So I'm currently looking at getting a new family SUV and its between the Excursion and the Suburban (yeah I know).

I'm leaning more towards the Excursion because it's heavier duty. I know the 2500 Suburbans exist but they seem to be few and far between. And the 1500 Suburban has that weak transmission I don't want to worry about.

Now the few things that I'm wondering about the Excursion are just how hard is the engine to work on? My parents have a E350 with the V10 and it's a pain in the ***. Granted the front end on the van is very smashed so the engine is partly in the firewall and under the dash. I'm HOPING the truck front end of the Excursion makes it easier. I do know from my dads experience that even if it is a pain to work on, in their 180K miles all he's had to do was plugs, coils, and and alternator or 2, so it doesn't need work often!

Other thing is mileage. It's not a major concern because this won't be a daily, but I'm still curious. I know my dad said he gets about 15 in their van but from what I found online it's considerably lighter. I've tried googling it but it seems everyone is all over the place. Some people claiming single digits and others claiming almost 20. I guess if I average that then mid to low teens on the highway? I don't really care about in town mileage because all the streets near me are 45 or up, and work is an exit right off the highway.

 

Hi Nick, I picked the EX over the Burb back when I was shopping and couldn't be happier with that choice six plus years later.
The EX has a lot more room up front than the vans and that does make the engine easier to get to. I recently did plugs and boots on my V-10 and even the rearmost ones weren't too bad to reach.
Here is a picture that shows the room you have.


Back when my EX was still all stock I used to get 14-ish for my typical daily driving and got a best ever tankful at 15.5 MPG on a highway trip. Now with my deeper gears, 4" lift and bigger tires it gets 12.5 on the highway. We use our EX mainly as a tow rig for our 11k TT, it gets 8 to 9 MPG pulling that big trailer on highway trips.
I have put 50k miles on my EX (it's at 115k miles now), 30k of them towing and all that I had to replace so far has been the fuel pump and two light bulbs, the V-10 is a very reliable and capable power plant.

 

Definitely better on engine room. Biggest problem with the van was the fact that part of the 3rd and all of the 4th row of cylinders was in the firewall, which was a MAJOR pain to get to those cylinders.

And mileage doesn't concern me too much simply because our plan for a majority of it's use is traveling. At least once a year we go travel about 7 hours to West Virginia to visit my grandparents and now that we're done making kids we plan on taking an actual yearly family vacation to some place like Myrtle Beach. For in town my wife has an Escape and we still have our Taurus.

We don't have a trailer but I know from experience from a kid that having more room than you need makes the trip easier. Kid's aren't fighting or complaining the whole time. 7 kids plus luggage and that 15 passenger E350 still felt cramped!

 

As the picture shows, it is better than a van but keep in mind that it is very high so it makes getting in it a bit harder. Personally, I am fine with it. I am not working on it everyday, so if it is a bit of a pain every once in a while that is find.

As far as MPG, if you are worried about that, this or any large vehicle is probably not for you. I know the Suburbans get a little better but it is not enough savings over a 5 year period to amount to enough to make a different decision.

In the city, I got 12-13, on a highway trip, 14-15 without towing anything but full of kids and gear.

 

We had a suburban before we got our first excursion. We loved it when we made the switch. The excursion was much easier to manage the 4 little boys we had. Now that we have 4 "big" boys, we still love it...so much that we have a second excursion. The first (2002 Limited, V-10) has 240,000 miles, the second (2004 Limited V-10), 140,000 miles. I really haven't had to do much with either of them. Mileage is not great, but not bad...11-15 mpg. We can get about 450-500 miles out of a tank, which generally lasts about 3 weeks, depending on how many trips we take out of town.

 

Highway MPG is largely a function of the speed your run, around town it's about how much you use the skinny pedal and how little you use the brake (coasting to red lights and avoiding jack-rabbit on the greens).
(In CO) Our F350 (v10) got 14.5 MPG on the last tank because our top speeds are 65 on the 4-lane hiway and we didn't do much up/down our mountain, with front hub's locked - but in 2wd.
If you are going 75-80 MPH you'll get about 10 MPG.

Our prior 2 tanks were 9-10 MPG, because we spent days in 4x4 hauling stuff up and down our mtn roads and doing lots of in-town driving and defrosting the frozen ice on the windows.
We rented a 2017 Jeep Cherokee for a few days and observed it's MPG as well. It was showing 8-9 on our MTN roads (15-20 MPH) but it was also showing 27 MPG going 60 on the hi way.
Our 2000 Jeep Sahara (v6 4.0L auto trans) gets about the same as the F350 - except it struggles to go the same speeds.. (Florida 3.07 gears and upsized tires) on roads with hills. :-(

(in FL) My 2WD Excursion (6.0 L) can get 19+ on the highway all day long going 70-72 MPH w/3 adults, 1 black LAB and luggage with the A/C on.

 

I currently own both and they are pretty different. I love my diesel Ex for towing and off road. The suburban is a better road vehicle by far. I think the suburban was built for the road while the EX is a heavy duty truck.

 

There is a dealership near me that has switched over to trucks and they specialize in Harley's, Lightnings, King Ranches etc. They have a very cool Excursion Turbo Diesel, lifted etc. Here is there web site in case you want to check them out. www.GreenStarAutoSales.com. They are always getting new inventory. I went by the other day and they also had two heritage F150 Harley's, but 100th Anniversary editions and and F250 Harley.