It’s been a long time since General Motors has offered a competitive mid-sized SUV. The one they’ve been selling for the last few years is just a moderately upgraded version of the SUV Chevrolet and GMC started selling in 1983. So the basic design, especially of the chassis, was very old. This was evident in how the vehicle rode and handled. It was also evident in its size. The GM SUVs were substantially smaller than the market leader, the Ford Explorer, especially in width. This resulted in a relatively cramped interior.

GM knew of the original vehicle’s shortcomings. The problem was that in the early 㣾s it lacked the financial resources to do a more substantial revision than they did. In the years since, GM’s financial situation has improved markedly. It was finally able to go all-out after the lucrative mid-sized SUV market. The results of this effort finally made it to dealers in late February 2001, as 2002 models. Not entirely coincidentally, an all-new Ford Explorer reached Ford dealers about the same time.

In both cases the SUVs have parted ways with their pick-up cousins. (This applies only to the four door, non-Sport Trac Explorer. The others remain based on the old chassis.) They have been given new chassis designed specifically for SUV duty. In GM’s case, the next generation pick-up is being designed on a totally separate platform by a totally different team at Isuzu halfway around the world. This frees the SUVs from the compromises forced by a shared platform, size, chassis rigidity, and a certain cheapness of construction (compact pick-ups to be competitive must be quite cheap) chief among them.

Due to the importance of these two vehicles, the first all-new designs in a long time from GM and Ford in a hot market segment, I recently spent an afternoon driving both of them. I have posted my evaluation of the 2002 Ford Explorer in a separate review. In this review I will cover the GM SUVs, focusing on the one I prefer, the GMC Envoy.

Note August 2005: This is an old review, written when my expectations of SUVs were much lower than they were for cars. In the years since the state-of-the-art has advanced a great deal, and GM's SUVs don't perform as well as many others.

GMC Envoy Reliability

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What’s New for 2002

Based on the initial information I received about a year ago, I thought that the Ford Explorer would be the superior vehicle. It looked like Ford had made more substantial changes to their offering, which I took as evidence that their effort was more serious. After all, Ford took the unusual, and expensive, step of fitting the new Explorer with an independent rear suspension (IRS). For it’s SUVs, GM was sticking with an old tech live axle. For the pros and cons of each, see my 2002 Explorer review (listed under 2001 until a 2002 listing exists). Let’s just say an IRS should give the Explorer superior ride and handling.

On further consideration, especially after driving the vehicles, I must say that GM has put more effort into its vehicles, and has made more substantial changes. For years GM has wished that its mid-sized SUVs were as large as the Explorer. Their smaller size, and especially their quite narrow width, kept them from being competitive. Since the new trucks were redesigned from scratch, and were no longer constrained by the limitations of a compact pick-up chassis, GM was able to make them any size it wanted. It made them a couple of inches larger in each dimension than the old Explorer. In other words, they are a touch larger than even the new one. Length has increased 6 1/2 inches, width more than 4 inches, and height 5 1/2 inches. We’re talking major growth here. Next to the new vehicle, the old one looks quite small. From the size alone people will be able to tell the new designs from the old ones.

Even if the size had not changed, the new styling would tip most people off. All three SUVs look much different than they used to. Even more amazing, they look different than each other. This is the first time that a truck manufacturer has actually based multiple brands on the same chassis but given each brand nearly all unique sheetmetal. (The 2002 Explorer and Mountaineer still share most of their body panels.) The new Chevrolet is very brawny looking, from the bulged fenders to the details of the grille. The new Oldsmobile looks like a sleek, refined luxury car that has been morphed to SUV proportions. It’s only fault may be that it looks a bit too much like an Isuzu Trooper. The new GMC combines the ruggedness of the Chevrolet with the upscale appearance of the Oldsmobile. Though the basic theme is similar to that on the new Toyota Sequoia, the Envoy’s styling includes a number of interesting details that add to its distinctiveness without looking at all extraneous. The longer you look at it, the more such details you notice. It seems a lot of thought went into the styling of this vehicle.

