Cheap Upgrades That Actually Made Our GMT800 Better

Aug 8

Written By Ryan McKay

There is a dangerous thing that happens when you own an old vehicle and have access to Amazon.

You start browsing.

Not because anything is necessarily broken. That would at least be responsible.

You just start thinking things like:

That hatch does hit me in the head sometimes.

Those old door lights are pretty pathetic.

The window visors would probably look better black.

And suddenly there are four packages sitting on the front step and you’re explaining that they’re technically “maintenance.”

That’s more or less how this particular afternoon with our 2003 GMC Yukon Denali started.

Except this time I had help.

Blake grabbed the ratchet.

That immediately made the whole thing more entertaining.

This Is Exactly the Kind of Work I Like Doing on an Old Truck

I love big automotive projects in theory.

Engine swaps. Suspension builds. Brake upgrades. Exhaust systems. All the stuff that looks fantastic in a YouTube thumbnail and usually ends with somebody standing in a garage at 1:30 in the morning wondering why there are three bolts left over.

But most actual vehicle ownership isn’t like that.

Most of the time, the things that make you like your vehicle more are stupidly small.

Fix the annoying rattle.

Replace the hatch struts that have developed homicidal intentions.

Put in better lights.

Replace some faded plastic.

Spend forty bucks making something you touch every day work properly again.

That’s the good stuff.

Especially on a vehicle like our GMT800 Yukon, where almost everything is still simple enough that you can walk outside with a basic tool kit, a five-year-old assistant and a completely unjustified level of confidence.

The Rear Hatch Had Declared War on My Skull

Affiliate disclosure: Some links below are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Consider it contributing to the ongoing financial irresponsibility of keeping an old Yukon nice.

We replaced ours with a cheap set of rear glass hatch struts from Amazon, and this is one of those repairs where you immediately wonder why you waited so long.

Ours had reached that stage where they technically still worked.

Mostly.

As long as there wasn’t wind.

Or cold.

Or gravity.

You’d open the rear hatch, start grabbing something out of the cargo area, and suddenly the Yukon would attempt to bonk you directly in the coconut.

Nothing makes you appreciate new hatch struts quite like having a large piece of glass and metal slowly descend toward the back of your head.

The replacement is hilariously simple.

Support hatch.

Remove old strut.

Install new strut.

Repeat other side.

Done.

And because Blake was involved, this became considerably more serious business than it needed to be.

He had the ratchet.

He was turning things.

I was supervising just enough to make sure we didn’t accidentally remove something structural.

That’s a pretty good afternoon.

Five-Year-Olds Love Ratchets

One of the best things about working on older vehicles with Blake is that the jobs are understandable.

There’s a bolt.

The bolt needs to come out.

Here is a ratchet.

Turn it this way.

That’s a much easier concept for a kid than:

“Okay buddy, Daddy needs you to hold the laptop while we recalibrate the forward-facing radar sensor.”

There’s something wonderfully basic about an old truck.

He can see what we’re changing.

He can hold the old part.

He can install something.

Then we can test it and immediately see whether it worked.

That matters to me more than whether we shaved two tenths off our quarter-mile time or gained eleven horsepower.

He doesn’t need to understand the whole mechanical system.

He just knows:

We did something to the truck.

Now it works better.

And he helped.

That’s cool.

LED Door Lights: Completely Unnecessary and Also Excellent

I have an embarrassing affection for cheap LED upgrades.

Not the kind that turn the underside of your truck purple and make it look like a Fast & Furious extra that got lost on the way to a meet.

Just replacing old, dim incandescent lighting with something that actually lets you see.

The door lights on a GMT800 are one of those tiny details you don’t think about until you improve them.

The originals worked.

Technically.

In the same way a candle technically illuminates a cave.

We used these LED door lights , and for such a stupidly inexpensive little upgrade, I like them far more than I probably should.

The LEDs are brighter, cleaner and make the truck feel slightly less like it was assembled during the first Bush administration.

Does this radically transform ownership?

No.

Did I enjoy it far more than the amount of money involved justified?

Absolutely.

That’s basically the entire appeal of cheap vehicle upgrades.

We’ve also been replacing some of the old incandescent bulbs around the truck with LEDs. For anyone doing the same thing, these are the LASFIT 194 LEDs and LASFIT 315 7 LEDs we’ve been using.

Nothing revolutionary. Just brighter light from a truck built when flip phones were still impressive.

Window Visors: Because Apparently We’re Styling It Too

The window visors were another inexpensive change.

We went with these in-channel window visors from Amazon, which I prefer because they tuck into the window channel instead of being stuck across the outside of the door with a giant strip of tape.

Again, not revolutionary.

The truck did not suddenly gain resale value.

Nobody from General Motors called to congratulate us.

But they suit the Yukon.

They’re useful when it’s raining—which, around here, is not exactly a hypothetical situation—and I like being able to crack the windows without immediately inviting half the weather inside.

And honestly, I just think they look good on a GMT800.

That’s enough.

This is where I think people sometimes make vehicle modifications way more complicated than they need to be.

Not every upgrade needs measurable performance data.

Sometimes you spend a few bucks because something is useful, looks better, or both.

We are allowed to enjoy things.

I checked.

Then We Did the Smooth Escalade-Style D-Pillars

This video was actually filmed before one of my favourite cheap visual upgrades we’ve done to the Yukon.

The factory rear D-pillar covers on these trucks have those big vented-looking sections running down the rear corners.

They’re very GMT800.

They’re also very early-2000s.

We swapped ours for the smooth Escalade-style D-pillar covers.

About a hundred bucks.

And I absolutely love them.

