23 out of 23 people found this review helpful.
The Suburban - A Good Truck with Unfortunate Flaws
Date of Review: Sep 25, 1999
We have three kids, two big dogs and the urge to road trip often... a combination that required a big truck where everyone could spread out and have their space. There was really no other choice for us besides the Suburban which met our needs perfectly with three rows of seats AND a nice sized storage compartment.
On balance, we are very happy with the Suburban (we chose the GMC version because we were able to get a better deal than the Chevy dealer would give us... but there's really no difference). We've taken it on two 2,000+ mile trips and it rides great (albeit not cheaply) at high speeds on the highway. We've used the 4WD through snow in Tahoe and muddy back roads in Montana and it handles well for a truck of its size. The kids love the space they get and we've yet to run out of storage room in the back.
On the other hand, there are a few things that are grating for a $35,000+ vehicle and I'm hoping they'll be fixed when GM revs the product line in the next year or two. The air conditioning system is under powered and hard to adjust... one notch up blows too much cold air, one notch down and the car gets hot. Whatever happened to a climate control system that holds the temperate constant? In addition, the vents cannot be turned off so anyone sensitive to cold air blowing on them is out of luck.
Other "bugs":
* The rear window defroster is effectively non-operative, when the windows fog up, the defroster does nothing to clear them.
* There is no memory setting for each driver and since my wife and I both drive the car, we're constantly readjusting the seat and mirrors.
* There is no light to signal when your gas tank is running low (something that happens often in this gas guzzler!). Combined with the fact that the gas gauge is pretty flakey, you're always filling up the tank to be safe (we've already run out of gas once).
The silly thing is, each of these problems is pretty easy to fix. None make me wish I hadn't purchased the Suburban, but GM better get it's act in gear if it's going to compete with the highest end SUV's.
