The last of the old Traverse, and the loudest first-generation year we have at 359 complaints. Fewer recalls than 2016, but the same two air bag inflator campaigns and a six-speed with a documented shudder that no recall will ever pay to fix.

2017 is inside both campaigns. Recall 21V-782 (GM number N212349040) covers 2013 to 2017 Traverses: 'the driver's air bag inflator may explode during deployment, due to a manufacturing defect,' with the consequence 'sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants, resulting in serious injury or death.' Recall 23V-334 (GM number N232404980) covers 2014 to 2017 Traverse, Enclave and Acadia for the same defect. Both come out of NHTSA investigation EA16003, and both are remedied by a free driver air bag module replacement. The timeline is the reason this still matters on a used car in 2026: GM began mailing 23V-334's final owner letters in February 2024 and continued through December 2025, and across this generation the recent complaint files are full of owners who received the letter and then could not get the part. Confirm completion by VIN and ask to see the repair order.

Every mechanic source raises it and none of them makes it sound cheap. The correct repair drops the engine and transmission out of the car: 'this is why a timing chain job on the Chevy Traverse is so expensive. What you're looking at here is the engine cradle along with the transmission engine. The proper way to do this is to drop everything out.' Another mechanic has stopped doing them: 'I don't even do them at my shop no more because if I have to warranty it out, it's a job.' The cause they name is oil intervals: 'the manufacturers expect people to change their oil like 7,000 to 10,000 miles. You can't do that, I don't care what kind of oil you put in your car.' The counterweight, from a third mechanic, is worth keeping: 'other than the timing chain issues, which if the vehicle is maintained and in case it has some issues it's fixed on time, it can [last]. These are good and reliable engines.' No GM programme in our data pays for this on a 2017, and no source quoted a price on camera, so we quote none. Buy the one with the oil-change receipts.

The everyday first-generation failures, all named by mechanics on camera and visible in the complaint file. The EVAP purge valve, which meters fuel vapour from the tank into the engine to be burnt, is one mechanic's number one item: 'when this part goes out it will stick.' Another names the code: 'another common code I get on these vehicles is P0496 valve stuck open. It's nothing too too expensive to fix, you can even do it by yourself, but common symptoms are hesitation and cranking, hard start.' Power steering pumps 'have a high failure rate,' go noisy on lock and leave the wheel heavy at low speed; the lines and the rack leak. The costly one is the rear air conditioning: the lines corrode, and 'that's really expensive actually to fix. Either to replace the complete lines, which can be up to $2,000 to fix, because there is lots of labor.' The same mechanic's cheaper route is deleting the rear system, 'like 1 hour labor.' Also on the list at higher mileage: catalytic converters after sustained misfires, valve cover gasket leaks, ignition coils causing rough idle, and fuel pumps that 'sometimes fail before the vehicle reaches 100,000 miles.' On the electrical side this year's file adds dashboard and rear-camera dropouts, including one car that went dark and would not restart with no stored codes.

Recall 21V-246 (GM number N202321200) is the third campaign on this year: 'the side curtain air bags may not be properly attached,' remedied by inspecting and, if necessary, realigning or replacing the weld nuts, free. Its summary reads 2010 to 2019 Traverse, which sounds enormous, but resolved on NHTSA's campaign-number endpoint the whole campaign covers 108 vehicles across every make and model year in scope. Odds are it is not yours; the VIN check costs nothing. Separately, GM ran a Customer Support Program, number 17448, for 2017 cars with the 8-inch screen audio system (option codes I05 or I06), where 'if the vehicle is turned OFF and then turned ON again without establishing a full sleep cycle, the display driver within the integrated center stack' fails. A Customer Support Program, or CSP, is the industry's quiet extended-warranty coverage for a known defect. Whether it is still open on a given car is a dealer question, so ask by VIN rather than assuming.