It’s one of those changes that most people who aren’t into these trucks probably wouldn’t even notice.

But if you know GMT800s, you notice.

And once you see the smooth pillars, the old vented ones suddenly look busy.

The smooth covers clean up the entire rear of the truck. They make it look newer, simpler and a little more upscale without making it look modified for the sake of being modified.

That’s exactly the kind of upgrade I like.

No fake carbon fibre.

No giant body kit.

No weird aftermarket styling that immediately dates itself.

Just a factory-style part from another version of essentially the same platform.

Cheap.

Simple.

Looks like it belongs there.

And for around a hundred bucks, I think it modernized the back of the Yukon more than almost anything else we’ve done.

Zero regrets on that one.

Cheap Doesn’t Have to Mean Garbage

Amazon automotive parts can be an adventure.

Sometimes you open the box and think:

Wow, this is surprisingly decent.

Other times you open the box and begin to wonder whether the manufacturer has ever actually seen the vehicle the product supposedly fits.

That’s part of the game.

I’m not replacing steering components or brake hydraulics with mystery parts because a listing had four-and-a-half stars and a picture of an eagle.

There are places where I want proper known-quality parts.

But hatch struts?

Door lights?

Visors?

Trim pieces?

Little convenience upgrades?

That’s exactly where cheap aftermarket stuff can make a lot of sense.

If it works, great.

If it doesn’t, return it and write a mildly angry review while eating breakfast.

This Isn’t a “Build”

And I like that.

YouTube is full of builds.

$20,000 suspension systems.

LS swaps.

40-inch tires.

Fully fabricated everything.

Meanwhile, we changed some lights, prevented the rear hatch from assaulting me and swapped some plastic trim.

And I genuinely think this kind of content is closer to how most people actually enjoy their vehicles.

Most of us aren’t building SEMA trucks.

We’re maintaining something we like.

Fixing annoyances.

Adding little things.

Making it look slightly better.

Making it easier to live with.

Maybe changing the exhaust later because the 6.0 currently sounds far too well behaved.

That’s ownership.

And honestly, it’s probably more relatable than pretending every vehicle needs to become a project with a five-figure parts budget.

The Yukon Is Perfect for This Stuff

The GMT800 platform might be one of the best vehicles ever made for driveway tinkering.

There’s an enormous aftermarket.

Parts are everywhere.

There are twenty years of forum posts explaining almost every possible problem.

YouTube has probably documented every fastener on the truck.

And because these vehicles were produced in enormous numbers, companies still make all sorts of cheap replacement and upgrade parts for them.

That gives you this endless list of little projects.

Some necessary.

Some cosmetic.

Some completely unnecessary but entertaining.

Which is dangerous when you already enjoy car shopping and Amazon delivers to your house.

There’s More Coming

We’re nowhere near done with the Yukon.

Some upcoming work is considerably less glamorous.

Inner tie rods.

Sway-bar end links.

Transmission cooler lines.

An oil leak.

Rear brakes eventually.

The normal joys of owning something old enough to legally drink in the United States.

Then there are the fun things.

A better driver’s seat, because ours leans slightly and has almost certainly absorbed the ghosts of a thousand farts.

I’ve already got a replacement driver’s seat leather cover sitting on the list for when I finally deal with it.

A little more exhaust noise.

Possibly some brake upgrades using later GM parts.

Maybe eventually doing something about the running boards, assuming I can decide whether looking cooler is worth making it harder to get into my own truck.

There will always be something.

That’s half the fun.

The Best Upgrade Was Probably the Kid With the Ratchet

The truck was better at the end of the day.

The hatch stayed up.

The lights were brighter.

The visors looked good.

The smooth rear pillars came later and cleaned up the whole back of the truck.

Nothing cost very much.

But the part I’ll actually remember is Blake standing there with a ratchet working on Dad’s Yukon.

Not because I’m trying to manufacture some emotional father-son automotive story.

He’s five.

He was mostly excited because tools are fun and ratchets make noises.

That’s enough.

Maybe he grows up obsessed with cars.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Right now he likes helping.

I like having him there.

And our old Yukon provides an almost endless supply of small jobs for both of us to screw around with.

Seems like a pretty good arrangement.

Under $100 Can Actually Make a Difference

That’s what I like about these upgrades.

None of them individually sounds impressive.

Nobody is going to walk around the truck at a car show saying:

“Holy shit, are those aftermarket hatch struts?”

But every time I open the rear hatch and it doesn’t attack me, I notice.

Every time I open the door at night, I notice the better lighting.

Every time it rains and I crack the window, I use the visors.

Every time I walk up behind the Yukon, I notice those smooth D-pillars and think they look a hell of a lot better.

Small improvements add up.

You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to make an old vehicle better.

Sometimes you just need a couple of cheap parts, an afternoon in the driveway and a five-year-old who refuses to give the ratchet back.

I’ll take that over a software update any day.

Parts We’ve Used on the Yukon

Some of these are already installed, some are on the current to-do list, and all of them are parts or upgrades we’ve actually bought, used, or seriously plan to use on the Yukon.

Rear glass hatch struts — Amazon
LED door lights — Amazon
LASFIT 194 LED bulbs — Amazon
LASFIT 3157 LED bulbs — Amazon
In-channel window visors — Amazon
Driver’s seat leather replacement — Amazon
Driver’s rear window regulator — Amazon
WeatherTech floor mats — Amazon
WeatherTech cargo floor mat — Amazon
Clear headlight lenses with C-shaped LED strip — Amazon

Affiliate disclosure: Some links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Consider it contributing to the ongoing financial irresponsibility of keeping an old Yukon nice.