[ob_1jr]

Well, I will comment on some of the questions that I can give feedback to. First off welcome to the forum.

1. Mileage....I hardly get to drive 75 up here in AK, but when I drive to Anchorage or Valdez I normally get about 17-19 mpg going about 70-75. I can't really keep that speed since the roads are 2 lanes, but I don't play around when passing people either. I normally try to keep it at or under 2000 rpms. (I have a LB7 engine)

2. Towing....most of my towing is done in the winter on winter blend, but I normally get 10-14 depending on where I am going. Most of my towing does not consist of highway with cruise on...I am normally climbing hills to go snowmobiling or to go fishing. I normally drive around 65 when I can. There will be more and better input on towing mileage from others on the forum.

3. can't comment too much on max weight. the most I have driven it was around 17000 lbs GCW (I was helping someone do a DITY move and had to weigh the truck on a scale with the trailer). It handled pretty good especially for the heavy toung weight.

4. Years to avoid....I would say to avoid the 01-02s because they had the most injector fails. I have read that guys with the 05s have had overheating problems....although, none of them I know personally first hand (kinda hard to overheat in Alaska).

5. Areas to look at.....I would look at the ball joints and idler/pitman arms and look at the transfer case to see if there are any evident leaks (pump has been known to rub holes in the case). I would also look to see if there were any tell-tale signs of a programmer on it (EGT guage and boost) not to say they are all bad, but they could be masking a tranny problem. Even though these guages may or may not be on the truck is no difinitive way to know for sure unless they tell you that they had one on it or they are giving one with it.

6. The Allison is an awesome tranny and you should have no problems with it if left stock as long as you remember to change the spin-on filter and do normal servicing. The Allison can safely handle about 85-100 hp in stock form in most cases....not all can handle that. A lot depends on driving habits too.

7. Check out edmunds or GMs site. I don't have that info readily available.

8. I haven't gone that way per-say, but I drive a 6.0 PSD at work and have driven my friend's 7.3 PSD. All I can say, there is no comparison....I like the smooth power combo of the D/A combo not to mention the DMAX is quite abit quieter.

9. Yes, as long as you don't add big HP tunes. I love the grade braking feature.

10. LB7- fixed vane turbo and injector design is different than the LLY and up. LLY- has a variable vane turbo and programming differences...Also has more emissions crap on it. LBZ- same as LLY except for some internals and programming...emissions crap too. I think the compression was dropped on the LBZ too. Ones to avoid...see #4.

11. See #4....the 01-03s injectors are covered for 7yrs/200,000 miles zero deductable. (in most cases) For the most part, the LB7s got the best mileage out of the bunch....some people are sorry they traded in their LB7s on the newer ones. There are a lot of different factors that can affect your fuel mileage....I always hand calculate mine so I know for sure what I am getting..

One thing to remember, GM recommends you change the fuel filter every 15,000 miles....in reality, you need to do it more like 10,000 or sooner...like every oil change...that's what I did until I put a racor pre-oem filter on mine.

Hope this helps out some, you will get more feedback on this. There are guys that have more knowledge than I respond to this. I am just telling you basically what I have learned by reading the forums and some first-hand info.