Timing Is Everything: The 2019 GMC Sierra Denali 1500 4WD Crew Cab

The 2019 GMC Sierra Denali 1500 4WD Crew Cab.

The pickup truck business, like the pickup truck itself, used to be so simple:  A box up front to hold the engine, a box in the middle to hold three people on a flat bench seat and an open box in the back to haul stuff.  It needed to be fixable with farm tools, rugged enough to withstand abuse for a decade or two and that was pretty much it.

The times, they have a-changed.  Pickup trucks now occupy the space where American luxury cars were when pickups were simple.  They are the Cadillac Fleetwood, Lincoln Continental and Chrysler Imperial of today---judged on their flash, their levels of equipment and creature comforts, their power and their prestige, they are (along with big SUVs based on them like the Suburban, Yukon XL, Expedition, Navigator and Escalade), the only vehicles American manufacturers can ask and get premium prices for.

It is a fickle space, where what was good enough last year might not cut it this year.

Cash On The (Very Big) Hood: The Built-In Discounts of the 2017 GMC Yukon XL Denali

The 2017 GMC Yukon XL Denali.

Things change over 23 years.  And things don't.

What I mean by that is that 23 years ago, I bought the equivalent of the car you see above.  It was known as the GMC Suburban back then.  My first wife was pregnant with our second child.  She didn't like to fly, so this family of four was going to take vacations on the road, and a week or two of that with a toddler and an infant meant a lot of supplies, including a dual stroller, a Pak-n-Play and the like.

She wanted it in red.

I bought the SLE  four-wheel drive model.  It had every option you could get, which pretty much meant cloth seats instead of vinyl, an AM/FM/cassette stereo with six speakers and rear air conditioning.  It had the most powerful gasoline engine available, a 190-horsepower 5.7-liter V8 (though everyone still called it the Chevy 350 then), It got 12 miles per gallon in the city and 16 on the highway no matter how you drove it.

The sticker price was $31,000 and change and I got it for $26,900.

The Mid-Size Diesel That Does: The 2016 GMC Canyon 4WD SLT

The 2016 GMC Canyon 4WD SLT.

Until this year, if you wanted a diesel pickup, you wanted a big pickup.  Not just the full-size half ton pickup, mind you, but one of the "Super Duty", "Extra Duty" or "Heavy Duty" 3/4 ton or one ton trucks.  The last GMC pickup I reviewed was one of those---two years ago---a beautiful behemoth Sierra 2500 HD with an as-tested price of $62,525 and an observed fuel economy of 13.4 miles per gallon in a mix of city street and urban freeway driving.

But what if you want less truck, need a lower purchase price and would like more miles per gallon?

Meet TireKicker's Most Expensive Pickup Truck (So Far): The 2015 GMC Sierra 2500 HD Double Cab SLT

The 2015 GMC Sierra 2500 HD.

An odd thing about living in Arizona that is also probably quite common in places like Texas, Montana and Wyoming:  Heavy Duty pickup trucks are used like passenger cars.  People take them to the mall, to the grocery store.  You will even occasionally see them at a nice restaurant or cultural event, causing no small amount of fear and trepidation for the valet parking people.

These are really trucks that are made for things a normal full-size half-ton pickup cannot accomplish, such as towing very large house or horse trailers.  They are really not meant for urban commuting.  Yet, people do.

The 2014 GMC Sierra Is Why People Buy Full-Size Pickup Trucks

The 2014 GMC Sierra.

Have you read my review of the 2014 Nissan Frontier PRO-4X?  If not, you can click that link or maybe scroll down a post, if the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief is posting these in sequence (I am.-Ed.).

For those not so inclined, the short version: The PRO-4X is a ten-year-old design, refreshed five years ago. A midsize whose roots in the past give it a powertrain that can only manage 15 miles per gallon in the city and 21 on the highway, with an as-tested price of $36,050.

