PeanutGallery
New Member
:excited:
another GMT900 fan has finally joined the ranks - my wife and i took delivery of an '08 suburban Z71 last friday evening. we've had an '02 grand cherokee (limited, 4wd, 4.7L V8) for the last few years and at one time considered upgrading to a commander, and then we drove a loaded hemi limited back to back with an '07 tahoe LTZ and our choice was easily made. just had to wait for the right time....
the jeep just hit 69k miles and was probably on borrowed time as far as expensive repairs go - we sunk around $2k into it a year ago, and it was probably only a matter of time before it claimed another chunk of our wallet. we also were concerned about travelling in it - we just had a baby in august and took our first trip to the beach a few weeks ago, and not having rear HVAC or much cargo room, on top of having a pretty rough ride, makes the WJ a less than perfect travel companion.
so, with the $5k rebates available on '07's in october we looked very heavily into finding a leftover tahoe LTZ or yukon denali....but given that by the time we made that decision we only had a couple days to do something, we couldn't find what we were really looking for, and plus we couldn't work a sweet enough deal to make us pull the trigger.
november brought slightly reduced rebates and even smaller inventories on the '07's, so we started thinking more about an '08 - especially since we were beginning to feel like a suburban was a better option for us long-term. the bad thing about the tahoe is that with the rear captains chairs and the 3rd row, you either have good seating capacity with minimal rear storage or you have pretty minimal seating capacity and slightly more storage than our jeep. putting an infant carseat in one of the captains chairs just worsens the issue. with the suburban, you get all the seats AND good rear storage....so there we were.
we decided that a 4wd Z71 sounded most attractive to us, and we really liked the new-for-08 blue granite color.....so we did some research and located a loaded suburban in that color just a couple hundred miles away. we worked with a local dealer through a friend who used to work there and managed to get a true-invoice-minus-rebates deal, which included the standard $1k truck month rebate, the additional $750 GM rebate, $500 in local auto show bonus cash, and then another $1500 in GM credit card rebates. we were able to get a good enough trade-in quote on the jeep and took the plunge.
we took delivery last friday evening - '08 suburban Z71 4x4 in blue granite over ebony/light titanium, and it has the sun/sound/entertainment package, the power rear liftgate package, the heated & powered flip/fold 2nd row captains chairs, and the roof rack cross bars. part of me wanted the 4.10 gears for the get-up-and-go factor around town but the smarter half of me figured i'd pay through the nose at the gas pump for that luxury, plus the one we found had everything else we wanted and it wasn't worth passing it up for something i didn't need anyway.
here are a few pics from the other day:
so far we love it - i took it on a 200-mile highway trip yesterday and averaged 17.7 mpg per the DIC, which is pretty much dead-on what my jeep got on the same trip - so i'm happy about that. i'm sure it'll get a little better once it's broken in, too. as far as minor gripes - i wish it had factory HID's, express/one-touch-up power windows in front, and maybe a 2nd trip odometer....but beyond that it's great. haven't had to parallel park it yet, though! :crazy:
i'm already contemplating an intake and exhaust for it to free up a little HP and give it a bit more aggressive sound, but those will be a little ways down the road...gotta enjoy the newness of it as-is for a while first.
another GMT900 fan has finally joined the ranks - my wife and i took delivery of an '08 suburban Z71 last friday evening. we've had an '02 grand cherokee (limited, 4wd, 4.7L V8) for the last few years and at one time considered upgrading to a commander, and then we drove a loaded hemi limited back to back with an '07 tahoe LTZ and our choice was easily made. just had to wait for the right time....
the jeep just hit 69k miles and was probably on borrowed time as far as expensive repairs go - we sunk around $2k into it a year ago, and it was probably only a matter of time before it claimed another chunk of our wallet. we also were concerned about travelling in it - we just had a baby in august and took our first trip to the beach a few weeks ago, and not having rear HVAC or much cargo room, on top of having a pretty rough ride, makes the WJ a less than perfect travel companion.
so, with the $5k rebates available on '07's in october we looked very heavily into finding a leftover tahoe LTZ or yukon denali....but given that by the time we made that decision we only had a couple days to do something, we couldn't find what we were really looking for, and plus we couldn't work a sweet enough deal to make us pull the trigger.
november brought slightly reduced rebates and even smaller inventories on the '07's, so we started thinking more about an '08 - especially since we were beginning to feel like a suburban was a better option for us long-term. the bad thing about the tahoe is that with the rear captains chairs and the 3rd row, you either have good seating capacity with minimal rear storage or you have pretty minimal seating capacity and slightly more storage than our jeep. putting an infant carseat in one of the captains chairs just worsens the issue. with the suburban, you get all the seats AND good rear storage....so there we were.
we decided that a 4wd Z71 sounded most attractive to us, and we really liked the new-for-08 blue granite color.....so we did some research and located a loaded suburban in that color just a couple hundred miles away. we worked with a local dealer through a friend who used to work there and managed to get a true-invoice-minus-rebates deal, which included the standard $1k truck month rebate, the additional $750 GM rebate, $500 in local auto show bonus cash, and then another $1500 in GM credit card rebates. we were able to get a good enough trade-in quote on the jeep and took the plunge.
we took delivery last friday evening - '08 suburban Z71 4x4 in blue granite over ebony/light titanium, and it has the sun/sound/entertainment package, the power rear liftgate package, the heated & powered flip/fold 2nd row captains chairs, and the roof rack cross bars. part of me wanted the 4.10 gears for the get-up-and-go factor around town but the smarter half of me figured i'd pay through the nose at the gas pump for that luxury, plus the one we found had everything else we wanted and it wasn't worth passing it up for something i didn't need anyway.
here are a few pics from the other day:
so far we love it - i took it on a 200-mile highway trip yesterday and averaged 17.7 mpg per the DIC, which is pretty much dead-on what my jeep got on the same trip - so i'm happy about that. i'm sure it'll get a little better once it's broken in, too. as far as minor gripes - i wish it had factory HID's, express/one-touch-up power windows in front, and maybe a 2nd trip odometer....but beyond that it's great. haven't had to parallel park it yet, though! :crazy:
i'm already contemplating an intake and exhaust for it to free up a little HP and give it a bit more aggressive sound, but those will be a little ways down the road...gotta enjoy the newness of it as-is for a while first.
Looks alot like my '07 Stealth Gray XL Denali. Welcome, and enjoy your nice new ride!
