2003 GMC Yukon XL Denali review from North America

The dashboard had a very small rattle in it when driving on less than smooth roads. Took it to the dealer and it was fixed, no charge. An oil change and tire rotation was performed by them free of charge for my trouble.

I had trouble initializing the XM radio on this vehicle. For some reason the XM radio would not receive the initialization code to unlock all of the stations. After going round and round with XM radio, I took the truck back to my GMC dealer and they replaced the radio. Along with the trouble of having to go replace the radio, I also missed out on the 3 months free XM. My suggestion would be to have the dealer initialize the XM radio.

I have seen that the driver's side leather seat has started to wear a little. So I have become a little more diligent with leather care and seem to have slowed the problem down.

Other than the problems noted above this vehicle has been a joy to drive and own except for the gas mileage. I truly enjoy traveling in this vehicle and we put a lot of miles on it with family and hunting trips.

The kids keep entertained on both short and long trips with the DVD player, and I can listen to XM radio at the same time while they are wearing their headsets. Also, when they do get a little older, it looks like I can plug a video game into the DVD monitor.

At speed (read above 60 mph) the 6.0L engine has no problem pulling a fully loaded vehicle and trailer down the highway and through the hills. Passing and getting on the freeway are not a problem. But you can see that instant gas mpg is in the single digits, if not less than 5 mpg.

There are too many features to list and comment on, but I will say that I was talked into buying the Denali over the SLT. At first I was not too excited to spend the extra money on top of what it would cost for the '03 Yukon XL SLT. But now I would do it again. I just hope that as the vehicle has more miles added, it is not too expensive to maintain. Our '95 Yukon SLT has over 200,000 miles on it and I have not spent too much to maintain it. With all of the added features on the Denali, that may not be the case.