Our "new" 2016 Chevy Tahoe

In early 2004, we bought a 2001 Chevy Tahoe to use as our family truckster.  It served us well for 15 years, and had 277K miles on the ticker when the transmission died.  We had hoped to use it past 300K, but decided this was as good a time as any to upgrade to a newer vehicle.  We loved the Tahoe's combination of maneuverability, cargo space, and towing capacity, so we replaced our 2001 with a 2016 Tahoe of the same color (Victory Red).  Victory Red is a hard color to find, and we were forced into a rather quick purchase, so I didn't get to do as much up-front research as I would have liked before the purchase.  Here, I'd like to share a few things that I've learned about our 2016 that I wish I'd known before hand.

Lubing a stubborn car door

The rear side doors--especially the driver side--in our 2001 Chevy Tahoe had gotten rather stiff, to the point where our 5-year-old son had trouble opening his car door. It turned out that there's a spring-loaded arm called the "door check link" that rides on two bars to provide the half- and full-open detents. That bar was scraping against its two mating bars rather than riding smoothly, and that resistance made the door hard to open and close. Fixing it was as simple as greasing the edges of that bar.

Replacing the cabin air filter in a Chevy truck

We've noticed recently that the interior of our 2001 Chevy Tahoe has been smelling pretty musty.  We cleaned all the carpets, but to no avail.  I was then reminded that the last time this smell appeared, it was time to change the air filter that protects the HVAC system in the cabin.  It's a pretty simple job, and one that should be identical on all 1999-2006 GMC/Chevy Sierra pickups and all 2000-2006 Tahoes, Suburbans, Yukons, and Denalies.

Smartphone input to an Alpine stereo

More than 10 years ago, I bought an Alpine CDA-7894 stereo for the 1977 Jeep Wagoneer I was rebuilding.  That rebuild stagnated, so when the factory stereo in our 2001 Chevy Tahoe died, I moved the Alpine head unit over to the Tahoe.  The CDA-7894 will read data CD's full of MP3 files (a very progressive feature in 2002), but standalone MP3 players were not yet common devices, and smartphones didn't yet exist.  Fast forward to 2013, when I really wanted to be able to plug my smartphone into the truck's stereo so I could enjoy Pandora or my MP3 collection on long road trips rather than lugging along boxes of CD's.  The default configuration for that stereo didn't have a convenient audio input jack, but that can be remedied with just a couple aftermarket parts.

New Michelin LTX M/S2 tires for the Tahoe

Back in 2008, we bought a set of Goodyear Fortera TripleTred tires (pictured at right) for our 2001 Chevy Tahoe.  We absolutely loved those tires.  They were quiet, we never got stuck in the Nebraska snow, and you couldn't hydroplane them even if you tried (and I did).  Unfortunately, they wore out after just 4.5 years and 48,000 miles, which was far less than we'd hoped to get from such a pricey tire.  I spent more time researching their replacement that I probably needed to.

The death of a fuel pump

Back in April, I wrote about our 2001 Chevy Tahoe chugging, as if it wasn't getting quite enough fuel.  I suspected the fuel pump might be at fault, but replacing it is neither easy nor inexpensive.  Instead, I replaced the fuel filter (which was long overdue), and the problem went away... for four months.  Last Friday, my suspicions were confirmed when the fuel pump died quite suddenly and completely, leaving my wife & five kids stranded on the side of the highway.

Running lean in a Tahoe

On the way home the other night, our 2001 Chevy Tahoe started chugging and hesitating, as though it didn't have quite enough fuel to perform as requested.  Plugging in my OBDII scanner indicated that, sure enough, two diagnostic trouble codes had been triggered that indicated the engine was running leaner than it should.

High strength tire patch

As we were cleaning up our Tahoe the night before leaving for a 300-mile road trip, I noticed that the right rear tire was nearly flat.  Closer inspection found two nails embedded in the tire.  I swapped on the spare that night, but didn't want to leave town without a functioning spare.  With only a few hours to fix the problem the next morning before we were to leave town, we had some trouble finding a solution.