In contrast, look what is happening in full-size trucks:

This is the newly-redesigned GMC Sierra 1500. It and its corporate cousin, the Chevrolet Silverado, are full-size pickups that embody the state of the art of trucks today, engaged in an ongoing game of oneupsmanship with RAM and Ford.  Until the new F-150 arrives in a few months, this is as good as it gets.

New Car Review: 2013 GMC Acadia Denali

Full disclosure:  20 years ago, I signed on the dotted line for five years worth of payments on a brand new 1993 GMC Suburban.  We had a small child, another on the way, Mrs. TireKicker didn't like to fly and so with a week or two worth of vacation clothes, a double stroller, a Pak N' Play and all the rest, the big 'Burban seemed like a sensible family vehicle.

As I said, that was 20 years ago.  Since then, GMC has renamed the Suburban the Yukon XL, and while it's still in production along with its identical cousin, the Chevrolet Suburban, those vehicles have gone back to their roots as vehicles for folks who really need that sort of size and capability.

The mass market for SUVs has found its way into crossovers. You can get seating for seven and double-digit cupholders in surprisingly small packages these days.

Which makes the original big crossovers, which seemed tidy and compact when they arrived six years ago, seem big now.  But big is as big does.  And GMC's done a great job keeping the Acadia Denali on top of its game.

New Car Review: 2011 GMC Terrain




The 2011 GMC Terrain.

As easy as it is to take potshots at badge engineering (taking one vehicle, putting a different grille, taillights and nameplate on it and calling it something else), think about what it must be like to be a corporate cousin of a big volume brand like Chevrolet. You need product or your brand won't survive, and the fact, even prior to the great recession and Carpocalypse, is that the bucks aren't there to build unique vehicles for each brand. Platform sharing...and the more blatant badge engineering...are the only way to go.

2011 GMC Acadia Denali Review

The 2011 GMC Acadia Denali.

Almost 20 years ago,  I bought a GMC Suburban (now known as the Yukon XL). In those days, there was nothing to differentiate the GMC from the Chevrolet except for the badges and the price tag. GMC's was generally a bit more, but I found a dealer who beat all the local Chevy dealers.

It occurred to me at the time that GMC could do very well for itself by making its Suburban a much more luxurious piece than the Chevrolet...leather seats, say...and how about upgraded audio systems? Maybe automatic climate control. Nicer wheels...maybe even a sunroof.

Hard to imagine now, but this was radical thinking at the time, though within 5 years, GM embraced the concept beyond what I was thinking. The GMC version became almost Cadillac-like in its luxury...and then came Cadillac's Escalade, taking it all one giant leap further. And they sold like hot cakes.

The Suburban, Yukon XL and Escalade ESV are all still in production, and still sell, but the strike zone has moved to smaller machines. That's not keeping GM from going back to the playbook for what worked so well a decade and a half ago.

Behold the GMC Acadia Denali. The base Acadia is a reasonably priced vehicle...$32,000. And it's very much like the $29,370 Chevy Traverse. The Denali fixes that...for a price.

Rear three-quarters view of the 2011 GMC Acadia Denali.

The all-wheel-drive Acadia Denali we tested starts at $45,220. 13 grand and change more than the vehicle that underpins it all. And not a penny of it is under the hood. The base Acadia has the exact same 3.6 liter V6 mated to a 6-speed automatic as the Denali.

There's two inches less front headroom and one inch less in the rear, thanks to the standard sunroof,  and you can carry one fewer person thanks to the standard second-row buckets. Otherwise, the dimensions and statistics are the same.

So where's the $13K? On the outside, it's in fog lamps, Xenon HID headlamps, a remote tailgate release, heated exterior mirrors, chrome wheels, performance tires, a trailer hitch reciever and a Denali-specific grille.

The 2011 GMC Acadia Denali interior.

Inside, the Denali steps up with a rear-view camera (always a good idea, especially in SUVs), rear parking assist, dual zone climate control, remote vehicle start, the aforementioned sunroof, power heated driver and front passenger seats, the 2nd row buckets, memory seats, a premium sound system, rear seat audio controls, Bluetooth, a universal home remote control, leather-wrapped steering wheel, auto-dimming rear-view mirror with memory and a power lift gate.

