Leaderboard

YOU JUST BOUGHT A (basically) BRAND NEW TRUCK LIKE 38 MINUTES AGO! - - - - - I think that Northsky Blue is my favorite. I love black, but I think I'd pass on it. The Red Tintcoat is very nice, but I'm not a bright vehicle color guy. - - - - - '20 Sierra Elevation in Carbon Black, Crew Cab / Standard Bed, 3.0L TD :

You're a bad influence @balthazar !! I should NOT be on Chevy's website... Crewcab standard bed RST with the 6.2 liter and 10-speed - $52,310 I wish it was a bluer blue though.

People don't get on automotive forums to be happy....they go on them to be miserable. Want to find a group of guys who really don't like Mustangs...go to the Mustang forums...lots of guys bitching there. People really don't want to be happy, and often they alck the emotional security to be happy regardless of what life brings them. I love all three trucks, the Rubicon, the super duty, and the Chevy. they Chevy looks damn near perfect just like THAT IMHO. Also, the super duty with the bigger tires and lift is just the bomb. Agree on less is more. While I had flags on the roof of my MINI Cooper S, I decided not to put stripes on my 70 Chevelle or 71 Chevelle, or either of my Miatas. I like a really clean look with any vehicle. More and more I just like all black, including the rims. I love that retro font. Design in many ways was so much better in the 1950's. Allison trans would push me towards GM were I to buy a diesel truck.

I KNOW! THAT'S WHY I SAID YOU'RE A BAD INFLUENCE! I love my truck, but I can't help looking.

$50K annual net = $4166/month. 10% of that is a payment of $416. To me, that sounds high vs. the monthly, enthusiast or not. https://www.cars.com/car-loan-calculator/ The above link is handy. A vehicle sold with 6% sales tax, no trade in, $3500 down at 3% interest would have to sticker at $29,000 to get the 72-month payment to $414/mnth. So apparently, via the financial standard, that 10% doesn't even get you to the median new car sticker (at $50K income). The average U.S. annual median income was $33,700 in 2018. Personally, I don't like a 72-mnth plan but might consider it. I would never go higher (84 or more), even tho I have been keeping my daily drivers way longer than I expected to (14 yrs, and 12 yrs). What tempers the question ["what percentage of one's income should an enthusiast spend?"] is that income and assets aren't the same thing. Some folk have liquid assets which may boost their ability to spend more than their recommended 10% monthly income. Whether they put in a larger down payment, or swing a larger monthly... After all of the above rambling... I don't know if there's a hard answer to the question.

Horse pucky. Gears & chains, engineered by a missile tech dude. Indestructible.

As I drive around, I think it is obnoxious for dealerships to have placed a decal or emblem on the trunk lid or rear door of a vehicle you may have bought from them. I don't want their decal or emblem on my vehicle - on the paint surface - doing free advertising for them. They can give me their dealership license plate frames. I can then decide what to do with them. I typically decide not to put them on the car at all. Less is more.

GM and other automakers do not market their EV's much at all, maybe that will change. I think GM's marketing dept. is told to push to the masses what moves on the lots even though that seems counter intuitive, no real need to market them as much if they are selling well. That was the biggest reason for the Volt's demise and the ELR as well, a horrible marketing campaign, even though the ELR was also priced too high for it's class. The Voltec powertrain was great and really the best technology for the current "fueling" infrastructure we have. We shall see what The General comes up with for the marketing campaign of the new Cadillac IQ line of BEV's and what they do with the Silverado/Sierra e trucks in the coming months or years. They have more skin in the game now, so it should be a much different show.

I like the Chevys as long as they're not overloaded with chrome. So the RST and the High Country work for me. The opposite is true at GMC.... Denali all the way baby, although the Elevations and AT4s are great looking too.

I like her better than the car.....! Don't feel bad, I am looking at Wranglers and wodnering about the upcoming Bronco. I really like the looks of the new GMC. Alot. I just bought a new truck, as did Drew...cmon...join the club!

I like the Trail Boss package, but wish it has the monochromatic look of the RST. My biggest pet peeve is the drab interiors of Chevrolet. Jet Black or this blah multi grey interior just sucks IMHO. Why not a tan or a lovely mocha brown interior. Options GM, Need BETTER OPTIONS for interior colors. Saw this video, truly a young bear, looking for food and water. This happens yearly here in the greater Seattle suburbs. Gates are required, but seems even a 6 foot gate does not keep the bears out. Very scary for sure for the humans who under estimate the bears. That is a sharp looking truck, way nicer looking IMHO than the Chevy.

