What a fantastic site!!!

Looking at a 2012 Denali with 85K on the OD. It is at a GM dealership which makes me much more comfortable that it has gone thru a through inspection. With that said, what should peak at in particular? This will be my/our first Hybrid. I'm fairly mechanically inclined, need to be when you own a boat. If we get it I think something I would do right out of the gate is the throttle body.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/guidance.

 

Run like Heck. Used hybrids are almost always a bad idea from a risk/reward ratio. When new, you have a high reward potential with low maintenance risk. As they age/go up in miles, that inverts - low reward potential, high maintenance risk.

Only 85K miles? I just replaced the hybrid battery on a 2011 Silverado with 57K miles.

Its location at a GM dealership should not impart a feeling of comfort. Most GM service departments have demonstrated nothing but incompetence when diagnosing and repairing these vehicles. Believing they did any meaningful reliability testing is nothing but a fantasy. They hooked up a scanner and checked for codes - that's it. They're charging you a premium just because it's on a GM lot. THAT is the only certainty.

IMHO, unless you're okay with spending another $7-10K on this vehicle in maintenance over the next 50-100K miles, HARD pass.

 

Thanks for the reply!

I was hoping that by 2012 the issues that seemed the plague the 08 and 09's had been worked out. I figured on the 3K for the battery pack in a few years at best. Investment for the better gas mileage. Maybe we will just go with another 6.2 powered Denali or Escalade. We had a Denali that was stolen during hurricane Florence and haven't had a need to replace it. Now our oldest is 16 a ready to start driving and we figured we would give her our old XC90 and finally replace the Denali.

 

Per https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find...id=31465&#tab1, you'll only save about $3K in gas over 5 years at $3/gal fuel prices with a much higher maintenance risk. Net savings will likely be negative.

 

We made the decision to pass. I appreciate your feedback S Keith. Unless I find one with 50-ish thousand miles I think we will stick with a non-hybrid model.

 

Glad to hear it.

50K miles AND a $5-7K discount to a comparable non-hybrid.

 

Having recently shopped then purchased a used 13 Denali Hybrid, I can say you can get the Hybrids for about the same cost or even lower than a conventional Tahoe or Yukon so the mileage savings can be a welcome deal, unlike when purchasing a new Hybrid and paying $10 k more than equal equipped Yukon. My 09 didn't have any issues at all until replacing the battery at 196k miles. With gas cheap there is not a high demand for Hybrid trucks, but gas may not always be this cheap, and 19.5 mpg in town in a full size truck is hard to beat.

 

test drive it good make sure the oil pressure is good as the orings fail on all models ( 4.8,5.3 and 6.2,6.0 engines)

it should fall between 65-70PSI on a cold start and about 50PSI while driving the non hybrid will be lower