That plus all-wheel drive, which is worth about two grand, so yeah...that's probably about $11,000 worth of options. And our tester had more...$1,890 for nav with 3 months of SiriusXM NavTraffic, $1,445 for a rear seat DVD entertainment center, including headphones, and $795 for White Diamond Tricoat paint (which is very pretty). Bottom line on ours after destination charges: $50,125.

I can't knock the end result...a very luxurious, well mannered, fast, capable SUV. I'm even okay with the price. And the mileage is in the ballpark, too: 16 city/23 highway. What I don't get is why GMC sells an Acadia other than the Denali. Unlike the Yukon/Escalade and Yukon XL/Escalade ESV deal, Cadillac doesn't have a clone of this model...so why bother selling the $32,000 version at all? Why not let that be Chevy's?  If you've got thoughts on that one, I'd love to hear them. Just click the "comments" button.

6 Million GM Light-Duty Trucks Under Fed Investigation: Rusty Brakes

The feds say they've had 110 complaints, 37 confirmed by dealer inspections. Full details from Automotive News (free registration required).

The Taxpayer-Funded $1,000 A Month Auto Lease

Your tax dollars at work. Politico has found that at least 10 members of Congress are paying $1,000 a month or more to lease cars.

Not limos...not armored SUVs....just car cars.

I'm sure, shopping around, you and I could find better deals than $1,628 a month for a GMC Yukon...or $1,279 a month on a Chevy Malibu. But not our elected officials.

Politico has the story here.

GMC Terrain Review

For decades, GMC has been selling re-badged Chevrolet trucks. In fact, for most of that time, the badges (and a slightly higher GMC price tag) were all that separated the products. Then, just in time for the SUV and luxotruck boom, GMC hit on the idea of loading theirs up with luxury features.

Which was fine until Cadillac started selling its own tarted-up Chevys and suddenly Escalades were only a bit more expensive than Yukon Denalis.

Though Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer and SAAB were the obvious targets, GMC could have been another casualty of last year's Carpocalypse.  Not enough money to develop its own product line...not enough difference between GMC and Chevy.

But GMC survived the cut and the Terrain is meant to be the template for the way forward. Based on the Chevrolet Equinox,  GMC makes a lot of changes to the appearance of the vehicle yet keeps the base price within $1,000 of the Chevy.

Move up the trim levels and the differences magnify. The tester I drove was the top-of-the-line SLT-2, $7,600 more expensive than the base Equinox, but with an impressive list of standard features (power liftgate, 18-inch wheels, rearview camera system, sunroof, leather, heated seats, climate control, a Pioneer premium sound system and more).

That actually still leaves room for options...though with a standard content level that high, there's a limit...in the case of our tester, an additional $5,140.

The 3.0 liter V6 replaced the standard 2.4 liter four at a cost of $1,500. Horsepower goes up from 182 to 264, torque from 174 pounds per foot to 222. But gas mileage takes a big hit...from an EPA estimated 22 city/32 highway to a fairly pedestrian (for this class of small SUV) 17/24. And the gas tank size goes up from 18 gallons to 20...making each fill-up a bit pricier.

Ours also had the navigation system (a $2,145 choice we'd never make, though it does add a 40 gigabyte hard drive for music storage) , 19-inch wheels ($900), trailering equipment ($350) and a cargo management package (rear cargo security cover, cargo convenience net and roof rack crossbars for $245.

Bottom line, with $745 for destination charges: $36,885.

I liked it. A very nice ride. My wife informed me a few minutes ago that if the Terrain had a third row of seats, she'd want one.

But $36,885 for a small SUV gives me pause.

It could work for GMC, though...taking the Terrain out of direct competition with Chevy but into a size and price range where they're not bumping up against Cadillac and, by comparison to that brand, seem like a bargain.

Here's how GMC's making that case: