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Things to look for... - chevy motors

treegump

treegump

Romans 3:22-24
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Martinsville, IN
Probably looking for a Suburban/Tahoe/Yukon for a daily driver - and getting rid of the wife's Concorde.

What kind of mileage should I (or anyone else reading this) stay under for chevy motors?

Anything obvious to look out for?

Is there a preference on the 3 vehicles I mentioned above and barn doors vs tailgate? (My ford obsessed friend says barn doors are the best.)
 
Suburban is My vote and with barn doors. No electronic window motor to break with the BDs.
When vehicle shopping, if service records is available, then, usually that vehicle has been maintained, no service records means the PO was probably somewhat careless and didn't give a hoot when oil was changed, lubes and proper repairs done.
if regular service is accomplished, 150,000 miles, if it starts nice and has a smooth idle, lugs without stalling and good acceleration.
Just be sure to not go for too long without changing the timing sprockets/chain and oil pump. Maybe coolant pump and harmonic balancer too while You are in there.
of course, I also like to stay below about a 1994 too, just for the simplicity of the electronics and fuel injection. LOL
That's just My take on the situation. LOL
 
Its all a money thing. suburban Tahoe in 90's will get 14 mpg, 200-2010 will get 16 mpg.
any of the engine trans are very dependable to 200,000 miles, then repair costs start coming up.
depending which engine family 90's vs LS is what work needs doing. the Ls up to 300,000 is still low cost to keep alive.
I agree with barn doors block vision, but is so much easier to load, unload that it was worth it to me.

You really have to plan on spending $1000 in the first year on top of what you notice when you buy it.

Whenever I buy used vehicle, I tell person before test drive "I will test drive it, and as final part of test drive we stop at a smog shop and do the smog test which I pay for if it passes. If it wont pass, you pay for it and I am not buyin it." Amazing how many people fess up to it isn't running right and they just cleared codes because reason X.
 
I have seen several 5.3 Tahoes (2006 - 2013) models run real hard, extreme duty for years, never knew of any major engine issues. I must mention that they were the PPV models. Best fuel mileage on the open road of a 2011, two wheel drive, six speed model, I ever saw was just under 18 Mpg. I must add that it was loaded down with hundreds of pounds of gear, so I am sure that hurt it's mpg some.

If you don't like the 5.3 in the Tahoe, you can get a later model Tahoe with the 6.2 Liter gas motor in it.
 
Twisted Steel Performance said:
If a gasser is in mind, steer away from the 5.3.... cold knock along with lower oil psi knock...
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This was an issue on the early engines with gen 3 rods and pressed wrist pins. In 04 GM switched to the gen 4 style rod(it was actually 1st used in 02 for the lq9) with a floating wrist pin, this stopped this problem. And it was a problem on ALL LS's with the pressed wrist pins.

My personal preference would be a gmt800 with the lift up rear hatch. Wide open access and no blocked vision. The LS engines are pretty good so long as they've received reasonable care. 5.3's before 04 could have cylinder head cracking issues. By now most of them are getting pretty old and the oil pickup tube orings are failing and causing no oil pressure. Most will have leaks from the rear of the engine. Engines up to 03 are known to have bad fuel pressure regulators. The 4l60e trans is probably your biggest concern because people just don't take care of them. And if you get an 03-06 expect to have steppers fail in your gauge cluster. I would skip past the gmt400. The only reason I bought my 99 was because I wanted a 2 door and GM stopped making them with the gmt400. The gmt800 trucks are just better all around.
 
We like the 07 Burb get 16 on hwy 13-14 around town, But my AFM is off due to due to lifters starting to go. Plan is to re-cam it this summer and tune it. The power hatch is nice but it get turned off mostly because we come out of the store only to find hatch open it does this by itself.. Had what i thought was the dreaded rear main going at 199.000 thats when I had the AFM tuned off and never a drop of oil since.. It at 205 now, Oil pressure is 60+
 
treegump said:
Thoughts about a 96 Jimmy SLT 4dr 4x4 165k miles with 4.3? (Trade for my 91 F250)
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The 2 biggest problems with it are the plastic distributor(the aftermarket makes an aluminum replacement), and the spider injectors(there is a mpfi upgrade kit available). Ac compressors also fail in them often(known as belly leakers).
 
I'm trading this 02 Chrysler Concorde with the 2.7 for a new daily and I'm trying my best to not add cash. And I'm finding it harder than I realized to let go of a pickup bed (by adding my F250 to the deal), even though I rarely use it...

I guess I'll stay away from the 4.3. Maybe I'll refine my search to post 2004 or prior 94.
 
There's nothing wrong with the 4.3l vortec's. Great engines, just suffer the same flaws as other late 90's GM vortec's(spider injectors, intake gaskets, and distributor), but they're all easily fixable.
 
THEFERMANATOR said:
There's nothing wrong with the 4.3l vortec's. Great engines, just suffer the same flaws as other late 90's GM vortec's(spider injectors, intake gaskets, and distributor), but they're all easily fixable.
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Back a few years ago my dad gave me a 2002 Chevy S-10, Extended Cab, 4x4, with the 4.3 liter V-6. He had drove it for years put lots of miles on it. When he gave it to me it had around 133,000 miles on it. I am sure a lot of those miles were kind of like MS. Daisy miles, I don't think he blew the soot out of it that often. He told me , son you will have to take it easy on it, its got a lot of miles on it and I had the transmission rebuilt a few years ago. I thought well heck, I am not going to get run over on the road, I will maintain the speed limit and if it blows up, we will deal with it later. The truck still has pretty good pep about it, it will spin a tire pretty easy if you get on it a little heavy.

Since he gave it to me, i had to have another transfer case and other 4x4 stuff replaced. ok, I can spend a few bucks here and there. I noticed that the fuel mileage was pretty disappointing around 13.5 to 14 MPG. My dad had said oh it gets great fuel mileage?

About a month or so ago i was in the big city, hitting the interstate and the truck just shut down, I maneuvered thru 2 lanes of traffic to get to the right hand shoulder, stupid bastards, didn't cut me much slack it was a dog fight . For the first time ever I called AAA, since I have been a member for many years. I didn't care who showed up I just wanted away from those dam idiots that were blasting past me at 60 MPH, acting like I was just a bug on the side of the road. Well I know all the dangers of being stranded beside of the road, but that was the FIRST TIME in my lifetime. I had my 9MM pistols, and my 12 GA. Shotgun behind the seat, I was not worried about undesirables wanting to attack me, I was more worried about getting run over. Trust me i have seen too many times how people have been run over and killed beside of the road, it does not matter if your in a toyota camry or a tractor and trailer some dip wad will come along and wipe you out.

AAA towing service showed up within 10 minutes, i thought wow. The row back driver said he was in the area and got the call from AAA. it costed me 80 bucks for the tow, since it was over 20 miles away to my house, I didn't care about going to some city slicker mechanic place with in 2 or 3 miles, which would have been free for the tow.
Needless to say I got my local repair guys to work on my S-10. They ended up putting a new distributor in it and I swear the fuel mileage has went up 2 to 3 MPG. Truck has about 145,000 or so on it now, it leaks oil for sure, but its still running, i add some oil to it now and then, drive it till it dies.
 
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