Chevrolet Suburban

Which Chevrolet Suburban years should you avoid?

Going by 8,042 owner complaints filed with NHTSA, the Chevrolet Suburban years to avoid are 2015, 1994, 1996, 1999 and 1993.

• 2015431 complaints, 2.2× a typical Suburban year, most often about the brakes; and 2.5× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (8 fires, 21 crashes, 2 deaths).
• 1994858 complaints, 4.4× a typical Suburban year, most often about the brakes.
• 19963.7× the usual share of fires, crashes and deaths for a car of its age (12 fires, 20 crashes, 10 deaths).
• 1999634 complaints, 3.3× a typical Suburban year, most often about the brakes.
• 1993499 complaints, 2.6× a typical Suburban year, most often about the brakes.

3 more years cleared the same bar; they are marked in the table below.

Better bets: among years old enough for a low count to mean something, the 2014, 2018 and 2013 drew the fewest complaints without an unusual share of serious ones.

How this is worked out: each year is compared with a typical year of the same model, which takes most of the difference in sales out of it, and its share of serious failures is compared with every other car of the same model year, because older cars were complained about differently. A year needs 25 complaints to be judged at all. Complaints are unverified owner reports. Full method →