Though the three GM SUVs share a bit more in common inside, the interiors are similarly differentiated. I personally find the GMC the most appealing in and out. The round vents, metallic trim, chrome-ringed gauges, and two-tone leather are especially nice touches. Still, I encourage you to look at all three and decide for yourself. All three are attractive vehicles. Which is the best looking comes down to personal taste.

Update: My personal taste seems to be shifting towards the Chevrolet. Its bolder styling keeps catching my eye on the road. It's a great looking SUV. I don't remember exactly what the interior of the Chevrolet is like. I believe it has more conventional interior styling. Though I like the style of the GMC's interior, the Chevrolet's may better match the below-par level of interior materials.

Update 2: I suspect that people who prefer the styling of the Bravada don't really care for trucks in the first place. That it's possible to have an opinion is a sign that GM has finally differentiated its offerings in a meaningful manner. I can see how any of the three could be legitimately preferred.

Aside from the stiff new chassis, the strongest part of the new GM SUVs may be the engine they share. The old V6 is gone. At the same time, GM decided not to offer a V8. This might seem to put the GM vehicles at a disadvantage relative to Ford, Jeep, and Dodge. But a quick look at the new six’s spec sheet suggests otherwise. The new six is an inline design, not a V. Though less compact than a V6, an inline six is inherently smoother and more durable. Theoretically it is even superior to a V8 in these areas. Add in the performance benefits of four valves per cylinder and variable valve timing, and the new GM six is also more powerful than the eights offered by the competition. And not just by a few horsepower. With 270 horsepower, the new six is not only far and away the most powerful base engine. It even has thirty more horses than the Explorer’s optional eight cylinder engine.

What didn’t GM do for the new trucks? Well, it didn’t spring for an independent rear suspension. There’s still a live axle back there, threatening to plague the new ute with a rough, bouncy ride. This also means there’s not enough room for a third row seat, so none is offered. At least not yet. In a year or so GM will offer an extended wheelbase version with a third row. The same cannot be said about the transmission. GM continues to offer only four speeds in its automatic, which should harm acceleration once out of first gear. As far as I know GM has no plans to add another cog.

To make this review more readable, for the rest of this review I’ll speak in terms of the two vehicles I drove: the Ford Explorer and the GMC Envoy. Except where indicated, whatever I say about the Explorer also applies to the Mountaineer, and whatever I say about the Envoy applies to the Trailblazer and the Bravada. In the future I hope to drive other variations of these vehicles, so you might want to check back.

Accommodations

Both trucks are about equally roomy in the front and rear seats. GM no longer has to worry about a disadvantage here. That said, there are some notable differences. You sit higher in the Explorer, and the dash is lower. This would normally be a good thing, aiding visibility over the hood. Except that you sit so high that the windshield header intrudes into your view. I personally like the airier feeling offered when the header remains largely out of view. (For more detail on this and other aspects of the Explorer, see that review.)

The Envoy’s driving position has problems of its own. The header is nice and high. But the dash is also higher. I’d personally prefer it a couple inches lower. The Envoy’s A-pillars (those flanking the windshield) are also quite a bit thicker than those on the Explorer, or are at least turned so that a much wider pillar is presented to the eye of the driver. The upshot is that in the Envoy you feel a bit like you are gazing through a tunnel. As much as I wish the dash were lower and the pillars thinner, I ultimately prefer the GMC’s driving position because of the higher windshield header.

Seat comfort is a bit better in the Envoy. The seat offers better support, at least fore and aft. The seats in the SLT I drove even had four-way power lumbar. (The lumbar in the Explorer XLT was two way manual.) No more putting up with lumbar support that is too low or too high. This was in addition to the power height adjustment, and the power recliner. A memory function for these and other setting is provided for two drivers. An option included on the vehicle I drove allowed the seat cushion, the seatback, or both to be heated. Very nice. Perhaps most important, the GMC’s seats, both front and rear, looked and felt much more substantial than those in the Explorer.

