Is the New Chevy Suburban Better or Worse Than the Old One? Let's Find Out!

[Music] it took a while to get up here we started out around 1959. but we didn't do all that just to get here we did it to give you a truck that'll take you anywhere this is the new Nissan did you know that the Chevy Suburban well here is a 2001 model is the longest running continuously selling Automotive nameplate of all time the first Suburban came out in 1935. and here well we're not here for totals history lesson this is old versus new this 2001 Suburban belongs to David and his family and I also brought a 2022 High Country very very luxurious Suburban to compare the two at Tumbleweed range so hey David hey Andre hey dude so this belongs to your family right yeah this is not my first Suburban okay my first rodeo I've had three of them okay had the square body you know from the 80s yes and then we had the OBS the GMT 400 yes and had that for a number of years and then this one my dad bought in 2001 he passed it on to our family and had this one since new so that you know the history of this I know everything about this and how many miles this one has 296 400. so this is what I'm trying to get to the bottom of it's been the American staple the longest running name plate right there's a reason but why because it's the right size it's big size well it's big but it's not too big and you still park it okay but you can fit four boys in all the gear and travel the country and not feel cramped exactly and that's why you've been buying Suburbans exactly okay so let well how about this how about we show some of the features of this talk about your you know how it's been as a vehicle yeah and then I want to show you this and let's run them a little bit through Andre spit okay sure tumble with wrench so let's look at the side so the magic behind the Suburban like you said has always been discomfort right it's huge how many seats two wolf three rows eight eight or nine comfortably right so here's what I want to get to because the Suburban of course started out as a truck back in the 30s just on our flame with a with a body same axles yes everything and then over time it's slowly kind of progressed to become more comfortable right but also it's almost turning into kind of a crossover in a way it's a luxury vehicle it's no longer a pickup well we'll talk about it over there but but you could get a bench seat back in the day yeah oh yeah right and of course um just Simplicity and V8 power right well and there a lot of the parts are interchangeable with pickups for so many years but not anymore I mean you could change the seat out with a pickup truck seat for so many years yeah but yeah the the size it's just so big and comfortable and roomy and yeah you can fold the seats down and sleep in the back totally and you also use it for work once in a while yeah you have to see what's inside here okay so you could see eight or nine people this is a kind of an eight yeah or you can bring tools or all and two by fours and plumbing supplies yeah and still seat three people so that's the part of the secret right yeah and that's why I love having it because it's so versatile it just does everything does it well does it cheaply uh the miles on this are probably the cheapest miles of any vehicle I've ever owned really yeah don't have great gas mileage but here let me give you an example sure so I went to Husker Harvest days with Alex okay this was my choice vehicle that's your commuter I drove it I drove to uh Grand Island Nebraska okay going there I got 19.3 really coming home I got 18.5 that just me nothing else in there in my bed but I slept in the back so I saved myself a hotel room I've had a full-size Memory Foam bed in the back so I mean so it's your Overland vehicle yeah I mean you can't be any cheaper than that right sweet so let's open the back because it also has barn doors does and um I like the tailgate style too but barn doors seem to be oh I see what you mean by supplies right I brought plumbing supplies and two by fours for the barn today here at Tumbleweed Yeah so basically but you can imagine right you have a third rows of seat you could put in um so and it's been this formula has been around like we said for decades and they have switched it out so I don't think that the rear seat actually comes out now does yours come out uh no it falls into the floor yeah so I mean that's convenience although I feel like you get more space by pulling the seat out and also less weight and less weight you're removing the weight yeah and so we take nowadays with the seats out a lot of the time but it's nice when I get the grandkids I put it back in pretty easy all right and what's under the hood is it a 5'3 or five seven it's a five three five three as you as you'll remember when they switched from the OBS the GMT 400 to the GMT 800 yeah they quit making the five seven and started making the 5-3 so this has the one of the original five threes you know they still have the five three I mean it's been upgraded but oh yeah the power difference is huge now however I will say this thing still cruises the highway at whatever speed you want to go comfortably it just doesn't get up and go like yours does I'm impressed by what you said also on the road trip right 19 MPG is something a modern Suburban would be proud to say right so this is the original motor original transmission