Yeah; I've built the Buick all with 'side money', IE; not paycheck money. I never wanted to be constricted on how/when I spend on it. I already have about -God I hate to commit this number to cyberspace, but- $20K invested so far between parts & hired labor (my time is free). That, plus the time span, I think, ironclads my 'enthusiast level'. Jeez- I took it off the frame / reunited it- most hobbyists never go that far. Since it's a 'side money' project & household finances aren't involved, it technically doesn't 'count' per the discussion terms as stated, IMO. I was more so referring to a daily driver / household budgeting purchase. A dream vehicle should always be more important to the enthusiast than a daily driver, but not everyone can work separating finances like that. To be honest, I can afford to buy a brand new 'household' $50K truck.... but my fiscal approach is highly resistant to letting me do so.

Whoo - that IS a bad influence! Understood, but I can't help reminding readers I last bought a truck 61 years ago tomorrow. Same model line, so that's logical.

'63 Studebaker Lark R-2. Rare machine, factory supercharged, full factory spec verified via engine teardown, runs a best of 12.2 @ 114 MPH.

Labor Party in the UK wants to change the ban on new ICE auto sales from the current 2025 to 2030. This will require that the Labor party get the conservative party to join in making this change which would also help the UK meet their Paris accord for reduction in air pollution. Originally the Conservative party had passed banning ICE auto's starting in 2040, but due to changes in ICE production in the country, companies like Honda moving production to the US as well as other auto company changes, the Conservatives changed this to 2035 to match when certain auto companies will leave the UK. A growing base of Businesses and city councils are calling for a more ambitious phase-out policy of stopping all Petrol, Diesel, Hybrid and Van sales within the UK. The UK has avoided brown out this crazy year with work from home and pandemic lock downs due to the Tesla battery stations they have been installing across the country. Microsoft has moved their data center to below the ocean to reduce power needs for cooling, etc. The move to natural sounds, cleaner air and a better over all life style seems to be driving this change in the UK. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? https://electrek.co/2020/09/18/egeb-uk-ice-cars-2030-microsoft-data-center/#more-147706

Oh, yeah, back to my random thought ... backed up by a photo: You RARELY ever see something like this ... the ultimate car for progressives (cough) with a rosary hanging off the rear view mirror. Very funny ... at least to me, who sees the incongruence in it.

Or the aircraft style controls seen on some '60s concept cars...or the wrist band steering..

That's common for Jeeps I hear LOL!! My cousin has a Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. I mean like @balthazar stated it's the same model. It's hard to change too much on a layout engineers have worked on perfecting for decades. What do you want the steering wheel in the middle of the dash?!

It really isn't, if you sat in both back to back you'd see the obvious differences. The dash layout is different, the center stack is more spread out in the '19 - current T1XX and it's slightly taller with a longer, flatter front. It also has new buttons, dials and switches and totally new steering wheel. I prefer the center stack of my '18 K2XX right now. It'll all grow on me, but it is noticeably different.

I like the AT4 look but the 2” lift is a deal breaker for me. Also like that there is a LTZ for those that want it; i like chrome just fine. I’ve looked occasionally for a license frame from either my ‘59 or ‘64. ‘59 came from a small PA dealer (Pollino Buick-Pontiac) already gone by 1990, ‘64 came from a huge Chicago dealer (Grossinger Pontiac), now a conglomerate dealer, but neither the lil guy or the giant seems to have hardly advertised at all back in the day. Never seen a plate frame ever.

At the Ground Breaking Ceremony for the All New Ford F-150 EV, Ford released the first of the official images of the new electric F-150. Also additional video of their electric truck doing trailer loaded testing. They also released a image of the new expansion at the Rouge plant. As stated by the press, end to end lighting is the theme for EV trucks / SUVs it seems as the Hummer also will have this as does the Rivian auto's. https://electrek.co/2020/09/17/ford-f150-electric-pickup-testing-footage-impressive-performance/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/the-electric-ford-f-150-will-be-the-fastest-most-powerful-f-150-ever/ar-BB198YXb?ocid=uxbndlbing https://www.foxnews.com/auto/heres-what-the-electric-ford-f-150-looks-like

I prefer a car fit for humans....this is fit for a Money, Kia Soul fit for a hamster. Please bring me a car for humans... Amazing the difference between a crappy SUV and a real off road vehicle.

My previous vehicle while not being my " dream car" definitely was a vehicle that combined daily duties and "fun" duties. And I think it absolutely qualified as enthusiast vehicle. It required certain sacrifices, but I bought it used and very inexpensive, it served me well in both duties. However, I have a very long commute and put between 25k to 30k miles a year, therefore getting a nicer vehicle was counterproductive. I decided that next time around I will have a cheap inexpensive daily and than I will hopefully will be able to get the car of my dream, or at least something else that will be fun if I can't afford the car I want. I have a side job and my wife agreed that the money from a side job will be my "fun" car money. So I am saving up now.

