be issued before any widespread failures were reported.

That origin also explains why the affected population is defined by production lots rather than by model year alone. Only wheels made during the flagged manufacturing runs carry the elevated risk, so the campaign targets those particular batches. Vehicles fitted with wheels from unaffected lots are not part of the recall, which is why the inspection step is central: it identifies exactly which trucks received a suspect wheel.

The weight problem unique to electric pickups

Electric trucks place unusually heavy demands on their wheels. The large battery packs that give the Silverado EV and Sierra EV their driving range add thousands of pounds compared with gasoline-powered pickups of similar size, and that mass bears down on every wheel and tire. A wheel that might tolerate a minor manufacturing imperfection on a lighter vehicle faces greater and more sustained loads on a heavy electric truck, which raises the stakes of any defect in the metal.

That dynamic is part of a broader engineering challenge the entire industry is confronting as it electrifies larger vehicles. Suspension components, tires, brakes, and wheels all must be designed to handle the extra weight, and suppliers are still refining parts for a new generation of heavier trucks. A cracking-wheel recall on two flagship electric pickups underscores how even well-established components must be re-validated when the vehicle around them changes so substantially.

What the recall signals for GM’s electric truck push

The Silverado EV and Sierra EV represent GM’s effort to carry its best-selling truck brands into the electric era, and both share underlying hardware, including, in this case, the same steel wheel assembly. When two nameplates draw from a common parts bin, a single supplier defect can surface across both at once, which is exactly what happened here.

For truck buyers, the episode is a reminder that a component as ordinary as a wheel remains a safety-critical part, particularly on vehicles that weigh several thousand pounds more than their combustion counterparts. The inspection-first remedy is designed to catch the small number of defective wheels before any of them fail on the road, and dealers will handle the work at no cost to owners once notification letters go out.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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