believe it or not four speed it's a four-speed okay uh the 60 right yeah I think 4l60 maybe more l60 I don't think it's a 65 I think it's a 60. it's original I think the only new parts we've got new starter new alternator new battery uh uh and look this works yeah everything kind of works I think it's a original injectors my mechanics got everything on this so I could find out exactly what we've done to it over the years but it's not much yeah like you didn't have to replace like heads or injectors or nothing transmission Replacements brakes it's tires it's yeah uh yeah so like I said starter was the last one alrighty well so let's see how does Andre spit really quick maybe we can run it through so yeah it has it does have a little damage well Julie my wife she hit a deer oh and uh and that was all the damage that's all that happened it must have been the low speed uh Collision it's like at 35 miles an hour but geez I mean that's nice thing about having a chrome bumper yeah you know none of this plastic stuff but it did take the Chrome plastic off of there and also got one other problem that just happened recently oh let's show me yeah this was like three four weeks ago the window came off of the off the mechanism of the mechanism and so is it powered yeah it's a power window the power it the power is working inside there but the window doesn't do anything okay so I uh I need to take the whole door panel off and check it out but I mean but I mean it's got 300 000 miles on it you know something's gonna go wrong but I also want to point this out um these are known sometimes for like the bolsters on the seats to wear out a lot um these seats but yours has held up have you changed this no no that's original no Adida had leather seats that'd be a different story yeah and also this truck call it a truck because it is it's been in the garage its whole life so that's why the paint that's why the paint is nice if it had been in the sun it'd be a different story yeah all right so let's run it through the Andre spit really quick and then let me show you the uh the new one uh I'm looking forward to it I mean it's way out of my price range but I still can dream so you know I had that 2002 Silverado heavy duty I do almost like almost identical you know the dash yeah the center console I think the seats were identical even you know like the visors and everything like that all right let's fire this up and put it in four low all right go four low she's flashing I think it had to be neutral I'm not sure even know better than I do solid light and look at the miles 296 403 that's really solid I'm really happy and pretty much my wife myself or my dad put them all on there sweet all right what do you say let's do some logs for traction okay and trenches to see if you have a G80 yeah I don't know if I do or not okay actually so let's find out okay Andre Smith here we come here we come Andre I love being down in your pit well thank you but by the way this is not really my pet I mean my name is on it but you did the grunt work I did to move the rocks and the logs and all this stuff every Rock every log and my home oh my goodness you yeah you work too much yeah the boss didn't work on this all right so look for the logs to see how the traction works okay I hope your wife is okay with this by the way oh yeah you just she'll just say if you wreck my car you buy me another one there you go another Suburban another Suburban all right nice and easy so I could feel I could feel the front end you know tighten up a little bit being affordable yeah which makes sense I'm trying to take it easy and that's when you go eat slowly it's the hardest it is that bump right there have you done like shocks Replacements and all that stuff I got a feeling I did I can't remember doing them but I think I probably did shocks on it of course I only run michelins only mission guy yeah all right so I I don't think you spun a tire no I could have gone faster but I mean no I it's not about speed it's about traction right that's true well all right let's make it more challenging let's do the trenches which is one of the most challenging parts of this yeah and I know a lot of people have to replace transmissions on these early and I think a lot of that has to do with driving style I mean I'm a pretty easy driver and my wife is too you know you don't start off like you're racing you're not like racing at stoplights yeah and so it's have most of its Miles because we live in the country so a lot of it's miles are out in the country so like slow is 45 55 right yeah starting off easy so I've nursed this transmission for a long time and it's still and it shows it's still doing great yeah yeah it doesn't slip or anything well how about this in the next 21 years from now can we do another video with that truck that would be we should do that yeah oh all righty we're stopped here oh there one I do have a G80 what do you know you know G80 they still make that it has to yeah see you got to get just enough spin it's doing it on every hole try another one there and you can hear it number four did it four times four times and it worked every time and it's a half a second or so I wonder if you've ever used have you off-roaded this much never this baby's been on there's a lot of dirt roads but never not like crawling uh I mean I live on a dirt road so I've had lots of dirt roads that's impressive