aseibel

Thanks Grumpy. I've seen some plastic decking with the hollow extruded profile, those are far too flimsy. This Trex is solid, so it holds its shape much better. It doesn't wave in between the joists even with 16" OC. Everything is screwed down. I really like the deck, but just lamenting how much it costs compared to the last one I built entirely out of treated lumber. But all material costs have shot up so much...

Finally knocked out another project. When we bought the house, it only had the deck. You were trapped up there and had to go through the house to get out on the lower patio. I installed the landing and stairs, so now the kids have an easier path to the trampoline and sandbox. (Great for tracking sand into the kitchen) Trex decking and Trex signature aluminum railing. It looks nice, but not cheap stuff. Just this flight of stairs cost me about $4k in materials. I can't imaging having to pay a builder to do this, I spent 4+ weekends on it and had some family help lift the stringers into place.

I thought you were going to say the craziest priced item was a Yukon XL Denali. I bought a house with a 3 car garage in 2008 for what they ask for those boats now.

If you drop bricks or stones in the bed from 10 stories up, it won't dent. I don't see much value for me either. I do have a bullet liner ($500) and don't abuse my bed. I guess if you don't have to pay for a spray-in, then its really only costing $500 more for the upgrade. I agree that weight savings isn't a huge factor either. Offering a synthetic bed is just another thing they can market.

My wife was adamant that she wanted Satin Steel. We were looking around over Christmas. Found the one she wanted at Laura GMC (6 hours away from us). So I drove down there after work on 12/30 to buy on new years eve and get the employee pricing. We were happy with their price, and couldn't find what she wanted any closer to home.

I'm late to the first meeting of "my wife traded in a Terrain for a new Acadia" Club. We also have the color matched handles wrapped in chrome. Is that a Denali thing? This car is pretty fancy, with the adaptive cruise and lane departure and parking sensors, all the expensive junk I don't need on my truck, haha. I've never been in front of it while driving, now I want to go see what the turn signals look like. We have had a gremlin with the backup camera spontaneously not working. I thought it was temperature related this winter, but lately have had a few times it went blank with warmer temps, always works again after sitting a while. Other than that, its pretty nice. The wife and kids like it, so I can't complain.

Yes, it is totally normal and acceptable to have a bit of sag when towing. You are trying to make your truck do something that isn't really intended. (raise the front end and have a rear that doesn't sag under load) so you have the option to modify your truck to fit your wants. Airbags will do that. Not how I would handle it, but at least you won't be blinding oncoming drivers anymore. At the end of the day, is it really saving you any work to inflate and deflate the airbags each time you tow, instead of adjust your headlights to the proper angle.....?

You created the problem when you put the levelling kit on. That should have also resulted in a realigning of your headlights at that time. So did you ever realign your lights after you got it levelled? If you want to add a block to the rear so you maintain your tire clearance, then you won't be nose high when towing. But anytime you add a trailer, it will change the pitch of your truck and headlights. Modern headlights are extremely harsh to oncoming traffic when viewed below the cutoff line, as you have figured out by the number of pissed off drivers. Using a WDH to "re-level" your truck and lights is not what it is designed for. It is only meant to put a couple hundred pounds back on the front axle to help with control and keep the rear axle under its safe limit. All your problems can be solved in 10 minutes with a screwdriver, tape measure and a wall in a dark parking lot.....

Leveling kit won't change the weight per axle in any noticeable way. I have a CCSB 5.3 4x4 LT as well. Front: 3,400 Rear: 2,520 Combined: 5,960 (I weigh 200lbs, I don't know how much gas was in it, soft tonneau) Is the problem that you are trying to fix the "nose-high" pitch when trailer is hooked up? Or are you worried about the weight on each axle when loaded? Your trailer isn't that heavy, do you know the tongue weight? I would attempt to redistribute weight on the trailer first. I think having a leveling kit and then trying to run level with a trailer is a fool's errand. Why do you think pick-up trucks all come off the line with a rake? You should only be concerned that your weight is distributed properly and stop worrying about how high your front fenders are. If you want it to be "levelled" when unloaded, you're going to live with the cali-lean when you pull the trailer. But then get your headlights aimed properly.

Every month there is a new pricing gimmick, which is always too good to pass up if you talk to salesmen at a stealership. But at the end of the day the price doesn't vary by that much. Find a volume dealer or shop late in the model year if you want the best price. If selecting every option you want is important, including color, you will pay a bit more. The best way I believe to find a deal is to know exactly what you want and shop around, being patient until you find the right one. High pressure sales tactics want to create urgency so you don't have time to compare and realize you can do better. Basically don't believe anything that comes out of the mouth of a salesman, do all your own research and find the deal that makes you happy. Can you tell I don't like salesmen?

The paint colors are a funny thing. I wasn't in love with tungsten metallic the first time I saw it, but my wife talked me into it. Now I'm glad I have that color, as they quit using it, so now I have a unique color. Then my wife wanted a new Acadia. She was hellbent on finding Satin Steel, but none in the whole state. I found one at Laura GMC and went for a drive. BTW, my truck also came from Gandrud in Green Bay. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Titletown!

