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Chevrolet Avalanche
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When I got mine, there are plenty of front bench Z66 in Austin, TX.
Info on a gently off-road experience in the Pine Barrens of Central/Southern NJ. Come on out for a day of adventure, fun, and comradre with fellow SUV/Off-road/Rally/Car Nuts! Info at http://isuzu-suvs.com/events
-mike
-Lately, what prices have you been seeing or have gotten? We live in the Northeast (Delaware to be exact) and I've been searching inventories on GMbuypower lately. I've found a few that are close to what we'd want and they all sticker right around $33,000. There's the $2002 rebate still until April, but what kind of discount would a dealer be giving? How much off or at invoice before the rebate? I remember reading people getting close to about $5,000 grand off w/o (I think) the rebate factored in. Any better or worse?
-From what I was looking though, I could find a few Pewter Z66's, some with the buckets, and one or two with the Conveniance package, but none with sunroof. Idealy, we'd like to get a Pewter Z66 with the sunroof only and just the standard bench seat. But, from what I've seen so far, the closest I can get is the Z66 and the bench seat. So, have any of you had the dealer install an aftermarket power sunroof? Good results and price? Or, would you recommend just having the exact one we want located if possible?
-Also, what have been the main problems any of you've had? Any rattles or leaks? That's one of the main reasons we want to ditch our 2000 Chrysler 300M as rattles and squeaks are annoying and are hard to fix. We also have a trunk that leaks sometimes, but that's probably because of being rear-ended back in October. Beautiful car, but we've jsut been to the dealer one too many times, the quality isn't that great, and we want something bigger and safer. The Avalanche is absolutely perfect for us, size, power, looks, it has it all.
-Is it really as smooth and quiet on the road as everyone says? Anything is better than our 300M here too, as it's one of the noisiest cars we've had. We don't want road noise nor do we want to fell all the bumps.
Thanks again, and any commentary would be very much appreciated from current or future owners!!
I bought mine in the N CA area a few weeks ago. It was $200 over invoice before the 2k rebate. Didn't do any bargain. Just gave my over over the net (via the official gm site). Almost all the dealers were selling at or just above invoice. N CA tends to be more expensive than S CA and other regions. I imagine you can get as good, if not a better deal elsewhere. There are plenty of supply. You may go the the 'gm buypower' site to check the inventories of the dealers. Pick the one you want and email the dealer your offer. No one laughed at my offers. They usually just counter offer you a price if yours is too low for them.
-- Don
So, do you have an Avalanche?
-- Don
The cabin is very quite, but I'd go with the Z66 2WD package if you don't want to feel bumps. The Z71, while smooth for a pickup, is still subject to feeling pavement joints and jolts. I think the Z66 is smoother, but I'm not sure how much.
BTW - I used the GM Supplier discount, which worked out to about invoice price. So it probably didn't save me much money, but I didn't have to haggle either.
Good Luck.
I would like to specifically ask midlifecrisis:
how does the vehicle compare with your expectations thus far?
Kind of like now. Our 300M is really not gaining any value by the passing days and the $2002 rebate ends April 1 (or whenever they decide to extend it to again). There's also the fact that we want to get out of our current car as soon as we can while still being able to afford it. So, if the deal is good enough, we can live without a sunroof. We use our 300M's a lot now, but it's not really a necessity.
Also, how's the handling? I've heard it's fairly good for such a big and high vehicle, but any other comments? And as far as supensions, do most prefer the Z66 and Z71 over the base setup? I like the Z66 more because of the rear leveling and bigger wheels that fill up the wheel wells more and look nicer.
And, last but not least, pricing. I'm looking at an Avalanche Z66 with a sticker of $32,798 and an invoice of $29,245. I know there's the $2002 rebate but would an additional $5k discount be too much to ask for? I'm looking for about $7,000 off total, bringing it to slightly under $26k. Is such a deal too much to ask or is it quite possible to get with a bit of haggling? The dealer I found the black Z66 at advertises a little more than $5,000 off in the paper and on their site.
One thing to remember is that GMBuyPower DOES NOT have all inventory listed. Only the dealer system DOES! GMBuyPower lags in timeliness to the dealer system AND is not accurate. After not finding the Trans Am my wife wanted on GMBuyPower, we went into a dealer and had him check HIS system. Sure enough, we tracked down the exact car she wanted, at another dealer. The car we found for her NEVER appeared on GMBuyPower inventory and the dealer had it for about 2 months!
I have not used the midgate yet except to test it out and demonstrate it. I'll probably need it soon as we will be buying an oven range.
The Av handles and drives very well, especially for a 5700 lb vehicle with an off-road suspension. It isn't like driving a Buick LeSabre, but what do you expect?
The toughest part to adjust to is the size of the truck. Backing and parking took some getting used to. But if my wife can do it, anybody can! Ironically, once inside the cab, everybody tells me that it doesn't seem to drive or feel like a huge vehicle.
I'm not going to be real happy with gas mileage, but that's not why you buy this vehicle. Our first tank yielded 13.2 mpg around town for the 4WD Z-71. It will probably increase to 14-15 mpg when broken in. On trips I hope to get around 17 mpg. With my Windstar minivan, I was only getting 15-16 mpg around town anyway.