yeah maybe that's the first time you exercise the G80 it could be I'm in the snow I'm sure in this problem on the ice yeah yeah but had no trouble getting over that did it all right well let me show you the new truck let's give it a try I'm curious to see how it does on the trenches smokes look at that what is that what what's is that like a spring a coil it's an air spring oh so it has air suspension yeah no that's the only spring it's on there yeah it's all there and then the shock is built into it no spring at all right so the weight of the vehicle is carried by the air bladder basically look David we're in Colorado and they're a little there's a little bit of Colorado here on this Suburban well actually I like being high tree yes now is this the top of the line yeah this is they introduced this several years ago and this is the latest iteration of it this is the 12th gen so you your gmt800 is a 9th gen technically okay uh this is the 12th gen over the last 87 years so what do you what do you think well it's beautiful I mean I like the lines I do I do think they're pretty although this this classic one here probably will stay classic for a long time but I do like the lines on the new ones yeah and and it's I think it's huger than never well look how tall the hood is well I don't mind I have a secret all right so let's go over here I don't even come to your bow tie I have a secret look underneath look in the wheel well here okay yeah holy smoke what is that what's this big old aluminum thing right there it's uh my champagne Chiller oh cool no no put ice in it no no it's an air spring so it's got air suspension so right now the truck is sitting in xenophobe height because I want it to show up you know Macho no wonder it looks so tall yeah so it's a little bit in the higher position but basically the shock and the spring are built into one kind of assembly and it's height adjustable it's also very comfortable so is there no steel metal spring you could get them oh you could get them but because it's a luxury model of it it's like an airbag yeah it's basically an air bladder airbag okay airbag suspension and you can also get steel Springs if you got a more basic suburban and the uh shock is inside of the air basically yeah so let me show you the power before we look at the inside to look anything the same maybe I don't think it says Vortec anymore yeah they kind of went away from that oh no it looks different let me know that that kind of looks the same yeah the like the the runners but this is now a six two but they'll still have the five three this is the latest iteration of the engines um and they there's a lot more computer stuff going on right because there's cylinder deactivation yeah there's the latest systems where it's Ron Robin you can actually select which uh cylinder fires and which doesn't fire so is that anything like back in the day when my mom was driving Cadillacs we had the two we had the 468 system and Cadillac where they it deactivated two cylinders and two more is it anything like that or is this completely different it's not quite like that it's it's basically because everything is computerized it's injection it can decide which one to fire or not fire but it's more complicated than the older system so it's not like doing firing four cylinders no it can fire two of them if you're cruising or going down the mountain and can fire three four five so it's it's complicated it is but it's it's it's when it works it's seamless well what happens when it doesn't work I don't know because I've never seen it not work well see that's my that's my gripe about any new vehicle especially Suburbans because I love them is why are they making a more complex and only getting a couple more miles to the gallon out of them I mean why not keep it simple so I think it's a well it's a good point but it's a race between the number of features you can put inside so the power has to go up right yeah so the size of the vehicle goes up the power goes up they're quicker they're quicker but somehow you need to keep the efficiency yeah and this was a solution I can see that you know what I'm saying my five three probably won't tow much I mean this probably out tow up three to one four to one probably well this is rated till like 9 000. yeah so it's not drastically different from yours but also 10 speed well that's so we went from four speeds to Ten to Ten yeah so that's also not you think it'd be a whole lot better fuel mileage because you said it's rated at what for uh 18 highway but I can get about 19 on the highway in this yeah so you would think after 21 years this would be getting like 30 mpg or or it's not the case but let me show you why okay show me why I'm curious look inside it still beeps it smells really good in here Andre well it's brand new yeah it smells like leather so it look at this you see a little bit of mountains in the High Country High Country it's fall time right right at home um all right let's start this up so we don't burn up with heat foreign [Music] oh I bet this is a lot quieter yeah and um let me so first of all your butt is being chilled oh so let me turn that down because it's kind of the fan is kind of loud how about that so turn that down so so this is what I'm talking about they're making the Interiors more luxurious right and this is you know this is called mocha stitched mocha yeah stitched mocha