I know there has been a lot of strong emotion on the upcoming WBH (without body hardware) Avalanche. The claddingless Avalanche looks almost like a crew cab Silverado, even sharing the same front clip, mirrors and fender flares. The only part of the coming WBH Avalanche that "looks" like an Avalanche is the cargo area and sail panels. Many who were essentially "early adopters" of the Avalanche don't like this look, they don't like it at all and they fear that this is the long term future of the Avalanche.
First lets look at the cladding itself. There is no doubt about it that the critics, both on the street and in the press hate the cladding. Over 40% of the Avalanche is covered in plastic and that is a fact you can take with you. They don't like the Mad Max look that it creates and there are worries about long term quality.
Of course those of us who own Avalanches know the benefits of the cladding. Road tar, paint, scratches and damage are not existent from day to day driving. If you get something on the cladding it is generally easier to get off than paint. Sure if you scratch the cladding YOU may know where the damage is but a little careful heating and molding and the average person won't know where that shiny spot is.
When it comes to parking lot rash and door dings the Avalanche is all but bullet proof. Almost all doors make contact below the cladding line, shopping carts make contact below the line and I'm sure the General thought about this. To get a door ding you've got to try really hard. Likewise the softer cladding is what contacts most other cars, so door dinging your neighbor is also harder.
When it comes to replacement the cladding can't be beat. A rear quarter panel, just $62. A rear bumper cover, just $232. A whole front bumper cover, $272. You can replace your entire lower cladding for about $1,100. Try doing that with sheetmetal!
BUT - and here is the big but, the very virtues of the cladding do keep the Avalanche from being a serious contender in some key areas. Because the front bumper assembly is held on my flimsy brackets (sorry Avalanche faithful, but flimsy is a kind word) putting real off-roading gear on the Avalanche is difficult at best. Sure there are a number of brush guards out there, and durable ones if you sacrifice your tow hooks, but attaching to the bumper itself isn't easy. Although there are willing companies who want to develop winches and other accessories, there is no valid location to mount them on the front easily. There has to be options at least in the 2500 series because a snow plow also puts a lot of stress on the front end - but plowing streets and 4-WD are two different issues.
Then there is the rear bumper and the cladding. Sadly the Avalanche on approach and escape tends to scrape it's rear bumper. We know this and those that off-road do different things in an effort to mitigate this namely go slow down the hill and try to enter or exit at an angle. Still 20 plus degrees stock out of the box sure isn't bad for a vehicle that is 19 feet long. However get that cladding caught in sand, mud or a rock and you can rip the whole cover off.
The problem of course with this is the cladding on the sides is more than perfect. Sure the jeep guys can cover their lower sections with replacable polished metal to bang up but the cladding is inexpensive, easy to replace and takes a fair amount of abuse that paint wouldn't tolerate. But where it shines on the side it can fail misreably on the front and rear.
So that brings me back to the WBH option Avalanche. With the Silverado front and rear bumpers the WBH Avalanche is going to get the goodies we can't get. You can't tell me that Warn does have winches for 2003 Silverados, that there are replacement bumpers out there and other neat off-roading toys. A lot of these toys that we can only dream about on a BH (body hardware) equipped Avalanche will go right on a WBH model.
There in lies the question. Does the WBH Avalanche, say equipped with the Z-71 package become the Avalanche of off-roading choice. And then one has to wonder, can the General come up with a compromise. An Avalanche with a sturdier front and rear bumper but cladding on the sides that well, looks right and not like some deformed hybrid.
I have to tell you as someone who has been a marketing weasel almost all their lives, in my humble opinion the days of cladding on the Avalanche are numbered. No, not in the Pontiac Aztek oh my God what were we thinking sense, but in the market is speaking and Chevy is listening. I know that 125K sold can't be right but there is no denying that shaving $1,200 off the sticker price (for WBH and no hard cargo cover) and taking off the Mad Max look is going to open up the Avalanche to a MUCH wider market. I mean come on, a WBH Avalanche in yellow with the charcoal interior - sweet!
It is my general belief that the Avalanche as a name plate will live for roughly five years, and then either join the Silverado, Tahoe, or Suburban name plate (think Escalade EXT). Chevrolet took a number of big gambles on the Avalanche and they clearly won.
