My favorite GM!
 

Well everyone, as some of the old guys might remember, about 2 years ago, the tranny went out on our 02 Yukon XL.(we pronounce it Puke-on, not You-con)

Well, guess what happened, again, in under 20k miles, you guessed it it went out again, and guessed who towed it back to our tranny shop for the second time, a Dodge.(this time it was a 09 ram as opposed to a 96 the last time)

So, i guess this makes 3 times in about 80K. One at 20K, another at 60K and again at 100K.

The first time it was my uncles problem, then these last two times we got a good deal from a guy in the town south of us.

Can anyone whip me up a grille emblem that says POS instead of GMC. That would be the greatest birthday present for my dad.

Anyone have some cheap alternatives to a suburban? we've looked into, dare i say it, Ford, but the Excursion is a gas hog and the Expedition EL is too new and over priced. Do we go with another Chevy or GMC or should we get the heck off that wagon?

It's be nice if Dodge had an extended Durango or something like that. We might just end up buying our uncle's 2006 Denali in a while, he's been thinking of upgrading for a while now. so far he's put about 60K on it with no problems. So, we might just be stuck with that unless he doesn't sell and the price of the Expedition EL goes down A LOT.

Well, I think i've done my share of talking for today.

unfortunately they all seem to have some type of transmission problem unless you go manual shift. i think the autos are tooweak for the amount of weight they haul.

I'm not sure what exactly to recommend. The underlying issue is this. You have already had problems with the GM offering and I would tend to believe that if you have numerous problems with the same part, it would probably still be a problem in a newer one as they still use the same transmission. Now, the new ones have a 6-speed, but I believe that it used the same transmission as the template.

I have trouble recommending any Ford truck simply on the foundation of not trusting the Modular engine for serious work. An old boss of mine had a 03 F-150 King Ranch and I was with him when the engine block cracked and blew at 87K. Later his superior and I had a conversation and he had the same problem with an Expedition at 150K. Now the one way around that is with the Excursion with the Diesel, but even that has problems.

There really isn't a good option is the truth. I wouldn't want a Toyota due to the fact that the older ones would be underpowered and also has an OHC engine. The same goes for the Nissan Armada/Infiniti Q56.

In terms of trusting the powertrain, I would tend to trust the Durango the most. The 545RFE has a much better reputation than the ones it replaced and I trust the Hemi. Is there a reason why a Durango wouldn't work?

The durango would be awesome. BUT, we have alot of junk to haul. In the winter we have snowmobile gearbags. In the summer it's dirtbiking and guns. The problem is cargo space. I don't know if one of those cargo bins that sit on top of your car would be a thing to do or not. i think we have one, but i don't ever remeber us using it. Personally i think we should get a Mega Cab and let the married kids deal with their own problems. Heck! we could pay for some of their gas when we go down to Salt Lake City and things like that. But i wouldn't trust my sisters 4-Runner to make it down there. 210k and the thing is hammered.

My dad tried to talk them out of buying it. Oh well.


On an actually related note. My sister works with a lady that has an 03 Durango that has had 4 trannies go out in 4 years. Any thoughts or comments on that?

I would tend to lean towards the Mega Cab with a manual Diesel. As for the Durango issue, which engine did it have?

The problem with the manual diesel is that my dad thinks that 3/4 ton trucks are a waste. But if Dodge comes out with the light-duty diesel that they said they would, it could be a possibility. Of course, i couldn't get him into a Challenger, so how am i going to get him into a truck?

The Durango, i'm not sure. My sister pulled4.2 CYLINDER out of her butt! The sad thing is, is i believed her for a minute until it registered in my brain what she said.

I'm not going to count on them making a half-ton diesel. Here's a point. How is a 3/4 ton diesel a waste when a Suburban is basically a gas powered 3/4 ton station wagon version of a truck?

It sounds as though she got two engines mixed up. Until about 2000 there was a 5.2L V8 and after that was the 4.7L, there was also a 5.9L in the mix. If it was the 4.7L, then apparently she had really bad luck (frankly no matter what she had that's extremely bad luck and unusual) with what seems to be an overall pretty solid transmission (trust me, a few of our farmers have had them and they have done fine). If it was a 5.2L or 5.9L it was probably the old 46RE which didn't have the best reputation.

I don't know... my dad can be a little weird. He doesn't like the idea of a diesel. And he thinks that a 3/4 would be a waste because a 1/2 can get any of our jobs done. The biggest thing we haul is a 4 place snowmobile trailer, and we've had no problem.

It sounds like we're going to ride the 1 year warranty untill the last minute and then bail. I guess we'll just have to wait till then. Maybe by then the Durango will be back around for the 2011 run and it'll have an extended version, or my dad gives up and buys a pickup. Who knows. He might go crazy. (more than he already has)

Well, I'm not going to hold my breath on the future of the Durango as Chrysler seems undecided on it and it appears as it might be a sister SUV to the Grand Cherokee (it may not be designed to pull the weight that you are looking for). It can be more cost effective anyhow to keep a vehicle and keep transmissions in them.

As for your father's decisions, I'm going to give you a tip. My father growing up didn't make a lot of sense at times in many of his decisions (especially with vehicles), but ultimately after getting out into the real world I learned that despite the fact that we didn't always agree (me being right of course on the cars disagreements ;)) and I didn't care for his temper, my father is better than average because he's there for me when I needed help and would do anything to ensure my success and sadly not everyone can say that. I guess my point is father's many times don't make sense, but ultimately they have good reasons for their decisions.