wood there's a cubby hole here I'm not sure what you might maybe a small wallet um but the technology is going way up well I do like the fact that they still have dials for a lot of things because doesn't matter how technically Advanced a vehicle is it's still easier to grab a dial and these are hard buttons right you can turn the temperature pretty easily I like that too and also here you can kind of rest your hand maybe and like select things so there's some touches what do you think about this though this is the transmission that double push button so you know you pull 4D pull for in and then I'm up for reverse and then push neutral and push Park so that's kind of how it works I guess it's okay how about downshifting because I do a lot of downshifting on mine going down Hills so that's interesting so you go to drive and then you select L and that's basically your gear range it's not fully a manual system but you can tell it you wanted the fourth gear for example to be your highest or the third gear to be your highest so that's how you downshift so can you pick a gear and stay in it say you want to be in fifth no you can only tell it what the maximum gear you want oh so you can't tell it what gear to be in yeah it when it slows down it still goes which mine does but yeah but out on the road I can leave it in third gear if I need to go up and no you could you could okay but you shouldn't need to because if you have 420 horsepower well what about going downhill doesn't have a exhaust brake like the Cummins no no so that's when you would use this okay yeah so you can tell it I'm going down the mountain I want to be in fourth gear for the remainder of this trip down you could set it uh fourth gear is the maximum gear and then and that's nice that's what it is so I don't even have to grab the lever to do that no I wish I wish they kept it well that's okay okay so it's right there in the same spot so leather wrapped steering wheel heads up display oh I mean do you really need the heads-up display I'm not sure well I had it on a Pontiac Bonneville ssei back in the day I love that car they've had heads up this place for years but my windshield got cracked and you know how much it cost oh like double that's that's the point and then this panoramic sunroof oh I don't have one of those no let's close the Sun that is nice so then there's another trick I don't know if you've seen this but um it has to do with this console so let me do this oh wow so this this has multiple purposes so the rear passenger can reach their cups well I could do that like if you have a child that is beating on his brother yes I could see I could see him kind of try to separate yeah put his hands between his legs and he just push this back and he can't like hit his brother while we're going on a road trip and also there's a secret compartment look at this so I don't know I mean maybe you put your wallet or something in here and hide it um and then basically you can bring it back and that's about it so let's um take a look at the rear seats I mean look I mean of course leather everywhere so this is a seven seater yeah and this got captains in the middle row you can get a bench but you can no longer get a bench in the front so the nine person it's been that way for a while yeah that's out of the question now and you know what else I'm a little sad about what heavy duty Suburbans no 2500 Suburbans no not anymore so remember so like about three years ago the government contract still had heavy duty a base Suburban forest service and and also like Secret Service to protect the president oh yeah you remember the movie uh oh shoot you remember the movie with Harrison Ford oh uh Air Force One well no the one where they're they're like in uh Columbia somewhere and they've got four of these heavy Suburbans and they they're going down this street and they all get blown up in them something like this so no more of that book of those but uh there is a contract so General Motors has a gym defense department which they build vehicles for the military and for the government and the government gave them some money to develop a heavy duty version of one of these so they will have one so yeah in the future but but that civilians huh what about us yeah yeah because you know there's a lot of people like to go in luxury and Tow something yeah and you used to see a lot of three-quarter ton Suburbans Towing trailers totally so I want to get back to that in the future let me show you in the back and look at the suspension and then let's take it into the pit okay you feel comfortable doing that with this 80 some thousand how much 86 okay 86 000. wow okay clear and present danger that's the name of the movie don't you remember you're in the Suburbans in this like the missiles are shoulder powered missiles come out and blow them up and one of them still driving and they get out out with it yeah that's how tough the Suburbans were back I think this one can do that I I think so it'll be faster probably no doubt about that so so I I like this so they still kept this uh you could open this separately I really like that yep what do you think no I mean I mean they can reach in if you have groceries or something but this does this have a tailgate yes well it's got a hatch a hatch yeah this is a hatchback this is not a tailgate well it's not a Range Rover my friend I just remember you know I