So I ask that you consider WBH as a good thing, something that assures that the Avalanche as a separate name plate will live on longer than I vision. That the WBH option will open up the Avalanche to a new group of owners and will open us up to a whole new line of accessories and options. That the WBH can be a serious off-roading vehicle, and in some ways even more so than our current BH equipped Avalanches. It's something to think about.
Discuss...
First lets look at the cladding itself. There is no doubt about it that the critics, both on the street and in the press hate the cladding. Over 40% of the Avalanche is covered in plastic and that is a fact you can take with you. They don't like the Mad Max look that it creates and there are worries about long term quality.
Of course those of us who own Avalanches know the benefits of the cladding. Road tar, paint, scratches and damage are not existent from day to day driving. If you get something on the cladding it is generally easier to get off than paint. Sure if you scratch the cladding YOU may know where the damage is but a little careful heating and molding and the average person won't know where that shiny spot is.
When it comes to parking lot rash and door dings the Avalanche is all but bullet proof. Almost all doors make contact below the cladding line, shopping carts make contact below the line and I'm sure the General thought about this. To get a door ding you've got to try really hard. Likewise the softer cladding is what contacts most other cars, so door dinging your neighbor is also harder.
When it comes to replacement the cladding can't be beat. A rear quarter panel, just $62. A rear bumper cover, just $232. A whole front bumper cover, $272. You can replace your entire lower cladding for about $1,100. Try doing that with sheetmetal!
BUT - and here is the big but, the very virtues of the cladding do keep the Avalanche from being a serious contender in some key areas. Because the front bumper assembly is held on my flimsy brackets (sorry Avalanche faithful, but flimsy is a kind word) putting real off-roading gear on the Avalanche is difficult at best. Sure there are a number of brush guards out there, and durable ones if you sacrifice your tow hooks, but attaching to the bumper itself isn't easy. Although there are willing companies who want to develop winches and other accessories, there is no valid location to mount them on the front easily. There has to be options at least in the 2500 series because a snow plow also puts a lot of stress on the front end - but plowing streets and 4-WD are two different issues.
Then there is the rear bumper and the cladding. Sadly the Avalanche on approach and escape tends to scrape it's rear bumper. We know this and those that off-road do different things in an effort to mitigate this namely go slow down the hill and try to enter or exit at an angle. Still 20 plus degrees stock out of the box sure isn't bad for a vehicle that is 19 feet long. However get that cladding caught in sand, mud or a rock and you can rip the whole cover off.
The problem of course with this is the cladding on the sides is more than perfect. Sure the jeep guys can cover their lower sections with replacable polished metal to bang up but the cladding is inexpensive, easy to replace and takes a fair amount of abuse that paint wouldn't tolerate. But where it shines on the side it can fail misreably on the front and rear.
So that brings me back to the WBH option Avalanche. With the Silverado front and rear bumpers the WBH Avalanche is going to get the goodies we can't get. You can't tell me that Warn does have winches for 2003 Silverados, that there are replacement bumpers out there and other neat off-roading toys. A lot of these toys that we can only dream about on a BH (body hardware) equipped Avalanche will go right on a WBH model.
There in lies the question. Does the WBH Avalanche, say equipped with the Z-71 package become the Avalanche of off-roading choice. And then one has to wonder, can the General come up with a compromise. An Avalanche with a sturdier front and rear bumper but cladding on the sides that well, looks right and not like some deformed hybrid.
I have to tell you as someone who has been a marketing weasel almost all their lives, in my humble opinion the days of cladding on the Avalanche are numbered. No, not in the Pontiac Aztek oh my God what were we thinking sense, but in the market is speaking and Chevy is listening. I know that 125K sold can't be right but there is no denying that shaving $1,200 off the sticker price (for WBH and no hard cargo cover) and taking off the Mad Max look is going to open up the Avalanche to a MUCH wider market. I mean come on, a WBH Avalanche in yellow with the charcoal interior - sweet!
It is my general belief that the Avalanche as a name plate will live for roughly five years, and then either join the Silverado, Tahoe, or Suburban name plate (think Escalade EXT). Chevrolet took a number of big gambles on the Avalanche and they clearly won.
So I ask that you consider WBH as a good thing, something that assures that the Avalanche as a separate name plate will live on longer than I vision. That the WBH option will open up the Avalanche to a new group of owners and will open us up to a whole new line of accessories and options. That the WBH can be a serious off-roading vehicle, and in some ways even more so than our current BH equipped Avalanches. It's something to think about.
Discuss...