The GMC’s front seats do have one weak spot: they provide even less lateral support than the Ford’s, which themselves provide very little. (Jeep does a much better job than either.) This was my largest problem with the GMC. Add some bolsters, please! It is possible that the Chevrolet or the Oldsmobile has seats that are less flat. I hope the check this out soon.

The GMCs rear seat also offers better support, though again side bolstering is nonexistent. The seats in both vehicles are about the same height off the floor, which happens to be just a tad too low to provide proper thigh support to someone of my height. In other words, a bit better than the average vehicle. The seatback in the Explorer is inexcusably low, a safety issue in my mind. (See the Explorer review for more detail here.) One feature on the GMC but not on the Ford is a shoulder belt for the center passenger in the rear seat. Another sign that GM went the extra mile with these vehicles.

Without its optional third row seat, the Explorer has a larger cargo area than the Envoy. The stats put the difference at about 10%, but the difference is noticeable. Also noticeable is the lower floor in the Explorer. Then there is the matter of the liftglass. It is nice to be able to open the rear glass without opening the entire tailgate if all you have to do is throw in a shopping bag or two. The problem is that SUVs tend to be so high off the ground that it’s not always easy to throw something in through the glass. With the new Explorer, Ford has addressed this problem by having some of the door open with the glass, so that it is like a door within a door. This reduces the liftover to a very manageable height. The Envoy has a conventional liftglass, so throwing things in will be difficult for shorter people. Overall, the Explorer has an edge for cargo capacity and ease of loading. But the Envoy still does very well here. It does provide ten cubic feet more cargo volume than the old model, a very significant increase.

In terms of amenities, the Explorer also came up wanting. Even bearing in mind that the Explorer I tested was an XLT and not an Eddie Bauer or Limited, the Envoy seems to have some strong advantages. I’ve already mentioned the impressive features of the front seats. The rear seat is also gifted with some unexpected features. Rear seat passengers get their own vents and heating ducts, their own fan speed control, and their own radio (which outputs to a pair of headphone jacks). The rear seat passengers in the Ford only get to select which set of vents the air flows to, not how fast it flows. And forget about any rear seat stereo: there isn’t one. The GM vehicles will solidify their advantage here when a DVD-based rear seat entertainment system becomes available mid-year. With this interior, GM seems to have really thought of everything. Except side bolsters for the front seats.

On top of the GMC’s extra amenities, it is simply a nicer vehicle inside. Even the leather Explorer I sat in (I drove one with cloth) did not come close. The difference begins with styling. The Explorer’s interior styling remains very simple in a utilitarian, ultra-functional manner. Nothing bad in that, it just doesn’t come across as luxurious. The materials compound this feeling. They seem well suited to a work truck, but not to a luxury vehicle.

In contrast, the interior of the Envoy has styling that is distinctive yet tasteful, and overall the materials look and feel more luxurious. The inclusion of a number of intriguing details that meld well together, such as the circular gauges with metallic accents, chrome-ringed gauges, and two-tone leather, suggests that a lot of thought went into the styling of this interior.

Unfortunately, the interior is short of perfect because GM skimped on some of the materials. Less so than Ford, but to a significant extent nonetheless. Many of the pieces on the dash, doors, and console are the sort of plastic that has a hard surface and makes a loud, hollow sound when tapped with your nails. This is most evident in the SLE, where the cloth lacks the leather's ability to lend a luxurious aura despite these plastic pieces. The instrument cluster could also have a richer look. Finally, the steering wheel is simply ugly. It looks like something out of a 1979 Dodge Omni. I'm sure some engineer somewhere is very proud of how compact they have made the airbag, but this achievement was not used to enable an attractive steering wheel. So, the overall styling of the interior is sharp and even intriguing, but the execution in terms of materials and a few design details falls a bit short. For this more than any other reason I knocked the Envoy down a star, to four.