had a Land Cruiser before the before I had four kids yeah they had the tailgate and then I had a Suburban that had the tailgate yeah those were cool yeah well this isn't this little bit different but it's they still have a lot of storage yeah so I think that you know that American um Suburban um just character is still here they're still here sure um because you can do this all right so here's a real question I have when you put those seats down uh-huh can I put a four by eight sheet of plywood in here yes I still can't yes it fits do you have a tape I do let's measure I'm pretty sure yeah the answer is yes all right Andre let's see this is the ultimate it looks narrow to me but nope hey it's even got an inch to spare look at that so that's that's real similar to the old suburban so they haven't changed that yeah I think the whole vehicle just goes a little bit larger so let's see where the eight feet are yeah so the eight feet so let's let's put that down okay hold on oh wow did you see that out I hope we didn't hurt anything uh uh I think the camera bag might get squished ah so now what about eight feet now oh yeah so I'll bet you you could still put your mattress back here and you could still go to Nebraska and still sleep and you could only there's a little bit of the problem though what do you do about this area right here that has nothing um you put you put a cooler because my mattresses is 80 inches long you put a cooler there oh okay yeah or get a get a bench that's a good idea a cooler a cooler we'll get it cooler so you can get a you know a sandwich and a Dr Pepper you know right there uh right next to your head although I'd say I would never do do that to this brand new Suburban I don't mind doing it to mine but not this one all right let's look underneath this thing all right huh oh boy oh boy I'm really getting in there so details on this this looks a lot different than mine Andre that's insane wow it's got these great big like eight inch big air suspension pieces jiggers yeah so here's the thing the rear the salt axle is no more no it's just like the front it's a independent suspension with the differential with the axles yeah coming out of half shafts half shafts coming out yeah disc brakes only problem look at this though what what at six and a quarter inches Andre off the ground yeah that's all you got right there oh look at look at these big bow coming down here yeah I'm not a fan of that it's gonna limit your but maybe I can raise it up a little bit more when we go in 200 spit it's good to have have the spare underneath but here's the deal here's why they chose this they wanted more interior space and that solid axle was protruding into the cabinet a little bit more yeah so they wanted to lower the floor have the comfortable ride but I think it came at the cost of ground clearance really hey how big is that gas tank 28 gallons that's it yeah you know how much I have in mind how many 38 what 38. and I get the same mileage as you I have 10 more gallons that means I can go 200 more miles almost than yours came all right okay well let's go let's take it off-road Okay so what is this Andre I love the color on the outside yeah I it's beautiful I don't have the exact name for it it's a green it's like a teal yeah like green it looks like you know the foliage we're next to it does yeah it kind of almost like uh I will look I will look it up and I'll tell you because I'm sorry the sticker doesn't happen I'm going to call it Sagebrush green okay so I'm gonna do the same thing so I'm gonna do neutral neutral right here I'm gonna turn down our seat chillers because they're kind of loud actually yeah yeah and I don't need my butt cooled okay and then I'm gonna switch to four low and look um it's blinking right here and boom it's pretty easy you know some other vehicles you have to like be level or you have to be just in the right place but this is pretty easy so when you switch it sets forward Collision system unavailables that mean the airbags won't come on if you hit something no I I believe what that means is you know The Pedestrian uh protection like so that has automatic systems like all the beeping all the radar and all the beeping um it's kind of quieting that down you think if we if we got off the trail and we were four-wheeling our airbags would still come on I think so okay but I don't plan to uh to have that activate those yeah okay all right let's get going so what I love about this though um and I haven't showed that yet but this does have a hitch of course it does have a trailer brake controller so it's still you know a lot of new luxury SUVs don't even have brake controllers anymore you have to buy them afterwards it's built to tow yeah so it still has that character right even though it's not a three-quarter ton exactly it probably tows just as much as the old three-quarter tons is my guess so let me go into off-road mode so off-road and I'm gonna raise the suspension oh so here's the thing about suspension racing the higher you go you get more ground clearance obviously but it becomes a little stiffer stiff because the airbags got air now yeah it doesn't have as much space to travel so I'm gonna go as slowly as you it's nice having a screen oh yeah yeah kind of lining us up on the on the logs just and it also came on by itself it did what I think it dampens it quite a bit more than mine don't you