I will have to admit that I always watch those "bear in someone's back yard" videos ... more than once. It's probably the only dangerous animal for which people minimize how dangerous it is. We idealistically think it will go on eating its berries from the berry patch and leave us humans alone. This was in a Boston suburb. Bears seem to like pools and hot tubs, too. This was a younger bear. That's why it scampered off the way it did. (note: look toward the end, the bear seems to come back for a while)

I certainly don't hate it as much as I probably "should".

It's a decent enough blue. Weird that, with those blues, of which there are quite a few these days, they do not allow a tan interior. That combo looks good. I was going to say the dashboard and cabin look good. A lot going on in that pod over at the left with the air vent. But, overall, nice.

Not going to lie, it’s funky, kinda like it....

"Mud & Sand"...more like "Water & Puddles" for city dwellers

Right now, fossil fuels, namely gasoline and diesel, are still the easiest, quickest way to fuel up your vehicle. Comparably sized ICE vehicles are still much less expensive up front than a BEV counterpart. Li-ion battery technology has gotten much better and costs continue to come down, but they still need some work. EVSE Infrastructure is also still not where it needs to be and it hasn't changed a whole lot from 5 years ago when I was with Blink Network (an EVSE Manf. and Distributor based in Phoenix) back in 2015. It still just doesn't pencil out for most people as a daily driver, here in the U.S. as least. Until you own and live with one like I did you don't know what it means to make the move to an EV. It's a totally different life and you often have to schedule your day around your EV and charging station locations, so there's always going to be range anxiety for a BEV daily driver. It's really a necessity, similar to how a private pilot plots their flight plan for fuel stops at airports along a given route. On the other hand, GM's Ultium batteries use a high level of nickel, an obvious expensive precious metal and I'm curious to see if they found a way to quickly charge the batteries with a higher level of nickel content that maybe extends the battery life. GM also just released "Ultium Drive" their in house EV drive division. It's not surprising why Honda Motor Co. and Nikola Corp. are partnering up with GM for their Ultium product line. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/general-motors/2020/09/16/gm-introduces-ultium-drive/5814405002/

When I was in the Philly area last weekend and driving around at night, I was noticing my headlights were pretty dim. Since halogens can dim with age and these are most likely the originals, I decided to upgrade to LED. One set in. Both in

GM announced today their new family of EV motors, The Ultium Drive family. The Ultium Drive family is made up of five interchangeable drive units and three motors. This will help transition the current portfolio of auto's to fully electric lineup. Performance, scale, speed to market and manufacturing efficiencies will provide GM significant advantages over past EV auto's. GM is leading the way with industry class leading drive units that use an electric motor and single-speed transmissions to apply power best in class horsepower and torque. Ultium Drives will be more responsive than internal combustion motors with precision torque control of the motors and smooth performance. The design and development of the Ultium Drive modular architecture allows us to offer industry-leading torque with power density across a wide spectrum of different vehicles types. GM has applied their 25 years of EV experience in creating the Ultium Drive family with lighter and more efficient designs. The Ultium Drive family integrates the power electronics into the drive units assemblies allowing for a 50% reduction in electronics over previous auto's thus saving cost and packaging space while increasing capability by 25 percent. To Quote GM press release: “As with other propulsion systems that are complex, capital intensive and contain a great deal of intellectual property, we’re always better off making them ourselves,” said Adam Kwiatkowski, GM executive chief engineer, Global Electrical Propulsion. “GM’s full lineup of EVs should benefit from the simultaneous engineering of Ultium Drive. Our commitment to increased vertical integration is expected to bring additional cost efficiency to the performance equation.” Ultium-Drive-to-Help-Power-GMs-All-Electric-Future.mp4 https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2020/sep/0916-ultium-drive.html

...and Fred Flintstone's trap door in the floorboard to peddle it if you don't want the 4.3 propulsion system.

Ferrari, Rolls, Jaguar, Jeep.... many many OEMs bought GM Hydramatic units of various designs and put them into their vehicles. But yes; best case scenario is that GM produces them in-house.