Update: I have seen a number of GM's new SUVs up close now, and many have shocked me with the poor quality of the panel fits, especially those between the hood and front fenders. Rarely is the hood even close to level with the fenders. Though this might be adjustable, you've got to wonder why this wasn't done at the factory or during dealer prep. I thought panel fits like these went away ten years ago, but here they are. Though this won't harm the reliability of the program, it's so bad as to wonder what else they skimped on.

All of these advantages would mean nothing if the independent rear suspension of the Explorer makes it ride and handle significantly better than the Envoy. It should. But does it?

On the road

I drove the Explorer first. As you might have gathered by now, I had high expectations for this vehicle owing to the independent rear suspension and stiffer frame. I was sorely disappointed. By now you know where to look for the details… After the Explorer disappointment, I did not expect much from the new Envoy, with its ancient tech live rear axle. So it came as a pleasant surprise that I actually enjoyed driving this vehicle.

The good stuff starts with the new six. It’s a great engine, pure and simple. Though not a quiet engine, the noises it makes sound quite sophisticated. I suspect that if I owned this vehicle I’d push it harder than I had to from time to time just to hear this engine sing. Which brings up the major point: unlike in the Explorer, there’s always quite a bit extra left in this engine. In normal driving the transmission shifts at about 2800 RPM. So real world fuel economy should be quite a bit better than in the Explorer, which shifted much higher, even though the Envoy weighs about 300 lbs. more. Full throttle acceleration is quite good, I’d guess somewhere between eight and nine seconds to sixty.

It would be even better if GM added a gear to its transmission. As it stands, when the transmission shifts RPMs fall almost in half. The torque band of this engine is wide enough to deal with that, but performance would be even better with an extra gear. It also would not hurt if first gear were a bit steeper, to get the engine up into its powerband quicker. These two shortcomings of course go hand in hand. There’s no way around them with a four speed. I have had similar issues with the four speed automatic in the Cadillacs with the Northstar system. GM produces a nice five speed automatic for BMW. It’s about time it put this transmission in its own vehicles. When it does, and these engines can really show off what they’ve got, watch out! (For those into such details, I believe both trucks had 3.73 rear ends. The GMC is available with two other rear ends, one of which is a 4.10, so more performance is possible here, at the expense of fuel economy.)

Aside from having only four speeds, the automatic does a very good job. I never felt it hunt back and forth. It always shifted very smoothly, and seemed to shift very close to the points at which I would if I were shifting for myself. For casual driving, the new engine pairs with GM’s proven transmission to provide outstanding performance. Under moderate acceleration, they simply shine. The engines makes its nice sounds, RPM stay fairly low, and you just have the sense that if you needed more, its just a tip of the throttle away.

The same basic conclusions apply to the suspension. Despite the solid rear axle, the Envoy rode and handled far better than the Explorer. The standard Bilstein monotube shocks probably deserve a good portion of the credit. While you can feel some road imperfections, especially at low speeds, the shimmying and shuddering that was so disappointing in the Explorer is absent here. This truck feels rock solid.

What’s more, even without the optional rear air springs it has the fluid, precisely controlled motions of a luxury sedan. Aside from some humming from the roof rack in strong cross-winds, the ride is also quite quiet for an SUV. It simply feels like a much more refined, much more expensive vehicle than the Explorer. It actually does better in this regard than the full-size GM SUVs. The only other SUV I've driven that left me with the same impressions was the larger, less nimble, considerably more expensive Toyota Sequoia (which the Envoy also slightly resembles in styling). Makes you wonder what GM’s engineers could have done with an independent rear suspension. Maybe the top-of-the-line Explorer will close the gap somewhat, but I’m not too hopeful. There’s only so much that can be done when the basic structure is fundamentally lacking in rigidity.

