callmeguilty

Hi. This is my first post here. Thought I'd fill you in my recent happenings...

My wife and I conluded that she needed a new(er) vehicle. She loved her Chrysler T&C with Sto-n-Go, but she sensed "a big repair" coming due. With a bit of rust here and there and years of "kid abuse" in the form of grime and other unspeakable things (we have four kids; 11, 9, 7, 4) , the search was on.

She looked online for several days. One new criteria she insisted on was the new vehicle had to seat eight people comfortably. My declared feature was a rear entertainment system. (Parent and kid alike have come to depend on that amazing calm-inducing device). Searching and looking at van after after van, she comment that there wasn't much out there.

Then I said it... "What about an SUV"? She said, "Really"!?

I said "Yes, I've ridden in a Suburban before, a long time ago, when I used to attend teenage youth group. It was the Pastor's and all us teenage kids could pile inside it".

She gave me an "Are you serious?" look. We both just never really considered a full size SUV. We are not politically against them, just more of a "different leguae" thing... Well screw that!

I asked her to just look. I said we could afford up to $25K. (FYI, we buy used cause we can't afford new, nor do we care for new... don't want to take the decpreciation hit). So she began to look at SUVs.

And look, and look, and look. We went to the local Chevy dealer and she test drove (around the parking lot) a nice 2014 Suburban LTZ. I maintained my smile when the sales guy offered it to me for $53K. I told him we really weren't looking to buy just yet, but that I wanted my wife to see what it was like, to get a feel for bigger SUVs.

Well after that, she was hooked. And may I say all our kids were hooked too. Perhaps I stirred up a genie that couldn't be put back in the bottle!

Well within the next couple of weeks, we did our due diligence... and I got real nerdy and discovered the AFM oil burning issue on LC9 engines, calculated likely differences in fuel costs from what we were used to, yadda yadda yadda. Whatever!

Like I said, my wife was now determined. Woah Nelly!

So finally she found "The One", which happened to be four hours away from us, for sale in Connecticut. I sheepishly asked, "Are you sure, honey?"

A nice drive up the East Coast, over the backed-up George Washington Bridge, along the congested Cross-Bronx Expressway, we finally reached the dealer.

A couple of hours later, a bit of drama included, we had a Suburban! Woot woot.

2011 1/2 ton LT with 80K miles. Did we stay in budget?

Ha! Can a determined wife be denied?

And guess what were looking for now? A travel trailer, lol!

Anyhow, we all love our Suburban. It's so roomy. We got 20 mpg on the way home from Connecticut! And now we're the ones shining those annoying headlamps into the cars in front of us at night, ha ha.

Seriously, we're glad we made the jump from those puny minivans.

Rock on!
Jim

73shark

Welcome to the forum.

Won't even ask if you broke your budget.

intheburbs

Welcome to the dark side.

I'm trying to convince my wife that when the lease is up on her T&C that we should get another Suburban, or at least a Tahoe.

Be careful if you start seriously looking into travel trailers. Most salesmen will say something like, "Oh, you own a Suburban. You can tow anything." Not true, and I have the repair bills and lost vacation days to prove it.

callmeguilty

Hi 73shark,

It's worth it. "Happy wife, happy life".

callmeguilty

Hi intheburbs,

Ya know, I'd love to pick your brain and learn from you about towing. I currently believe I can tow 5000Lbs max with current config.

But then I also read about a transmission cooler, which happens to be available as an OEM accessory. GCVW is 11,000Lbs according to the owner's manual...

What has been your experience towing with the 5.3L 1500 4x4?

Thanks!!

SWHouston

I think you can go a bit more than 5K.
True, Trans Coolers are frequently OEM, you may already have one.
Are you talking about GVW ? That should be your Title Weight + 1K.

intheburbs

The weak point of the half-ton Burbs is the rear axle. My '01 is on rear axle number four. I believe the '11 is rated at 4200 lbs. A trailer with a dry weight of ~5,000 lbs is going to put you right at that max (once you include the weight of your family and gear).

Yes, it could theoretically pull an 11,000-lb trailer, but only if there's nothing in the truck but the driver. Unlike a pickup, the rear axle already has a decent load on it due to the larger/longer body. A half-ton burb has a payload of around 1500 lbs. My family of 5 weighs 835 lbs, add some gear, and that doesn't leave much for the trailer tongue weight.

Here's my first trailer with my half-ton, and the weigh slip:



The rear axle weight rating of the truck is 4,000 lbs.

Once I upgraded my trailer to this, stuff started breaking.


Spent 4 days stuck in Mitchell, SD (instead of Rushmore and Yellowstone), and spend 3 days stuck in Youngstown, OH (instead of Washington, DC). Both times it was a failure of the rear axle.

This is why I upgraded to the 2500. I'm good with my rear axle weight (the 08 2500 is rated to 5500 lbs), but I'm maxing out my GVWR - the total weight on the four tires of the truck. On my last trip, I came in at exactly 8600 lbs, which is the max rating of the truck.

Current rig and weigh slip from our last vacation:

callmeguilty

Hi SWHouston,

I'll have to check on that. I'm still learning I don't know what I don't know, lol. I understand GCVW as the max everything load for Burb and trailer combined.

callmeguilty

Hi intheburbs,

Awesome info and photos! Thanks. Sux that you were stuck with broken axles. How did you manage after getting the replacement, presumably with the same axle specs as the one that failed? You couldn't just ditch the trailer, you had to get home with it.

We were close to deciding to pursue a 3/4 ton, but they were scarce to be found, not taking into account the features we wanted either.

So I see rightly that a hybrid travel trailer is most likely what we can safely tow. It is quite the numbers shuffle trying to image pulling an empty trailer vs loaded. I was thinking the rear tires rating were the weak spot, but your saying the rear axle make more sense. I also know we will be high on our payload limits.

Thanks again for the info... I'll share with my wife later today. She's the shopper.

intheburbs

No, you can do a regular TT, just make sure it's a lite, and has a dry weight around 5k. You can even find quad bunk trailers in that weight range. It also depends how far you'll be towing. I'd already logged 400 miles in 95° weather the day the second axle died. I basically overheated it and cooked off all the oil.

Axles need to be broken in, and since I was immediately towing a heavy trailer, the break-in process was not optimal. I think this probably contributed to the second failure a year after the first. The third axle died a year later, but it was replaced under warranty. I only had to pay the labor.