Worth it?

[tahoed47]

I am thinking of buying a 2013 denali hybrid yukon.. had around 125k miles and they want 13k for it.. its pretty clean.. i dont know much about the hybrids.. but i want something big enough to haul around my 3 kids and also have good gas mileage. And from what i seen these are amazing gas mileage.. anything i need to worry about if i buy? Cost of maintenance on hybrid systems? Common problems? Are they worth buying ? Of not .. any recommendations on an 3rd row suv with good gas mileage?

 

[Doubeleive]

from what I know of them transmissions can be hard to come by but otherwise nothing extreme comes to mind. the electric part can make them harder to get repaired at a regular shop unless they have eperience with them. that of course all depends on what needs to be done, many parts are indentical to a standard yukon.

 

[89Suburban]

@j91z28d1

 

[Marky Dissod]

If you ever need to rebuild the hybrid's
Allison 2ML70 transmission
this thread may be helpful.

 

[j91z28d1]

@j91z28d1

oh man what a loaded question.


at this point I'm going to have to ask if you work on your own stuff and do you want to learn to if something happens. cause honestly shops are hit and miss? often miss and that miss hurts your wallet.

I researched a lot before I bought mine and I am technically a mechanic and enjoy weird cars.(I think it was top gear that said life is to short to own boring cars) so I factored in the price of a replacement hybrid battery into what I was willing to pay for it. so far mines been solid hybrid system wise,(once I replaced the battery.) the oem is only good for around 120-130k) mine has 150k on it now and no issues. it's the normal side of the truck I wasn't ready for. the wear items being so spot on. like they will all need this or that at this mileage and then bam. they need it like clock work. there's a thread somewhere in a stickey in a non hybrid forum about all that stuff. these have afm too, so that's a whole another none hybrid can of worms.

perfect example is a few threads down, guy replaced a factory radio and the truck wouldn't start.. mobile mechanic came out. found a blown fuse, one that looks to me like it had nothing to do the radio install. replaces it and it starts but now it revs itself up to like 5k rpms. mechanic doesn't know why and leaves after his hour is up. he gets a 2nd guy out and he doesn't know either. defaults to hybrid battery is bad. but it's been replaced and sad find 2 days ago, so it's not that. so he's towing it to a hybrid shop. probably something simple, but doesn't have a high end scanner to trouble shoot himself. would that have happened with a non hybrid one? no clue but I doubt it.

that's the downsides of all hybrids and electric cars really, when they get old getting them repaired is costly. not because they are bad or worse than normal cars, mostly from the lack of techs knowledge and throwing parts at things is really how their pay structure works. troubleshooting doesn't pay the bills. when you have a lot more systems to thru parts at, your bill is bigger.
the numbers of threads I've seen where they trucks end up being sold off because a shop ran up the bill to more than the truck was worth is just sad to read about.

when they work, I love the thing. it gets a legit 20mpg in soccer mom hell in the city on 87 octane. wife absolutely loves it driving it. it's a big super quiet magic carpet ride that just lofts down the road effortlessly. turns on a dime, wife has easier time parkingit around then a small car. I was supised, I thought she would struggle with a big truck.
I've towed my corvette 2000k mile round trip to a track in FL, rolling 70-80mph getting 17mpg, which doesn't sound great till your realize my friends with diesel trucks, even with all the smog stuff removed don't get any better than that towing the same load paying more per gal in the real world. but being turbo they probably tow nicer thru the mountains thou.

all in all man, if you don't mind small projects like common wear items, keeping a good scanner around. they are great trucks. the trannys are mostly discontinued and most shops won't touch them byond installing a used one for you. which I do see around. I've seen 2 so for local, one was 800$ and the other 900$. but they aren't known to be weak. they are actually a very well designed hybrid tranny, it's a down sized one based on hybrids bus tranny Allison made. I sent off a fluid sample to backstone labs from mine around about 140k and it came back as no signs of anything bad or worn. from my research they will routinely go 300k with just fluid changes. but there are threads of them failing. most likely because of lack of maintenance, just bad luck or the hybrid battery needed to be replaced and wasn't, that's very ******* the tranny, as one motor in the front of the tranny starts the engine,(no standard starter on these. they tranny starts the engine) while the motor in the back of the tranny is driving a 6000lb truck. when the hybrid battery is weak and can't handle the load of both voltage drops and they buck around and all kinds of weird things. it's ******* everything. so try to find out when and if your battery has been changed out. if not, factory in about 2500$ last I looked for people like green bean to come out and swap it out. People seem to have good reviews for them. I rebuilt mine myself with a lithium upgrade. these oem batteries are an older chemistry nickel metal hydride. super safe but old tech. same cells just more of them made by them same Japanese companies that made the early Gen prius battery packs.

so I have a hard time recommending them to normal people when honestly a Toyota mini van would be a much more practical for most people. but the same can be said for the non hybrid ones too. they have the same afm/dod that will most likely take out the cam at some point, the 6 speed tranny is good, but the torque converter needs changed before 120k or it will kill the 3k tranny. like all ls engines, the oil pan gasket will leak at some point, you will probably need a rear main seal soon after that. and don't even Google low oil pressure on this entire Gen 3/4 ls engines haha. you'll find everything from oil pressure sensor to throw the whole engine away and replace for $6k.

in the end.. if it's at a dealership, tell them you want a weekend test drive with it. spend some time with it, and see if you feel like a possible headache is worth it. you might just fall in love with it. or you might find it doing weird stuff that you won't notice on a quick test drive. if they won't do that. they don't want to sell it bad enough haha. if it's a private owner. get every single record of maintenance he has.

 

[BG1988]

Getting 23.8mpg average YTD (last 14,000 miles) (v8 mode) 100% commuting no Autostop no V4 mode


with the P0A80 Code EOL hybrid battery...

Really want that New battery pack so i can get 35-38mpg on that back road AutoStop baby....