Handling, aided by large 17" tires and those Bilsteins, is quite good for an SUV. Sure, it has its faults. The steering is a bit numb, more so than the Explorer’s. It leans quite a bit in turns. The rear sways a bit in aggressive maneuvers. And the limits of the chassis remain well below those of the average sport sedan. But I actually enjoyed driving the Envoy. It helps that understeer is much less prominent than in the Explorer, so that the chassis remains well balanced in moderately aggressive turns. I’d say it’s even superior in this respect to the Acura MDX, which understeers much like the front-wheel-drive minivan on which it is based. I should also note that though the Envoy is now a fairly large vehicle, at about 4600 lbs., it never felt unwieldy. It certainly felt much more nimble than a full-size SUV like a Tahoe, Expedition, or Sequoia. A very tight turning circle, six feet tighter than that of the old Envoy, certainly helps. Overall, the Envoy’s suspension is much like its engine. In regular driving, or even a notch or two up, it just feels really good for an SUV.

The brakes are quite large and powerful. That said, I found one characteristic disconcerting. When I stomped on the pedal, engaging the excellent ABS, the pedal kept sinking and sinking until it reached the floor, or came very close to it. I do not think this affected braking performance per se, but it did take the pedal beyond the reach of my leg. This forced me to move the seat a touch closer to the wheel than I otherwise would have. And it just doesn’t feel right. The large rotors the Envoy has been gifted with deserve a firmer pedal.

I did not take the Envoy off-road. Though the push button 4WD includes a button for 4-Low, I suspect this vehicle is a bit large and softly sprung for serious off-roading. Still, I would not be surprised if Chevrolet eventually offered a version tuned for off-roading, since they have done this in the past. The GMC, on the other hand, is clearly intended and tuned for maximum on-road comfort. The four-wheel-drive, which also has an automatic settings, is there for snow and unpaved roads. On these surfaces I suspect it would perform well.

Quality appears to be about equal to other GM vehicles, which is to say average or a bit below. The major fault I noted was that the fit of the hood to the fender could have been quite a bit better. Other GM vehicles have had quality problems in their first year, and their is no reason to suspect this one will be different.

Last words

As I’m sure you can tell by now, the Envoy was the clear winner. The new engine is excellent. I suspect it is superior to even the eight in the Explorer. The body structure of the Envoy is much more solid, combining with the suspension to yield a much more refined ride. The Envoy’s handling is more balanced, and can even be called fun as long as you’re not expecting a sport sedan. Passenger comfort and cargo room are very good. Finally, the exterior and interior styling is both distinctive and tasteful. I’m not an SUV person, but I really liked driving this one. If you’re in the market for a mid-sized SUV, I encourage you to look at this one. If you really want a third row seat, I’d advise waiting, if at all possible, for the upcoming extended version of the Envoy, which will have this feature. The Explorer is inferior in too many areas for a third row to tilt a decision in its favor.

XL

The Ford Explorer’s major advantage over the Envoy is its optional third seat. Because the Envoy uses a conventional “live” rear axle, which requires a high rear floor, a third seat of reasonable size cannot fit. To respond to the Ford, an extended version of the Envoy, the “Envoy XL,” went on sale this summer. To fit a third-row seat, GM has stretched the Envoy’s wheelbase by a whopping sixteen inches (length increases by the same amount) and bumped the rear portion of the roof up a couple of inches. I was able to look at and sit in this vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show.

While the third-row seat in the XL is considerably roomier than those in the Explorer and Durango, it’s still too tight for even this 5ֽ” adult. It’s also not easy to get into, since you have to fold the right half of the second-row seat forward and then bend over uncomfortably as you walk back.

Still, my major beef with the XL concerns its appearance. With the wheelbase stretched by such a large amount and the rear overhang unchanged the resulting proportions are just plain awful. People buy SUVs for how they look, and how they look is largely a function of proportions that suggest agility. The standard Envoy looks great. Perhaps enabled by the clean-sheet design, its proportions are perfect. In sharp contrast, the XL looks awkward, even clumsy. The smallish third window doesn't help--the similarly stretched Chevrolet TrailBlazer manages the transition better. The “stretch” look might work for a limo, which involves similar modifications, but it clashes with the very essence of an SUV. With styling out the window, you might as well get a minivan.

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Amount Paid (US$): 32000
Model Year: 2002
Model and Options: SLT 4WD