That statement hasn't been correct since engines were carbureted. So if you are daily driving a muscle car with auto start/stop, then I agree. "Contrary to popular belief, restarting your car does not burn more fuel than leaving it idling. In fact, idling for just 10 seconds wastes more gas than restarting the engine." https://www.edf.org/attention-drivers-turn-your-idling-engines#:~:text=Contrary to popular belief%2C restarting,warm up%2C even in winter. Now it is debatable how much fuel is actually saved, its probably a few pennies per tank for most of us. My wife's Acadia has the feature, but due to where we live, I don't spend a ton of time sitting at red lights. Other people may see more savings.

So many variables. If you just want an A/T tire in the OEM size, I don't think its a big difference at all. But increasing size and load rating have a big effect on how the truck feels and handles. The tread pattern will affect the noise and mpgs more than anything else. I'm not a fan of choosing tires based on looks, but from what I read on here, that's what drives a lot of people's choices. I love my OEM size Cooper Discoverer AT3 4s. Good traction in all conditions, but no noticeable loss in ride comfort or mpgs from the crappy street rubber GM gave me.

My last beater was just retired at 204,000 mi. I owned it for about 9 years and 155,000 of the miles. It was a 2004 grand am v6. Biggest repair was one head gasket replaced. The vent fan went out and got replaced. I had to recharge the air conditioner. I did all the oil changes, generally 3,500 mi intervals. Quaker state 5w-30 & fram filters from Fleet Farm. It was starting to get pretty rusty after living in Wisconsin, garage kept all but 2 winters. Still ran fine, but wife decided she didn't trust it anymore with me taking out of state work trips. The two cars before that started having problems about 175,000 mi. One went because of electrical issues, one had a cracked block.

3.3 amps. so you can power electronics, not anything with a motor or large heating element. I plugged a slow cooker on "low" once in the cab, it worked. Also works for air mattress inflator. Anything more serious that that, better get a generator.

Every darn time we pull into a gas station I have to ask her if she has any trash to get rid of. I don't know what her ride would look like if it weren't for me.

Some people use their truck to do work and want to be noticed by others in order to avoid a collision.

I have version 2.0. When door is closed and all other dome lights go off, this little LED power light continues to blink. I generally leave it unplugged for that reason, though never had any issues.

Did you buy the truck brand new? You've confirmed that your suspension has never been modified, and it has the same geometry as all the other trucks on the lot? Some photos with a tape measure would help.

Made a trip to the in-laws over the weekend and wanted to pay close attention to the DIC's ability to accurately gauge fuel economy. The wife demanded to take her new car instead of my truck. So we took the 2021 GMC Acadia V6. I'm guessing the same technology is used in the trucks. DIC trip was reset with each fillup. All data is over a 3 day span from this past Saturday to Monday. Temps were below 0F for the entire trip. Tank 1 & 3 were pretty much completely highway driving with no cold starts in between. Tank 2 included a cold start at -20 with around 25 minutes of warmup before we left. Interesting to see how close the numbers are for tank 1 & 3, while the DIC reading for tank 2 is about 10% high. Tank # Miles DIC Actual (hand calculated) 1 354.5 20.9 20.86 driving generally NW 2 181.9 21.4 19.53 driving NW first half, parked for 36 hours, then driving SE 3 288.4 23.5 23.97 driving generally SE

I was visiting the in-laws this weekend, we stayed up by Mille Lacs Lake. Temp was -33 yesterday when we woke up. Took the wifes Acadia. I tell you, that thing started a little slow....

Here's the promo video Mercury posted on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MercuryMarine/videos/1340163363008637/ I think this is really cool because back in 2003 I did an internship in the Engineering Lab at Mercury headquarters in Fond du Lac. That was right before the Verado came out. I got to do some testing on it. I also worked a couple summers in the warehouse during college. My dad retired after 40 years at Merc. So I'm happy to see that they keep innovating.

I have a bluetooth reader. I use the free Torque app. I found a live readout of MPG's but I haven't found a "fuel used" gauge yet. Plenty of time to play with it. I'm driving some 800 miles this weekend and I plan to monitor it. I'm well aware of all the sales tactics designed to target impulse shoppers. You and I may fall for them less often than others, but it must work or every store wouldn't do the same thing. You really have the GM marketing geniuses playing the long game. If they really are trying to hook you into your next purchase by making you think you're getting 1 mpg better than you really are. For what its worth, my window sticker told me to expect 18 mpg combined, and by golly, that's about what I get.

Yes, mine has the same fuel economy readout options as Pepper. I asked if it can tell me FUEL USED. That is not an option on my display that I'm aware of. Until I buy a fancier scan tool to verify, I won't know if the fuel usage the computer is estimating is the same as what the gas pump tells me. I don't know WHY GM is lying, I guess I chose to believe there was no nefarious motivation. Why do you think they are lying when anyone can prove them wrong with some simple 4th grade long division?

to your point #3: Both of those electronically measured fuel numbers are instantaneous, right? If so, how can I find out the cumulative fuel usage for any length of time, such as my entire tank of gas? My truck tells me how many miles I've driven for a trip I set, but the only way I can currently gauge fuel is with the gas the pump. I can't see the programming inside the chip. I'm under the impression that the DIC error is introduced by taking the sum of 1000's of instantaneous readings, instead of taking the total miles/total gallons like I can do. Does anyone know how the DIC is programmed? Does it record the sum of fuel used? I don't believe GM is intentionally misleading anyone, nor do they achieve some dark benefit by misleading. The DIC is just doing its simple math and estimating a pretty close number. My readout is much closer than you report yours to be. There are so many variables that affect fuel economy, I'm sure there are just as many that affect how accurate the truck's calculation is compared to hand calculated totals.