YSE Car of the Week: 2008 Chevrolet Suburban
For this week’s Your Shitty Economy Car of the Week (YSE), we present the Chevrolet Suburban. For years, Suburban was the only choice for families with four or five kids (or dogs) and a need for heavy towing. In recent times, the Suburban has seen some heavy competition. When GM doubled down on SUVs and created the GMT900 platform, they maintained the fuel hungry ‘burban’s class competitiveness. [Ed: Great landing, wrong airport.] Even with today’s economy and GM’s woes, a new Suburban doesn’t carry a huge discount: there’s $1,000 in rebate cash on the hood. A new base LS 4WD starts at $44,000. A flush customer can bling-out an L(u)TZ well into the $60,000 range. By comparison, this pictured one-year-old 4WD YSE truck clocks in at $24,987. Buyers looking for 2WD (or more miles) could spend less. The huge numbers of GMT900 trucks sold guarantees parts availability for years to come (hold the comments on GM’s bankruptcy). Before heading out to shop, toss in a copy of Dante’s Peak or Clear and Present Danger to watch some “like a rock” Suburbans tearing it up . . . .
More by Justin Crenshaw
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i still can't understand why they didn't have a big diesel? i've driven a Range Rover with a 2.7 litre twin turbo diesel V6 and it fairly motored (and got upwards of 28 mpg) i can't imagine a four litre turbo diesel struggling with 6,000lb
I like the Suburban, and I hope there will always be one. If you need 4WD, what are your choices for a vehicle this large wiht configurable interior space? A Toyota Sienna AWD is the only similar vehicle (aside from GM's full size, AWD vans). The Suburban will tow too, by the way, if you need it. I've personally driven 4WD Suburbans at 70-75 on the highway that have achieved 18-20MPG. Look on the owner-blogs for the Sienna AWD, and you'll see they rag on it's crappy mileage, at only 1-2 MPG better then the Suburban. Gas isn't everything. The lower maintenance, the cheaper parts availability, and the more plentiful dealers lower your ownership costs too (depreciation aside, of course). And it's SO NICE not to pull into that prick Toyota dealer, local monopoly.
My parents had a Suburban in the '70s and we drove all over the west pulling a camping trailer as my dad would take off work for a month every year to do so. It wasn't as nice as the current Suburban, but what found memories I have. My brother and I would play with our trucks in the back (the days before seat belts).