The Best Large SUVs for 2015

I’m Steven Kaye, Editorial Director at Bottom Line Publications, and today my guest is auto analyst Karl Brauer, Kelley Blue Book Senior Director. A large SUV can be a workhorse and a great people mover, but you also want to like driving it. Bottom Line will help you focus on the best.

Karl, thank you for coming out today to Bottom Line.

Karl Brauer: Great to be here.

Bottom Line: So, large SUVs. They are traditionally for pulling boats and trailers and everything else that you can pull.

Brauer: People too.

Bottom Line: But today, they’re cars for people. So for 2015, what are the best ones out there?

Brauer: I think one of the ones that’s been most impressive – because it wasn’t redesigned, but it was refreshed a couple years ago and it really transformed it – was the Dodge Durango. What happened when they refreshed it is they put in an 8-speed transmission and they updated the interior quality and the user interface with the latest UConnect access.

What you ended up with was a really capable, powerful vehicle, fun to drive. Styling remained about the same, but that was okay, because I think it was already one of the more attractive vehicles in the category. Very functional third row seat, which is what you want in a large SUV.

So what you ended up with is a model that was not all new, but felt heavily refreshed and heavily revised after that refresh, and it continues to be one of the more appealing ones in that category. It drives fabulously.

Bottom Line: Let’s talk about that third row seat for a minute, because there are a growing number of vehicles out there with third row seats. But by the time you get people into the first row and people into the second row and everybody’s adjusted, the third row seat is not necessarily the place you’d want to be unless you’re a kid. So in the Durango, is it a real seat?

Brauer: It is. It’s a real seat, and it’s impressive because the Durango isn’t as big as some of the other cars in this category. There are really true large SUVs in this category; this one’s kind of borderline. Some people would actually argue it’s midsize.

But I think it’s big enough inside to justify a three-row, full-use vehicle, which makes it very competitive with the large SUVs, but costs less. The actual platform on this vehicle was shared with the Mercedes. There’s still some Daimler-Mercedes collaboration left over from when they were owned by them. So you’ve got a very good platform that also is used on the Mercedes SUV, and that comes through in how refined this car feels. But it costs far less than a Mercedes.

Bottom Line: So the Mercedes bits and pieces from when they were corporate cousins, even though they’re a little bit on the old side, they’re still high quality?

Brauer: This is a new platform. Mercedes and Chrysler co-developed this brand new platform, even though they otherwise aren’t related to each other.

Bottom Line: So even though they’ve parted ways now, you’re still getting the benefit of the Mercedes goodies.

Brauer: They still collaborate to save costs, yeah.

Bottom Line: A lot of the large SUVs, the bigger ones, people have trouble sometimes even parking them in their garages, getting them in and out. This vehicle gets rid of that problem.

Brauer: The same platform is used on the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is technically a midsize. That vehicle only comes with two rows, and it is a little smaller exterior-dimension-wise, but it’s the same platform that the Durango is on.

So really, the Durango is kind of a tweener. That’s why I like it so much. I feel like if you need a “large” SUV, you’ll save money and you’ll be better off parking it and driving it without having this monster vehicle.

Bottom Line: Okay, so that’s the Dodge Durango. And you had another large SUV choice for 2015 that you like very much.

Brauer: Right, that is a true large SUV. Now, this is the big daddy one, and that’s the Chevrolet Suburban. This is as large an SUV as a large SUV gets. A very good vehicle that was just redesigned in 2015, and that means it’s got all these updates. This is one of the vehicles that is a body-on-frame, so it’s a traditional SUV. This is not a crossover by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a truck-based vehicle.

What’s amazing is how it does not feel truck-based at all when you drive it. It’s large, it weighs a lot, it’s got a lot of space inside, and yet it drives much smaller than it is. It feels very manageable, and it is very manageable. Obviously the dimensions are the dimensions; when it’s time to park it, you’ve got to be careful. But it’s got a lot of parking assists with the cameras and parking sensors that’ll help you do that.

But if you want to load a lot of people in a vehicle or you want to pull a lot of weight, a trailer, this is a great vehicle, and it’s brand new. General Motors is doing very well in that large segment. They kind of own the segment in terms of the market share because of how well these vehicles are performing.

Bottom Line: How many seatbelts in there? How many people can you really put in there?

Brauer: I know you can do eight if you get bench row in the second and third row seat.

Bottom Line: So you can choose the seats.

Brauer: But you can also do captain’s chairs, yeah. Which would be seven.

Bottom Line: And when you load everybody in there, everybody feels like he or she is in a real seat?

Brauer: Yeah. This is a car you can go cross country with adults in every seat.

Bottom Line: I haven’t driven this generation. I drove all the previous generations, and basically very spacious. You felt like you were piloting a bus, though, as you drove it.

Brauer: Yeah.

Bottom Line: Not true anymore?

Brauer: This one feels like it’s kind of crossed over. No pun intended. It’s still an SUV, but it feels almost like a unibody vehicle because of how refined it is and how well it drives.

Bottom Line: Terrific. So that’s two large SUVs; one a little smaller, which may be a benefit, but if you really need the real big one, the new Suburban.

Brauer: Yeah. Don’t forget, the smaller one, the Durango, you can get a 6-cylinder engine in. But it still makes over 300 horsepower with that 8-speed. It’s got all these ratios to choose from, so it’s got all this power. So between the smaller engine and the smaller size, you can get a really nice Durango in the thirties. You’re going to spend more like fifty to sixty minimum on the Suburban.

Bottom Line: And the 8-speed transmission is available even with the 6-cylinder engine as well?

Brauer:: Yes. That was what was nice. It’s standard on every configuration for that Durango. You get that 8-speed.

Bottom Line: And that allows the engine to find the best range for fuel efficiency, no matter what speed you’re going.

Brauer: Right, and power. So if you actually need some torque, it doesn’t feel like you’ve got a 6-cylinder engine that’s barely moving the thing around. I drove both versions, and I was very thrilled with the vehicle, particularly because the 6 felt fully functional.

Bottom Line: I think the Durango is your heart’s true favorite in this category.

Brauer: It is. Well, I was looking at them personally. I didn’t expect to go on the press trip, and I came out of the press trip going, “I’m going to start pricing these out.” And I still would consider buying one right now.

Bottom Line: That’s something, because you are driving hundreds of cars a year.

Brauer: Right.

Bottom Line: Okay. Thanks very much, Karl.

Brauer: Yeah, thanks.