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My New Truck - 2003 GMC 2500HD Diesel
My wife surprised me for my birthday and took me down to the GMC dealership and let me buy a new truck, she's a keeper. I had just had a FlowMaster installed on her truck that morning with a chrome tip on the tail pipe for her. Later that day she asked me if I would like to go to the dealership and look and see if they had the type of truck I had been talking about for the last 3 to 4 months. We had decided to wait until January 2004 to purchase a new truck for me and I was OK with that. But that new 0-60 deal by GM sold my wife on not waiting, the previous month GM was only offering a 0-36 on the trucks.
We had no ideal that we would even be buying the truck that day, I didn't even have my van that I was planning on trading in with us. I had to go home to get the van and remove all my stuff from it first. We went back to Ken Grody GMC and started the paperwork, we didn't get out there until 8:00 that night.

We had the truck setup for the trailer, I had the trailer brakes, electrical connection in the bed, and the 5th wheel hitch installed. I first had Rhino installed before the hitch went in and now the truck is ready for our trailering needs. I'm still having problems with Smittybilt in getting the side bars for the truck. They have been on back order for six weeks and I was told it will be another 7-10 days before they ship the bars to the retailer that I purchased the bars through. It's a nice product but their attitude toward their customers is a bit on the week side. They seem to think that they are the only company that can supply this product, but there not. Westin makes a good product, if I haven't of paid for it yet and waited this long I would have purchased the side bars from Westin. I finally had the nerf side bars installed, the vendor that I bought the Smittybilt bars from finally canceled the order after waiting for almost 8 weeks. I had Wilmore nerf bars installed and they look great, the best part is it's a lot easier to step up into the truck now. My wife loves that she doesn't have to climb Mt. Everest each time she tries to get into the truck. This was money well spent, under $450.00 with installation.
I been driving my truck now for over a month and I just love it. It's easy to drive, don't tell the cops but it hauls when you need to. I'm not saying that I speed very often, but if you need that extra speed to move out of a tight situation it's there for you. I was surprised on how well it holds the road on corners, (just testing it). I can't wait to pull the trailer to see how it handles the hills, but I was told by a friend that her 2500HD tows great. She has the same model and year truck and had used it quite a bit already. I just got back from Big Bear Lake and it handled those mountain roads great. I didn't have a problem and got great fuel mileage going up the mountain. It pulled my 5th wheel like a charm, the truck likes to work. I averaged about 9 MPG going up the mountain and on the way home about 12 MPG.
I love the XM Radio, it's listening to CDs but I did find one thing about satellite radio, when you drive under an overpass you sometimes  lose signal. But on those long drives through the desert or back country I can listen to what I want to hear instead of some scratchy AM or FM radio station that has a weak signal.
So far I've only done city driving and I am getting about 17 MPG and I've heard that freeway driving I should improve by a couple of miles.
 Here's a good picture of my truck and 24' fifth wheel.
   
  Picture of the front interior.
 
The backseat folds down giving you plenty of space to put things. It is a split 60/40 seat.
 
I had the bed installed with Rhino lining and had my Reese hitch and electric hookups installed.
 
Here's another side view with the new nerf bars.
 
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Updated 6/2003, RS