2025 Chevy Suburban First Drive: Base Is (Almost) Best

• Every Suburban gets a 17.7-inch touchscreen and adaptive cruise control
• Super Cruise hands-free driving makes the 2025 Suburban the ultimate family road tripper
• All three engines are excellent, including the updated, more powerful diesel

Big screen, more standard features

Chevy tweaked the headlight and taillight designs for 2025 but the first thing you’ll notice when you slide behind the wheel is the new 17.7-inch touchscreen in the center of the dash. It's much bigger than what the Suburban had before. The high-resolution screen responds to touch inputs with immediacy and the layout of the various menus and controls is easy to figure out.

This touchscreen system comes with integrated Google Maps and Google Assistant functionality. The latter is a voice system that you can use to control many of the Suburban's climate and audio features as well as other personal Google-based features. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which project many of your smartphone's apps directly on the screen, are included as well.

The optional head-up display that projects info onto the windshield is large and bright. Unlike some other head-up displays, it's visible even if you’re wearing polarized sunglasses.

Our only hesitation with Chevy replacing the old 10.2-inch screen that was standard across most 2021-24 Suburbans is our experience with the 17.7-inch system in the Chevrolet Blazer EV that we've bought and are testing for a year. Chevy has supposedly addressed these issues, but we’re still traumatized by blank screens, reboot loops, and fully replacing our infotainment screen.

Perhaps more impressive than the screen are the newly standard driver assist features. The entry-level Suburban LS now includes previously higher-end driver aids like adaptive cruise control (a feature that maintains a driver-set distance between the Suburban and the car in front) and a top-down, 360-degree camera view. That surround-view camera is crucial when parking something so long and wide.

Another new addition is the Super Cruise, Chevy's hands-free driver assist system. It's available on all Suburban trims except the base LS. Super Cruise works in conjunction with the adaptive cruise control and allows you to take your hands off the wheel on mapped highways and when certain conditions are met.

During our drive of the Suburban, I found the system to be mostly helpful and easy to use. I did deselect the option for automatic lane changes to maintain my set speed because I found the software would decide to change lanes too often and almost made me miss an exit.

Seating for nine?

As you’d hope, the cabin of the Suburban is cavernous. A 6-foot-tall passenger can sit behind a driver the same size with a few inches to spare, and a third 6-footer can clamber back to the third row and still have 3 or 4 inches between their knees and the seatback.

Getting into and out of the third row is great considering the second-row buckets fold flat and tip forward with a couple pulls of a lever, or in higher trims, a button push from the third row. One factor to consider: It takes a fair amount of force to put those seats back in place, which might be problematic for smaller, not-so-strong passenger needs.

Parents with kids in car seats will be happy to hear the doors still open wide to create a huge aperture for easy installation. Ceiling-mounted climate control vents are a boon for young ones in rear-facing car seats too.

Both the second- and third-row seats are relatively firm and lacking in significant support. I also noticed that taller passengers in Suburbans equipped with the panoramic glass roof may run into issues with headroom.

I applaud Chevrolet for still offering a 2025 Suburban with a front-row bench seat that expands maximum seating capacity to nine. It’s only available on the entry-level LS with a fabric interior, but this makes the Suburban one of very few options viable for a family with seven kids. The front-row bench could also be useful if you had six passengers and needed a ton of cargo space.

There’s almost no trade-off for the extra seat, either; you can fold it down to access cupholders and slightly smaller center console storage, plus the armrest is actually more comfortable than what you get with front-row buckets. It'd be nice to see it offered on higher trims.

Driving Chevy’s largest SUV

Chevy offers three engine options and a few different suspension setups across the Suburban range and there’s not a bad-driving SUV in the lot. You’ll definitely feel a difference in off-the-line acceleration between the 5.3-liter V8 that's standard in most trims, the optional 6.2-liter V8, and the turbocharged diesel-powered six-cylinder.

If price is no object, I think the 6.2-liter sounds the best and the diesel will offer the best fuel economy, but there’s not a bad engine in the bunch. I’d go diesel in a perfect world — especially with the extra power and torque of this year’s new iteration, you don’t give up much in performance to get significantly better efficiency.

Regardless of engine, the standard 10-speed transmission is great. It's so responsive that a flex of the right foot will have the Suburban dropping gears and raising revs quickly enough that you never really need the extra low-end grunt brought about by big displacement or turbocharging.

The driving experience of the new Suburban will be familiar to anyone who’s driven a truck-based, body-on-frame GM product in the past few years. The Suburban's ride quality is certainly smooth, though you still feel a bit more of the road than what you'd experience from a crossover SUV (such as Chevy's Traverse.) I noticed a slightly more composed ride when driving a Suburban fitted with the available adaptive suspension, but it wasn't a major difference.

I like the feel of the brakes here, too. There’s good bite at the top of the pedal that inspires confidence and it’s easy to control brake pressure to smoothly come to a stop. That initial bite could feel grabby if you’re used to something softer, but I'm a fan.

A great choice for a do-everything family SUV

If you’ve decided a large three-row is what you need, it’s easy to recommend a Suburban. Folks who have space and budget for a Tahoe will likely barely notice the Suburban's extra length when driving in normal situations. And if you actually want to move that many people, you’ll want the Suburban's extra cargo space.

Pricing for the 2025 Suburban starts at $63,495 — $2,300 more than last year — and 4WD is a $3,000 option. A Suburban High Country 4WD stickers for a steep $86,195. I recommend stepping up to the LT so you can get leather upholstery and the option to spec Super Cruise and the Duramax diesel. With that combo, you’ll have a strong, safe, efficient, tech-filled family hauler that’ll put back miles like Joey Chestnut crushes hot dogs.