The top-of-the-line Chevy Suburban High Country looks like a car of a bygone period. Surely there’s no purpose why anyone would shell out rattling close to $92,000 for a 19-foot-long behemoth with a 6.2-liter gas-guzzling V8 in 2023. I admit I, too, was completely a nonbeliever. But then I drove it.
Living with the Suburban makes you understand why it prices as a lot because it does, and why so many individuals purchase rigs like this yearly. It’s a car meant to suit your total household, their associates, their pets, and a month’s value of bags, all whereas towing a ship and cruising quietly and comfortably down the freeway. And the Suburban does that job higher than absolutely anything I’ve ever pushed.
Full Disclosure: Chevrolet lent me this Suburban with a full tank of gasoline to do what I needed for an prolonged weekend in Northeast Pennsylvania. I went to my first baptism.
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Everything concerning the 2023 Chevy Suburban is very large. From its footprint to its engine to the sensation you get while you’re behind the wheel, you can not escape that large-and-in-charge aura. You are answerable for a car that weighs a tick over 6,000 kilos, and should you load it as much as its most capability, you’ll be piloting an SUV that weighs over 7,600 kilos. Ain’t America one thing?
You do get plenty of car for that weight, although. The Suburban is simply shy of 19 toes lengthy and almost 7 toes broad, not together with the mirrors. Luckily, this Suburban High Country was geared up with a improbable 360-degree digital camera system that made even tight New York City streets simple to handle. Hey, if Uber drivers can do it, so can I.
That big footprint lends itself to an equally huge inside. The Suburban High Country is configured to seat seven passengers, with two captain’s chairs within the second row, but when your loved ones is the dimensions of a CYO basketball group, you will get seating for eight and even 9 passengers, with a front-row bench and every thing.
The seven-seat configuration is ideal for households who don’t like one another very a lot, principally as a result of nobody will even be in the identical zip code after they’re sitting on this automotive. You’ll by no means run out of head-, shoulder-, knee- or leg-room. Even third-row occupants will likely be snug sitting three-across, and the trunk continues to be huge. With the third row up, there’s 41.5 cubic toes of cargo house. Those seats can fold on the press of a button to present you 93.8 cubic toes of cargo house. If you’re transferring all the contents of a small home and have to drop the second row, you’ll have greater than 144 cubic toes of room. That’s 20 extra cubic toes than you get in a long-wheelbase Ford Expedition Max.
Super Cruising
General Motors’ Super Cruise hands-free freeway driving help is superior, but it surely doesn’t come low cost. It’ll price you $2,500 up entrance, and a further $25 per thirty days as a subscription. That might sound like lots, however should you do a bunch of freeway driving or get caught in site visitors typically, it’s a godsend.
With the contact of a few buttons, your car will, for probably the most half, be capable to pilot you down the freeway hands-free. If the street has been mapped out by GM and the car can see the lane strains, the Suburban provides you with the okay to take your palms off the wheel, and hold them off. That’s an enormous departure from most different automakers’ techniques that make you contact the wheel each 30 seconds or so. I used to be capable of drive from my dwelling in northern New Jersey all the way in which to Scranton, Pennsylvania, a few 110-mile journey, whereas solely touching the steering wheel one time on the freeway. It’s a exceptional factor that takes plenty of getting used to – hell, if it comes up on slower site visitors, it’ll robotically change lanes, cross the slower car, and return to its authentic lane – however Super Cruise is among the finest driver-assistance applied sciences accessible in the present day.
The purpose it’s so good is as a result of GM is pretty selective on the place you may activate Super Cruise. Unlike Tesla’s shaky system, which for higher or worse can be activated actually wherever, Super Cruise solely works on 400,000 miles of pre-mapped freeway within the U.S. and Canada, however that quantity is rising. If you end up on a little bit of street that hasn’t but been mapped by GM, you may nonetheless use adaptive cruise management with lane-centering tech, which requires extra hands-on operation. It’s type of like food regimen Super Cruise.
Driving the Suburban High Country
There are some things that separate the top-shelf High Country from different, extra plebeian Suburban trims. After all, a base Suburban LS with zero choices begins at $58,795, and a four-wheel-drive High Country begins at $81,945 (all costs embody $1,895 vacation spot cost).
One of the most notable additions is the height-adjustable air suspension with MagneRide dampers. This setup works brilliantly, offering a brilliant soft journey over a few of Pennsylvania’s less-than-ideal roads. As geared up, the Suburban actually does journey like a luxurious automotive, and it ought to, contemplating my tester’s $91,665 price ticket. When you’re stopped, the Suburban will decrease itself to make getting out and in simpler, but when that isn’t sufficient, the truck could be had with $1,745 power-retractable working boards.
