Weird electrical issues

[13yukonNJ]

2013 Yukon. I bought it 1.5 years ago at 61k miles, now has about 74k. The first two issues are brand new, the third issue is something that's happened since I bought the truck and I figured I'd mention it while I'm here.

1. Hard to explain, but you know when you have the wipers on a specific setting and you choose to go up one setting, as soon as you flip the switch to the next fastest setting it will automatically have the wipers go? Like if you're on the slowest setting and you want to kick it up a notch, as soon as you do so it has the wipers cycle? Well that works fine, but lately it's been doing that when I go DOWN a setting as well. Like if I'm on speed 2 and want to go back to speed 1, as soon as I downgrade the setting it will have the wipers cycle again. Never ever used to do that.

2. My drive to work is due east on only one road. As due east as you can get. Yesterday and today I noticed the compass reading showed everything but east. The majority of the time it showed S and if I changed lanes it would briefly show N and then go back to S. Occasionally it would show SE, SW, and NE. When I got to work I noted the compass setting was set to 8. When I got inside my office I looked up the compass zones and I live in zone 11. I have never ever changed the compass setting after I initially set it when I bought the truck. So sometime in the last two days the truck decided to switch itself from zone 11 to zone 8.

3. This problem is intermittent. It will happen for 3 days and then take a week off. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But ever since I have owned the truck, sometimes when the radio is on it will emit a high frequency noise similar to a dog whistle. It drives me absolutely nuts when it does this. It's almost more noticeable than the music.

Has anyone experienced any/all of these electrical issues with their truck? If so, how did you resolve it?

EDIT: everything is bone stock as far as I know. It was a rental car for the first 15,000 miles, and then someone else owned it from 15,000 to 61,000 miles. I think the only "mod" they did inside or outside was mud flaps, which I took off. That owner had the car religiously serviced at a dealership, and they were kind enough to send me their service history. At one point they serviced it for "gears not showing on dash" or something like that. I'm pretty sure all of these trucks in "manual mode" are glitchy with showing the gears, or at least the first gear. So to sum up, no known electrical mods and no history of electrical gremlins as far as I know.

 

[Big Mama]

First plave to look is always battery/alternator changes or serviced. If none then look at the main battery ground wire. Follow it from the battery to the chassis. If you have a gps disc (not sure if or when they stopped using them) remove it and put it back in. I don’t think the direction comes from there but try it. What’s the 3rd row seat problem?

 

[13yukonNJ]

First plave to look is always battery/alternator changes or serviced. If none then look at the main battery ground wire. Follow it from the battery to the chassis. If you have a gps disc (not sure if or when they stopped using them) remove it and put it back in. I don’t think the direction comes from there but try it. What’s the 3rd row seat problem?

This model has the standard old school radio, so no GPS. There are no problems with the third row seat, in fact I took them out and sold them shortly after buying the truck. Of the 3 problems I listed, the first 2 are brand new and #3 is something that's been ongoing. I'll look at the battery and alternator this weekend.

 

[PG01]

This model has the standard old school radio, so no GPS. There are no problems with the third row seat, in fact I took them out and sold them shortly after buying the truck. Of the 3 problems I listed, the first 2 are brand new and #3 is something that's been ongoing. I'll look at the battery and alternator this weekend.

Its a rental, thats the problem.... im kidding ...
seriously, i think you have a bad ground. As steven stated above, Start at the battery and alt check all cables, motor grounds, frame grounds.. etc. there are many. If i find a pic i have ill post all ground locations. You’re in jersey i see, salt eats these things. The unde hood fuse box becomes corroded between two haves also. How is your battery? Weak? Easy test with a dvom, check charging system, etc.

Edit: my ‘13 tahoe has no problem with manual mode showing gears. Honestly, this is the first im hearing of it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, im just saying I personally never heard that.

It just leads me to believe you definitely have a bad ground somewhere.

 

[PG01]

 

[13yukonNJ]

View attachment 217138

Thanks for the info. I'm gonna look into this over the weekend. And yes, salt sucks. The previous owner was in Pennsylvania. They had it undercoated (and I had it re-undercoated) but that didn't stop the front-to-back AC lines from corroding away. I did the cheap fix and now I only have front AC. And you should see how gross the engine bay looks. A lot of rust in there...

 

[13yukonNJ]

Edit: my ‘13 tahoe has no problem with manual mode showing gears. Honestly, this is the first im hearing of it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, im just saying I personally never heard that.

It just leads me to believe you definitely have a bad ground somewhere.

FYI, in the beginning of this video, see how the guy's manual mode doesn't correctly show the gear until he goes up to 2? Mine does that, and every other one I looked at when I was shopping did that too. If you are sitting still and switch it up to 2 and then back to 1, then the 1 will look normal. But when you go straight into manual mode it always looks like this.

 

[Big Mama]

I think the manual mode starts in 2. My 07 does. My guess is the 1st gear is rarely used in automatic mode. Just for giggles try putting it in manual mode facing uphill or right when you first start it.