"Thank you for using GM BuyPower. I am GM BuyPower/Internet Manager here at Diver Chevrolet. Our selling price to you would be at our dealer invoice price minus all incentives. This is $29,245.23 - $2002 or $27,243.23 plus tax and title fees. I realize that this only represents a $5,554.77 discount off of the "sticker" price. I put the term sticker in quotation marks because there are many ways that dealers can inflate the sticker price and show a greater discount. Although this may seem a bit unscrupulus, it is a fairly common practice because ot the many shoppers that base their buying decisions on the discount amount. The most common way that this is done is for the dealer to add(or install) products to the vehicle that might cost just $100 to $200, but add the inflated retail price of say $1000 to $1200 to the "sticker" price. Now they can show you an additional discount of $700 to $1000(ie making their discount seem greater that the competition's). This is why I offer to fax you the actual Invoice to the vehicle you are interested in. This will help you to make the most informed(I hope) decision. I look forward to hearing from you so that I can get you the copy of the Invoice and answer any further questions that you may have."
To me at least, the guy seems really nice and straightforward, along with offering a good price from the start. Invoice minus the $2002, nothing else. So, do you guys think this is a good deal? If we can get the right amount for our 300M, it could possibly be a done deal soon.
So another question, when buying an Avalanche, what are the main things to look for on the vehicle? Are there any common little things to look for like loose pieces or odd noises? Is it necessary to do a water check with the Midgate?
This dealer is 2 hours away, so we'd probably only want to go once to look at and pick up the vehicle, so I just want to have all the ends covered before hand.
Another thing I'm looking into is financing. Through who did any of you recent Avalanche buyers get? Peoplefirst seems good to work with and we want the best rate possible for 60 months.
And BTW the On-Star system has been of no use whatsoever; took over 30 minutes to get them to take any action at all; they required that I have a case number from the police before they would do anything; luckily the local police reacted quickly and produced one for me and communicated it directly to On-Star. Now over eight hours later - not a word from On-Star.
Police indicated the Av was probably headed to a chop shop and located in a metal building making the On-Star of no use.
So far I like it a lot, made the trip with 4 adults and they were bragging about how comfortable the rear seat was. Handeling was fine on rough ranch roads but fortunately did not require 4WD. The interior that I chose was the charcoal leather cloth combo. Looks good but I use this truck in dirty dusty terrain and on would chose the light colored interior if I had to do it over.
I'm kind of disappointed that you only got 15.3 mpg with 85% highway driving. I was hoping to get around 17 mpg for long trips. My first tank with mostly around town driving was 13.2 mpg. I also have the Z-71 with a 3.73.
I still have yet to find another 2wd in stock anywhere with the bench seat in either pewter or black within 150 miles. I know GMBuypower isn't always up to date correctly so I have a dealer not far from here doing a search for me. He said they'll search the same places I've tried and see what he can come up with. We'll see what he comes up with.
Too bad we don't want the buckets, because I could get a good deal and find one easily.
Just ran into another issue. Here in Delaware when you buy a new car, you get temp. tags for a certain period and then you get new state tags. We have a special vanity plate and paid extra to have it transferred to the 300M from our old car when we bought it. But, if we sold the 300M, I'm thinking that'd we'd most likely lose the tag as they'd probably not let us keep it, even if we are buying a new car immediately after. Maybe there's some way? We'll have to call the DMV and check.
Venadoloco - glad to here of the 16+ mpg, maybe there's hope yet to getting 17 +/- mpg. My wife wanted the pewter Av, but we couldn't find one with the options we wanted. We ended up with black, which obviously is the worst color to keep clean!
As for the seats, it's my mother who's the one wanting to buy an Avalanche and get rid of her 2000 Chrysler 300M. When it comes to cars, she is not particular at all, other than color. And, it must not have any rattles, be quiet, and ride well. So, when it came to finding an Avalanche, she really didn't care what was on it, and just wanted the least amount of "junk" and the bench seat. In our house, there's 2 teenagers, 2 adults, and a poodle. She wants to have a lot of room and be able to carry 6 people. We also had a 2002 Buick LeSabre rental for a month, and she came to love having a front bench seat. So, I was very lucky to find a Z66 with it, and in a color she'd take, black.
There's a dealer that's closer to us who has 4 Z66's on the lot, 2 black, 1 blue, and 1 green. They all have the bucket seats, and both of the black ones have the neutral interior. He'll give me a better price than the one I found with the bench, the dealer is a lot closer to us, and I'm starting to think that the Neutral interior would be easier to keep clean and maybe a little cooler, though with black paint, it'll always be cookin' inside! But, like I said, they both have the buckets. We hope to go look at and test drive an Av. sometime tomorrow or whenever and see about what seats we like better.
I have a question though. With the bench, it seems as though you lose quite a bit of storage space without the console. I can't tell from pictures, but with the bench, does the center armrest open up with a storage compartment?
And as far as transferring the tags if we sell the car, I still think it could be done. Here, cars and trucks do have different plates if you have the standard state tags. With vanitys, I know it's different somehow but not exactly sure. There must be some way, or at least we hope! We should call the DMV sometime. She'd hate to have to lose her special lighthouse "JOURNEY" tag, named for the 80's band.
Times ticking, and March is already half over! We have to figure out a way to get the 300M sold for enough and buy a new Avalanche before the rebate ends. Also, because we have a 7-hour trip planned on April 5th to visit family back in Pennsylvania, and it sure would be nice to have a vehicle that we can fit all our stuff in and still have room, and a vehicle that doesn't deafen us on the highway with tremendous road noise! I better hurry up!
Just my .02 cents...
Since your truck is still covered under the 3/36 warranty, these problems should be covered under it regardless of who caused it. The dealer seems more interested in making the $100 than keeping a good relationship with the customer. I'd keep an eye out on these guys.
But if you go with the 1500, definitely go with the 4.10 as a minimum.
-Mark
GM is making the cladding optional because it costs $750 per vehicle and it doesn't do much to attract buyers. The plastic will remain available as an option.
-John