It ought to come as no shock that the Suburban’s dimension and comfort-oriented chassis imply it’s not precisely a great-handling SUV, however that’s completely effective. No one is shopping for a Suburban anticipating it to drive like a sports activities automotive. It’ll go round a nook and gained’t tip over, however that’s actually all you may say a few beast like this. The Suburban has a Sport mode, however I can’t let you know that it drastically modified the driving expertise apart from making the extraordinarily numb steering a bit heavier. The Suburban High Country lumbers and rolls by way of corners, with a distant V8 burble that can assist you alongside.
Which brings me to the crown jewel of the Suburban High Country: GM’s great 6.2-liter naturally aspirated V8. It makes a beefy 420 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque routed by way of a 10-speed automated transmission, and whereas it might not be probably the most trendy engine in the marketplace, it’s nonetheless extremely charming. It matches the character of this truck to a T. The solely different engine you will get within the High Country is a 3.0-liter Duramax turbodiesel inline-6, which, sarcastically, saves you $1,550. The diesel is the mid-grade engine and the 6.2 is the top-tier improve, whereas the bottom 5.3-liter V8 isn’t accessible on the High Country. While I’m certain the Duramax is nice, it’s no V8. You purchased an enormous SUV since you love huge issues. You need the largest engine.
There is, in fact, one huge tradeoff. Despite the very fact this SUV has a cease/begin system and cylinder deactivation, its gasoline economic system is actually abysmal. Over 524 miles of testing – plenty of which was on the freeway – I solely managed to get 13.8 miles per gallon, which is horrible, particularly contemplating the EPA says this SUV ought to return 14 mpg metropolis, 18 mpg freeway and 16 mpg mixed. Add a 28-gallon tank and obligatory premium gasoline to the combo, and also you’ll end up spending some critical time and dough on the pump.
The Suburban High Country Interior and Tech
Despite the High Country’s premium trimmings, there’s no getting across the Suburban’s pretty utilitarian roots. The High Country a minimum of distracts you from a few of its cheaper-looking plastics with some nice items of know-how. It’s no Escalade – the price distinction between the 2 SUVs must be felt someplace – but it surely ain’t dangerous.
The very first thing you’ll discover is screens. There are 5 of them. Three are included as a part of the High Country trim: the motive force’s instrument panel, the center-stack display screen and a rearview mirror digital camera. All of them work completely brilliantly. The gauge cluster is customizable – although I want you could possibly show a map on it – and the middle display screen is fast and straightforward to make use of, with breezy telephone pairing. The rearview mirror digital camera provides you a transparent view of what’s behind, and is nice when you have the trunk loaded with cargo or rear passengers blocking the mirror. The High Country additionally comes with a typical head-up show, however I don’t really matter that as a display screen.
The two different shows measure 12.6 inches and are mounted to the backs of the motive force and passenger seats. They’re a $2,000 possibility that’ll permit you to stream from just about all your favourite providers. If that isn’t sufficient, you’ve got an HDMI hookup to attach your most well-liked gaming console. How individuals do that and don’t get sick is past me, however hey, they’ll be excellent for distracting your annoying youngsters.
The High Country additionally comes commonplace with a foot-operated tailgate, heated and ventilated entrance seats and heated middle-row seats. All of this is sufficient to make the High Country – for probably the most half – really feel as premium as its price ticket.
Summing Up the Suburban High Country
You may be asking, why would anybody spend Cadillac Escalade cash on a Chevrolet? Well, to me the reason being easy: stealth wealth. You’ve achieved very properly for your self, and also you wish to purchase one thing huge to haul all of your shit. Plus, you need one thing American. If you purchase an Escalade, everybody will take a look at you as a snooty wealthy man. No one will assume that in a Suburban. Other than the large wheels, the quad exhaust, and the High Country badging, there’s not a lot setting this top-tier Suburban aside from its run-of-the-mill siblings.
In some ways, the Suburban High Country is the fruits of many years of GM creating and refining its full-size SUVs. The massive utility car is sort of definitely by no means going away, however V8s are giving approach to ever-more-powerful electrical motors. If you need huge house, huge energy and massive tech in an unassuming bundle, there are few SUVs extra suited to the duty than the 2023 Chevy Suburban High Country.
2023 Chevrolet Suburban 4WD 4dr High Country Specs
Transmission/Drive
Automatic
Source: jalopnik.com