I need your recommendation for a new (to me) family SUV/tow rig.

As the title suggests, I am looking for a new all-purpose vehicle. Currently I'm driving a 2016 X5 which works very well as a family hauler for my two young kids and also pulls my E92 M3 on an open trailer to various driving events. We are looking at buying a travel trailer to go camping with and my concern is that it's just going to be too much for the X5 to handle over long distances.

My criteria is this:

$15K or less

4WD/AWD (I live in WNY)

Towing capacity of at least 8000lbs

SUV body/3rd row seats

No pickups since I want to car camp a lot. Yes, a pickup with a tonneau cover can protect stuff back there, but inevitably every truck bed gets filled with dirty crap.

Bulletproof reliability and parts availability (domestic seems like a good idea here)

Gas - really prefer not to get into the cost and complexity of diesel.

So far I really am liking the 01-06 GMT800 Suburban/Yukon XL 2500s. No known weak points, very familiar with the LS, 4L80E is great. Would have to fly and drive one back from a non rust belt state. I do not want to deal with anything that has a 4L60E.

Any others I'm missing?

I seem to remember Mercedes GLs and some of the VW Touaregs were good for 7700 lbs or something. X5 I think maxes out at 7000 ish. GMT900 Tahoes and Suburbans with the 6L80 are good to 8000 ish I think, even in 1500 form. 2500s definitely make towing more relaxed if you're going to do a lot over long distances, but your options in SUV form are limited to Suburbans and Excursions.

I bought a 2004 Suburban 2500. It's a great truck, but definitely not as economical as some of the newer options. 

8k# pretty much puts you at just 2500 Suburban.

Armada/qx80

I'm seriously considering one of those to replace der Scheißwagen - it's too late for me, but save yourself. Don't get a GL.  Simple gas v8, three rows, 8500lb towing capacity.

I too was going to suggest the current Armada but I think those are only 7,700 pounds

It's a tough call. 

At that budget, probably the Suburban is the way to go. I've been idly looking myself, but it would mean either adding another vehicle to the fleet (ugh) or selling my Jeep and getting something bigger (also ugh).

My wife and I enjoy car camping and sometimes going places where a locking diff is useful. That has led me to consider... a Defender 110? It's expensive but it does off-road stuff and can actually pull 8k, which would satisfy my desire to pull my enclosed trailer and a car. 

As you've sussed out, unless you're towing frequently and for longer distances, a diesel is probably not the way to go.

Cadillac Escalade hits all those boxes. The ESV has a 8,300 lb towing capacity. The load leveling read suspension and the 6.2 make it great for towing. Just pick the right one, a lot of them have a ton of differed maintenance issues. Try to find one that the owner took care of. I spent a lot of money and fiddling fixing little crap that wasn't attended to over time. I also did the fly and drive to a southern state to find a rust free one. 

Edit: Full disclosure I bought one from what turned out to be a E36 M3 bag dealer and he is a berkeleying thief and I didn't properly protect myself with a good PPI. I figure that was about a $5k lesson in protecting yourself. This is the third fly and drive I have done and the first 2 were wonderful experiences. 

nsogiba said:

As the title suggests, I am looking for a new all-purpose vehicle. Currently I'm driving a 2016 X5 which works very well as a family hauler for my two young kids and also pulls my E92 M3 on an open trailer to various driving events. We are looking at buying a travel trailer to go camping with and my concern is that it's just going to be too much for the X5 to handle over long distances.

My criteria is this:

$15K or less

4WD/AWD (I live in WNY)

Towing capacity of at least 8000lbs

SUV body/3rd row seats

No pickups since I want to car camp a lot. Yes, a pickup with a tonneau cover can protect stuff back there, but inevitably every truck bed gets filled with dirty crap.

Bulletproof reliability and parts availability (domestic seems like a good idea here)

Gas - really prefer not to get into the cost and complexity of diesel.

So far I really am liking the 01-06 GMT800 Suburban/Yukon XL 2500s. No known weak points, very familiar with the LS, 4L80E is great. Would have to fly and drive one back from a non rust belt state. I do not want to deal with anything that has a 4L60E.

 

 

Any others I'm missing?

