Buying Higher mileage Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban, Major concerns?

[adventurenali92]

@sneasle, the leather is issue is very common in these trucks. My drivers seat had a that same hole in that same place. Lol. I picked up a whole replacement seat cover for the lower cushion from eBay for $200 and replaced it myself and it was a very easy swap. So that's always an option. My steering wheel has a spot on the top wheather the dye is coming off also. Was a small,spot when I bought and its bigger. I'm gonna swap out with a wood grain wheel and new leather soon anyways so that doesnt bother me.

 

[jesse53]

Internal fuel pump..Rock Auto has the best price if you ever need one. I have a 2002 Yukon XL w/ 227k 5.3 4X4, only thing replaced since I've owned it is a waterpump & fuel pump due to an inaccurate guage, not a pump failure.

 

[sneasle]

Thanks @jesse53, the more comments like this I see the less I'm worried about most of these.

I'll do some more looking this weekend, might post some listings for the groups opinions later in the week.

You guys rock, you've been amazingly helpful. Hopefully I'll be 'official' soon and can start contributing back to the group.

 

[adventurenali92]

@ sneas, I did the exact same thing you did before I bought my Denali last year. This forum is a great community! So much advice and knowledge that's readily available! Good luck buying!

 

[Wake]

@Wake, I'd love to buy an Avalanche (I've been ******* after them for years) but what is driving the Tahoe/Burban/Yukon decision is that the wife and I want to be able to fit 4 passengers, plus the dogs (Husky mix, Shepard mix), plus gear in the vehicle. I can't do that with the Avalanche without having the dogs (or our other passengers) out in the bed and in order to crate the dogs in the bed I'd have to pull all the covers off and expose dogs and gear to the elements. Granted, there are ways around this, but it is a whole lot easier for me to open the rear hatch and say 'Up' and have the dogs jump in than it is to try and crate them and tarp everything down for a longer distance ride. That said, I am leaning toward a burban/Yukon xl just so I have more room behind the 3rd seat without having to pull it every time. I believe the 3rd row bench on these also folds, so I should be able to run some pretty long lumber in there without much hassle. If I'm missing something obvious here, please let me know, but the SUV seems to be the right choice.

We are keeping the budget small on this for that reason, if the the SUV ends up not fitting our needs the way the thought it would we will sell it and find something else without having to deal with the massive depreciation if we had bought a new Yukon off the lot.

Okay, it does sound like you need the SUV rather than the truck version and the XL seems to be better for you. I've had two of the short wheel base SUVs and there is less than foot of clearance between the third row seats when they are set up for use. Not even grocery store trip for me with the third row deployed.

There's also the option of a cheap trailer with the SUV, something I considered before purchasing the EXT.

 

[adventurenali92]

Okay, it does sound like you need the SUV rather than the truck version and the XL seems to be better for you. I've had two of the short wheel base SUVs and there is less than foot of clearance between the third row seats when they are set up for use. Not even grocery store trip for me with the third row deployed.

There's also the option of a cheap trailer with the SUV, something I considered before purchasing the EXT.

That's exactly why i bought an XL. Everyone told me I didn't need to bigger suv. I went from a 2001 durango,with no,room behind third row to my Denali XL. I love how much room my suv has and I can still put the third row up if I need to.

 

[Wake]

That's exactly why i bought an XL. Everyone told me I didn't need to bigger suv. I went from a 2001 durango,with no,room behind third row to my Denali XL. I love how much room my suv has and I can still put the third row up if I need to.

For me the longer version never appealed to me. I usually just pull the third row seats and store them to gain the room that accommodates me 90% of the time. Even folded up they don't free a lot of room. Since I don't have any kids or haul people around I'd probably pull the second row seats if it were easy like the third row.

I'm also a car nut so the prospect of a second Escalade kinda drove the decision to buy the EXT. I had lots of friends telling me not to but to buy a trailer instead. LOL.

 

[adventurenali92]

For me the longer version never appealed to me. I usually just pull the third row seats and store them to gain the room that accommodates me 90% of the time. Even folded up they don't free a lot of room. Since I don't have any kids or haul people around I'd probably pull the second row seats if it were easy like the third row.

I'm also a car nut so the prospect of a second Escalade kinda drove the decision to buy the EXT. I had lots of friends telling me not to but to buy a trailer instead. LOL.

I also really like the way the longer wheel base handles as well. Drove a short one and it was a bit squirlly. Especially around the corners on the mountain roads where I live.

 

[sneasle]

@Bigbeardenali1992 & @Wake, the XL is currently winning for us because of that extra space. I don't have a whole lot of extra storage room in the garage or shed (Shed is just big enough for the yard equipment, the garage is a tight 2-car, our small import sedans barely fit), so the 3rd row would have to live in the vehicle, so that generates a bit of an issue with the smaller vehicles. Granted, my need for having people in that 3rd seat would be few and far between, but since this won't be a daily driver I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

 

[sneasle]

Hmm. The 05 Denali that I've been looking at is currently throwing 2 codes. Scanned them, one is P0455 and the other is P0650.

Did some googling and searching on the forum here. It looks like P04555 has to do with the Evap system. When I drove it the display was throwing a 'tighten gas cap' message, which seems to be common on these trucks when that code is active. Looks like the most common repair is to swap out the evap solenoid. If that is indeed the issue, it appears to be an easy enough fix.

The P0650 is a little harder to armchair diagnose. Seems it could be something as simple as a burn out bulb in the cluster, to something as irritating as a short somewhere in the harness or a BCM/PCM going bad.

Either way, I think I'm going to have a shop give this truck a once over before I talk with the guys any further.