yeah yours kind of hopped once in a while we're still rocking and rolling but it seems to be dampened and this is Harsh and the other thing still really good traction yeah by the way this is not a Z71 because they also have a Z71 version yeah obviously it used to be available in the past Z71 used to mean it had some off-road capabilities as well as the G80 yeah but you do have a G80 in your old truck yeah it may have been specked without being a z7 one yeah so now what differential uh hearing does this one have uh I believe it's a 342 okay but it's also a really fancy rear differential when you were on the ground there you were looking at it and it also has these clutches um so it does it can actually mobile test it and we'll see how it works but it should give us like a differential Locker so it's all different now it's way different so G80 is not no longer here they still have it in Silverados right because it's still a solid axle in the back but as far as the Suburban is concerned they have moved on to something else the only pickup that has independent four-wheel suspension that I know of would be the lightning and the Rivier and the ribbian and you know what else the new Hummer EV is has Independence and that's because electric motors they stuff down there yeah but I'm on 22s I'm a little nervous that you know I have my nice Wheels you could scuff those Wheels I like having lots of lots of rubber did you hear that it's fun it's a lot smoother than mine but it did spin yeah yeah my truck it kind of spawned and then clunk whereas this one it's in here trying then all of a sudden it catches yeah and I think smoother and I think what's happening also the brake system is helping it right yeah so it's smoother doesn't sound as mechanical yeah I mean there's a lot going on there the computer is trying to understand what we're doing right and it's trying to use the brakes and also the clutches and all that stuff yeah huh so there you have it they both did it yeah no problem you're just doing it a little more Style with leather nice looks and all right so let's I will take mine for another reason that we haven't even talked about well let's discuss it outside okay all right David so what do you think is this going to be your next Suburban you said you've had three well I'm sure if you asked my wife she would say yes right now okay but here's my beef with new cars okay I mean not only would I worry about scratching it I worry about if my grandkids you know messed up the interior and if I spilled a Dr Pepper in there with this I don't worry about it and here I want to show you another reason okay okay what is it so this is the registration on my oh one you just redid it yeah what is it what does it cost per year 92 dollars and seven cents yeah so how much did yours cost to register this year um I don't know because this belongs to Chevrolet it's here on loan but I do have a new truck like an F-150 that I have also and that was over a thousand bucks I think for a year yeah okay but but so your argument is use versus new right that's my I'll probably never buy new again just because of cost but where would you go from here maybe like 2010 2011. I say I go from here with a new LS take this LS and so keep the body yeah I've about it nothing's wrong with the body so so keep working on the mechanics this could go till I die all right so so it doesn't sound like I can convince you how about this about this this is a hike a High Country I know very fancy it is it's got the Nike color I love it but but what if this was an LS you know kind of apples to apples this would be closer to about 65 Grand still a lot of money right yeah you're still not going to convince me because I know that the cost of ownership on an older vehicle is always going to be less simply because they're much simpler I mean I love all this Tech well it's also the value of the vehicle and the value of the vehicle this is about five grand right yeah ish yeah okay but but if let's say you know I do need a transmission I mean that transmission cost me three thousand to redo so total cost of ownership I'm going to stay a used car guy and probably a GM guy for a long time simply because parts are cheap there you can get it let's if you're up in Alaska you can get this thing fixed at any mechanic you can find parts for them so I would love to have something new I just can't ever see myself buying something new well let me know let us know in the comments below what do you think you know where do you stand on this and or is there a happy medium probably you know is there another I'm living in the past what about what if this was a diesel [Music] maybe that would do it okay okay let us know in the comments below what you guys think and by the way thanks for uh doing this oh it's always fun Andre

Channel: The Fast Lane Car

Views: 584,681

Keywords: chevrolet suburban, chevy suburban, suburban, chevrolet, 2021 chevy suburban, 2021 chevrolet suburban, new chevy suburban review, chevrolet suburban vs chevrolet tahoe, chevrolet suburban vs cadillac escalade, suburban chevy, chevy suburban review, suburban chevrolet, 2020 chevrolet suburban, chevrolet suburban price, old vs new, chevrolet suburban for sale, history of chevrolet suburban, chevrolet suburban crash test, 2021 suburban

Id: qjqcFGbnix8

Length: 36min 28sec (2188 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022