IMHO the weak point is the 6.0 

but you can find the 8.1 in those if you hate MPG and love v8 boat sounds, 400ft lbs off idle is a treat. the peaky "high revving" small block makes it an abnoxious drive in my opinion. they are more well suited to a grunty low revving v8 thats under stressed. the 6 speed with the GMT900 in the small blocks is worse, it would get better mileage if it wasn't having gear anxiety. 

I have an 02 excursion, V10, 4wd and about 151k on the clock that I'd really like to sell or trade.

Full disclosure, it has a pinhole coolant leak (9 months it's gone from max fill to min full just makes a mess in the driveway), and needs a muffler and tail pipe. 

John Welsh said:

I too was going to suggest the current Armada but I think those are only 7,700 pounds

Starting in 2017, it's 8500lbs.  In 2015, you had to have it optioned right to get to the 9k limit.

John Welsh said:

8k# pretty much puts you at just 2500 Suburban.

Not quite. The early third-gen Expeditions with the 5.4, which should be in his price range, can tow up to 9000. And you are going to get way more truck for your money wrt mileage and condition than you would with a 2500 Suburban, which still hold their value very well.

This is how these threads always go. Everyone says GM, I'm the lone evangelist for the Expedition. What can I say, I love that big stupid thing. 

What about  an old V10 Excursion?

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

John Welsh said:

8k# pretty much puts you at just 2500 Suburban.

Not quite. The early third-gen Expeditions with the 5.4, which should be in his price range, can tow up to 9000. And you are going to get way more truck for your money wrt mileage and condition than you would with a 2500 Suburban, which still hold their value very well.

This is how these threads always go. Everyone says GM, I'm the lone evangelist for the Expedition. What can I say, I love that big stupid thing. 

I would have offered seqouia or land cruiser had the budget been higher, equally so with navigator as its all the more comfortable than the expedition. Meanwhile RAM missed out on an HD SUV unfortunately. 

@ fidelity101 :

Mine is an 8.1. It's delightful. Get on the highway, it gets up to 4th gear, converter locks, and stays that way until I get off the highway or climb a mountain. Very low stress. 

It also gets 8 mpg towing the toy hauler, and struggles to do better than 12 or 13 in mixed driving unloaded, so there's your downside. I don't think a 6.0 would be any better, but the newer trucks with 6+ speed transmissions would probably be about 1 mpg better and probably 3+ better unloaded.

@ Tom Spangler :

Have you towed that much with the 5.4? I did some towing of a standard height V nose enclosed trailer that was maybe 5000 lbs in an F150 with the 5.4 and it felt very comparable to the 5.3 Chevies I've driven. I think we drove about 4 hours each way to that race and decided we weren't going to be taking that truck to a far away race again. Lots of time trying to put your foot through the firewall. I'm sure it could tow 8000 lbs of open trailer just fine, but there's no way around the power/torque needed to drag a travel trailer. They're just huge sails, and they are generally taller and wider than your typical enclosed trailer. 

Pretty sure the Expedition could be had with the 3.5 ecoboost though? I would pick that any day over the 5.4, I think.

My mini toy hauler dwarfs the suburban. This is a 4700 lb trailer ready to go. An 8000 lb travel trailer is a big trailer. 

Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) said:

John Welsh said:

8k# pretty much puts you at just 2500 Suburban.

Not quite. The early third-gen Expeditions with the 5.4, which should be in his price range, can tow up to 9000. And you are going to get way more truck for your money wrt mileage and condition than you would with a 2500 Suburban, which still hold their value very well.

Hummer H2? :)

gearheadE30 said:

Have you towed that much with the 5.4? I did some towing of a standard height V nose enclosed trailer that was maybe 5000 lbs in an  

Pretty sure the Expedition could be had with the 3.5 ecoboost though? I would pick that any day over the 5.4, I think.

Yeah, mine has the 3.5 Ecoboost, and we towed this rig all over the country with it:

It tows great. With a good load-leveling hitch, it's very stable, and the Ecoboost has more than enough power, including in the mountains. 

The 5.4 is probably not so great. But I'm not sure you can get an Ecoboost model in your price range without a bunch of miles. FWIW, they started putting that engine in them in 2015.