Nice accessories. Hope to see your Tahoe around DC. I am around the corner in Silver Spring. I will post pics of my Yukon soon with my new rims!

 

Thanks D,

If you're ever in georgetown let me know and we can grab a coffee and yak hybrids.

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Now I have a devious mod that I'm secretly contemplating, but I need to find a non-hybrid tahoe for measurement comparisons ...

 

My mod du jour:

Before:



After:

 

I'd be interested in knowing if your gas mileage changed any when you did the front grills. I tried to get Chevy to put the hooks on the front that the 'slade has but they refused for "aerodynamic" reasons. Now why they have them on Cadillacs and not Chevy's I don't konw, how many 'slades ever pull someone out of the muck.

 

Yeah, that's just lazy/uninformed dealer nonsense.

I've run across a few service managers like that and their objection, whilst declared on some seemingly valid ground, is actually based on the fact that they don't know how to do it or/and can't be bothered to figure it out.

I've struck a great working relationship with one of my local dealerships and they do half my mods at a reduced cost to both parts and labor.

The following mods were installed at this Chevy dealership:

- Escalade rear bumper
- Escalade mirrors
- Denali running boards
- Denali door moldings
- Escalade chrome door handles
- Denali 22" wheel tire package

Last time I was there they even pulled up a non-hybrid Tahoe out for me to see if the hood and front bumper assemblies are the same as on the hybrid in case I ever want to do the front bumper swap ... I had the parts, service, and body shop managers pointing at engine bays and figuring stuff out. It was actually really cool.

Anyhoot, the moral of the story is that unless you manage to locate such a dealer, these kinds of mods always have to be investigated on one's own to be sure.

In the case of the tow hooks I'm not sure what the deal is because I never investigated it ... but I'll happily look into it and see what I can come up with. The key is going to be whether the hybrid has the attachment points for them that the non-hybrid does and if they are at the same height. But off the top of my head I'm going to guess that the two lower gaps on our trucks are lower that those of the non-hybrids so there might be an alignment issue to consider. I'll check it out.

As far as mileage I'm sure my mods to date have cost me an mpg or two ... mostly the wheel upgrade and the running boards. But I've taken out my 3rd row seats to compensate ... at least in my mind.

Mpgs be darned ... I ain't driving around on 18s on a truck this size!

 

Thinking about this a little more and looking at the front of my truck:

http://gallery.me.com/soulsea/100050...13164631930001

The placing might not be too different than that of non-hybrids after all.

But I'm also looking at the hooks:





And I can't figure out where one would attach them ... mmm ...

The other issue that I see emerging is that those two lower gaps are different on our trucks than on the non-hybrid. Basically if you pop the little plastic filler piece out (where mine are mesh) all you have left are the rough plastic edges of the bumper cover. meaning that on the non hybrids there's molded plastic curved inwards to soften the edges, all you're going to get with our bumper is going to look pretty awful.

Does that make sense?

 

So I swapped back to my stock boards today to see what they look like ...

I'll live with it for a bit but I think I like it better with the chrome boards ...





I think I'm gonna swap them back to the chrome asap.

 

maybe you should just do this?

http://www.truckinweb.com/tech/body/...ade/index.html

 

Is this suggestion for me?

 

Swapped to a K&N filter today ... curious to see if it makes any difference.