Joined the dark side!

[lovemysan]

Today we went down to Oklahoma city and purchased a 2005 suburban LT 2wd. This thing is loaded with options that I didn't even care if it had. DVD, 6 disc in dash, on star, adjustable pedals, heated seats, all the stuff that breaks around 200k which is how long I try to keep my cars.

We had been "soft shopping" for a larger car for 6 months. We found a few decent deals on minivans but nothing really interesting. I had been trying to find a nice roadmaster wagon. Gas prices have driven the cost of cars that get reasonable mileage outside of what I find acceptable. I needed 6 passenger seating minimum. Prefer 8 passenger (roadmaster wagon, chevy astro, suburban, toyota sienna) I shopped a 500 mile radius for my 2nd choice(vans, burbs) and I shopped nationally for a roadmaster. I just couldn't get comfortable going 1500 miles for a roadmaster. Not to mention the market for them has exploded. I found there were tons of suburbans to choose from and I think I got a real good deal. I bought it at trade in.
I found I could get the suburban for $2500- cheaper than a same year/mileage sienna. I can buy several years worth of vacation gas for $2500. With a sienna I'd be looking at only getting a few basic options and averaging 26-27mpg. I didn't consider the 2003 and older sienna because of the "SLUDGE" issue and the I ruled out the 2004 because it was the first year of production for that body. I considered the 2004-2006 quest but after recently replacing 2002 maxima engine twice, and finding they had some severe quality control issues I scratched them off the list also. I also considered the mazda5. But there rare to find in a 5 speed, and were crippled in the US market buy installing only 2 seats in the center row, which for me was a deal breaker. This is my current favorite car but they removed the 7th passenger seat for the US market for product seperation purposes. I guess so we could have a LOUSY mazda minivan instead.


I should be able to hit 20mpg highway. We plan to carry 6 people and gear on vacation this year. The saturn has been averaging 10-12 trips home a year + 1 2 week vacation. Traveling with 4 people and stuff on board an S car for 2k miles is kinda hard on your body.

[Red]

Congrats on the new ride. Lot of aftermarket, being GM, if you wanted to try and go all out on the subdivision

[nascarnation]

sounds like a fine choice to me
and there are plenty of aftermarket guys doing ECM tunes on Chevys for better mpg
http://www.wait4meperformance.com/Index.swf

[lovemysan]

finally got some pics.





thinking hard about some wheel skirts

[klrv6]

Nice truck. A few tips from another 2wd suburban owner....

Get rid of at least the cross beams for the roof rack. I removed my entire rack and just use a hitch basket in the back when needed.

Go the efan route, it helps on these things.

Get some tuning software and start playing. HP-tuners is really good at logging and tuning. I increased my timing 4 degrees with no knock and can hit 25mpg@80mph in our '99. I know I have more room to bring it up.


Keep the cooling system healthy. Flush and fill should be one of the first things you do. Keep good fluid/filters in the engine and transmission, they like it. A new fuel filter is a must at least once a year. Imagine the junk that 44 gallons of gas constantly getting filtered looks like.

Enjoy the ride. i am sure you noticed that 2wd suburbans are going up in value in some areas of the country. They did follow the prices of 4wd units but, now seem to have switched as buyers become aware of the "not so bad" mileage. It sounds like you did your homework to narrow down what you wanted. Good choice to avoid those toyota vehicles with sludge problems. That's what caused our camry to lose it's engine$$$$$$$$$

BTW: My wife's uncle has a model like yours and hit 21-22 all day long with nothing done to it.

[lovemysan]

I have the 31 gallon tank and the undermount spare. It has efans stock and synthetic fluid in the diff. I'm taking the roof rack off tonight. Are the nuts tack welded to the roof or will they fall off and sit on the headliner when I take the top bolts out. I'm going to clear silicone the holes. This thing knocks down 18mpg around town. The front suspension is torsen bars so its easy to lower it. I have mods planned. The only thing I don't like that I can't really change are the plastic wheel arches.

[klrv6]

Mine has the nuts crimped to the roof panel. I just took one of the bolts into lowes and bought shorter flush mount screws for them. I siliconed the underside of the screw head and tightened them down. Pick up some body color touch up paint to help hide them. Mine kind of looks like I bedazzled my roof.

Make sure you get it aligned after the lowering or you will negate the reduced wind resistance because of the increased drag from the tires.


Sorry, mine is old school....came with a mechanical fan

[lovemysan]

This thing stands over 6' 4" tall. So I'm not terribly worried about shorter screws. I might get short ones IDK. I have high hopes for this thing. I am wanting a tune bad. But first I have to get the high rpm spark knock worked out.

[klrv6]

hook up with fullsizechecy.com many many very smart tuners on that board to help figure out what's going on. HPtuners has logging functions as well as tuning. What rpm is the knock at? crap gas? old fuel filter? Always keep a good filter on it. The knock should not stay long if everything is working. The PCM sees knock and pulls timing up to a point, beyond that it may be lack of fuel.

[pint]

Just curious, what are the Toyota sludge problems? Never heard of any problems and I've owned/maintained a number of Toyota's without issue to over 200K?