Yep. And the gauges are functional actual readout gauges with engine temp. 0 - 260 F, oil pressure 0 - 80 psi (big one) and actual voltage 0 - 18 volts, not idiot gauges like the competition uses with C - H and L - H, really like how GM has always used them in their trucks and SUV's and continues to. It's the detail oriented part of me that likes it I guess

Have to say that the green car report web site brings up an interesting and solid discussion on the new Ultium Drive family. IS THIS THE SMALL-BLOCK V8 of the EV Generation? GM's Ultium Family announcement drives a package of electronics, motor and transmission to an all in one encompassing power train. With horsepower ranging from 235 HP to 1000 HP and battery packs up to 600 miles of range one cannot but help make these comparisons. GM Launched what has become the most popular, reliable small-block V8 engine with Tubo-Hydramatic transmissions the world has seen which have been sourced according to the story below to Rolls=Royce, Bentley, Ferrari, etc. GM Small-Block motors have been used around the world. Honda has now signed on to use the Ultium family of motors and their next generation of EV platform for Honda auto's that will be sold globally in Europe and North America. This will help to quickly drive down costs of the power train and battery. Nikola has signed on to use the Ultium family and Platform plus use a Hydrogen generator to give their pickup truck crazy long range. One does have to wonder with 100 million plus small black V8's built to date. Could the Ultium family be the next centennial power train line? https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129625_will-gm-s-ultium-drive-be-the-small-block-v-8-for-a-generation-of-evs

Expect this to be the last Hurrah as we move to EV's and all digital screen dashes. Cadillac 2021 dash

Either way, given that I'm not a truck customer and never noticed this before, these are nice dashboards but then there's a lot of width to use as a canvas. There's some good symmetry going on, they're logically laid out and the controls are probably easy to get used to (compared to some messy set ups), the bump up and curvature for the center stack is nice, and there are 4( ! ) gauge bezels between the tach and the speedo (don't know what they indicate, but more is better in this case). We need to stay here, when the trend is toward idiot lights and away from gauges. The only thing I see is that the left pod is sort of chunky.

I could be happy with this truck if there was no EV trucks coming.

The old metal dealer badges from the '60s-70s are kind of neat..it's always interesting too when the badge is quite far from where it's spotted...my Jeep has a Bill Luke Phoenix badge on the back (where I bought it from). I've thought about getting an Orange Coast Jeep Costa Mesa license plate frame as that is where it was originally sold new. My local CJRD dealer here in Cleveland is Spitzer, they now have plastic badges, but they used to have metal ones, with this neat font (which they still use today):

Very true. The Silverado LTZ they chrome the bumper and lower trim as well as the grille...WAY too much chrome. I agree, GMC does it right with the Denali, the in your face chrome grille works because they have the bumper the body color. Body color bumpers or all black like the TB are the way to go. Sierra AT4 for me, body color bumpers and black chrome grille, looks sick.

I honestly think your truck looks way better than the current Chevrolet design. Go GMC is how I would direct people right now, way better looking truck. Over all, Love your Avalanche!

You are right, I don't think there is a hard answer for this question. I just expect people that are passionate about automotive world to invest more into their passion. It doesn't have to be something very fancy or very fast. People can get a cheap off-road vehicle or cheap older sporty car or classic car, and do off-road, autocross, track days, weekend cruises, whatever more inline with their tastes. I just expect people who call themselves auto enthusiast to show some kind of effort, otherwise they are just an average, maybe slightly more informed consumers. For example, you might not be able to buy a $50+k truck of your dreams but your are spending your time and money building the car of your dream. It might be awhile before you finish it but nevertheless you put your time and money into it.

I do see GM as a leader in developing this tech....hence my previous comment about a BEV Blazer. I think it would be kick ass!!

Yeah, but, that doesn't mean it looks good.

@David No apologies for being a carnivore. Have a tough time with ribs. Strange consistency and aftertaste. Better than most lamb, though. Have never ordered them. Will accept them upon entering and exiting a supermarket when they will give out free samples (going forward, that'll be the day). Great photos, by the way. For meat, I'm all about the types they serve at Brazilian steakhouses (the different sirloins and the filet mignon) but that's a quarterly event, at best. I'm learning to eat more poultry and I now enjoy fish a lot, which I detested as a kid.

Ribs ??? Pork ???

Looks much better!

As I’ve stated before; my current daily is 16 yrs old & have been driving it for 14 yrs.

You make sense to me. It's too big of a paradigm shift for people who are used to cars and want no more than cars. I see Ford Fusions everywhere and I think KIa Fortes are probably very reliable. We know the Asians and Europeans will not exit the car market. Also, with each refresh, these little Asian cars have gotten a little bit bigger (more comfortable) and feature more advanced technology, such as forward collision alert and avoid.

We’ll have to see. I would think they would need some base trucks for places like auto part stores and such. They would be silly to have no work trucks........