tahoe hybrid

Anyone have experience? How are they aging? Is it worth the complexity vs. say a regular tahoe?

I witnessed/viewed/suffered through the hybrid training for those beasts. I'd stick to regular gasoline.

In reply to Ranger50:

I was kinda thinking that, but have seen a few for as cheap or cheaper than regular tahoe's.. any thoughts on reliability?

Weren't these the ones where the electric motor was built into the trans?

How were they a PITA? I'm asking for a friend who likes hybrids.

Were they as crappy as the Ecotec based hybrids where the electric motor just backdrove the whole engine and everything for a 2mpg increase in economy?

Wiffee wanted one of these and I had to exlplain that they defeated therefore purpose of an "merican" truck...

The Tahoe and Escalade hybrid were real-deal hybrids, not like the EcoAssist cars that basically just had a big starter motor.

I don't have personal experience with them, but IIRC the car mags said they added a lot of cost and complexity and only netted a 1-2mpg gain. More of a "green initiative" publicity stunt than anything.

I do remember that engineers said in articles that a 4400-5000 lb truck/suv needs a lot of energy to move.

Klayfish wrote: I don't have personal experience with them, but IIRC the car mags said they added a lot of cost and complexity and only netted a 1-2mpg gain. More of a "green initiative" publicity stunt than anything.

According to EPA numbers, the Hybrids got 5mpg improvements in city driving and 3mpg in highway driving for final numbers of 20/23mpg. Definitely not huge gains, but in the right situation a 5mpg jump in city fuel economy can be a nice boost.

One of our customers had a Denali hybrid for a few years and had no trouble with it.

All we ever did was regular maintenance stuff, nothing broke or wore out unexpectedly. He seemed very happy with it. I was skeptical when he bought it but it really changed my mind about hybrid tech.

STM317 wrote:

Klayfish wrote: I don't have personal experience with them, but IIRC the car mags said they added a lot of cost and complexity and only netted a 1-2mpg gain. More of a "green initiative" publicity stunt than anything.

According to EPA numbers, the Hybrids got 5mpg improvements in city driving and 3mpg in highway driving for final numbers of 20/23mpg. Definitely not huge gains, but in the right situation a 5mpg jump in city fuel economy can be a nice boost.

A 33% increase for city driving and 15% on the highway, seems like a good gain to me.

I'm used to reading fleet management magazines for the trucking industry and everything is always .1-3% gain and that can be huge when you're driving lots of miles.

My old boss had one. Why GM mated the electric motors with a 6.0L LS is really beyond my comprehension. My not the 4.8L??? They were only sold as loaded up as possible so likely seen as a premium therefore 6.0L.

IIRC there is no reverse gear in the trans. The electric motors do it. They had a number of one off parts - different hood, different seats, etc. All lighter than a standard Tahoe. All of this to make up for the weight of the electric motors and battery pack. In the 4 years he owned it, it had one sensor go bad.

Up here the engine had to run all winter so no gain on MPG in the cold. When he traded it in he was told that it was on a truck to Texas as soon as he signed the papers.

STM317 wrote:

Klayfish wrote: I don't have personal experience with them, but IIRC the car mags said they added a lot of cost and complexity and only netted a 1-2mpg gain. More of a "green initiative" publicity stunt than anything.

According to EPA numbers, the Hybrids got 5mpg improvements in city driving and 3mpg in highway driving for final numbers of 20/23mpg. Definitely not huge gains, but in the right situation a 5mpg jump in city fuel economy can be a nice boost.

That's a 33% gain in city and, what, 15% highway? That's pretty impressive if you ask me.

I still like the idea of trucks with onboard 110, 220, or even three phase 240. The hardware is mostly all there already.

I dont know of many V8 SUV owners who actually hit the city mpg ratings. Realistically the GM 2-mode hybrid suvs got 5-7mpg more than the non-hybrids in city driving, and the same or slightly better on highway. Proportionally they saved more gas than something like a Prius or Insight did. They were also faster than non-hybrids, which wasn't true of many hybrids at that time. Overall i think they were a good idea with good results.

GM also had hybrid pickups but they were actually a different setup. Those were the ones with AC power ports built in. The SUVs used the '2-mode hybrid' system and i dont recall them having onboard AC outlets.