Thinking about buying a suburban...have questions

[lazydrifter]

I'm looking at a 1999 suburban with the vortec motor.  5.7 I think. Has 4WD.   I need a vehicle just to launch my salmon boat.  Launching at Freshwater Bay  on the straits involves backing out onto the beach and into the water.  This thing has 216,000 miles.  Seems to run great, shifts great, looks great. No rust, no dents.  Has fairly new Les Schwab aluminum wheels with new tires.  New shocks, new brakes, new battery. Barn doors.  No leaks.   I'm thinking I'm going to put about 3,000 miles a year on it.  He will take 1875.00 for it.   Are these motors good for much more mileage than this.  I think the mileage is the issue for me.  Always have gotten rid of vehicles before they got anywhere close to this.   Any info, advice or suggestions?   Thanks

Brant

[JLS]

The Chevy/GMC trucks I've had from that era had issues with head gaskets and exhaust donuts.

[dscubame]

If a engine compression check looks good I would go for it.  Had one for years and regret giving it away.  It would climb a tree.  Anything that went wrong was relatively easy to fix and I did a great deal myself including dropping the gas tank and replacing the in tank fuel pump.  Brakes are very much under engineered so had to replace rotors fairly frequently or have them turned but only when it got real bad.  Mine had disc brakes only in the front which had a lot to do with the poor design.  Parts are a dime a dozen at the local pick and pull so inexpensive to keep up on the small stuff. 

[syoungs]

thats getting up there in the mileage, if it had a good ownder who took care of maint, it might be fine, but if not you may be in for a headache.

headgaskets, exhaust gaskets, (donuts), fuel injection "spiders" and rear ends were all pretty common problems, but all are reletivly easy to fix yourself if your handy.

[jackelope]

Intake manifold gaskets leak like mad on them. Front axle seals leak, rear axle seals leak. Injectors go bad in them. If the engine runs smooth I don't see much need to spend money on a compression test. If there's an issue it won't run smooth and the check engine light will be on with misfire fault codes.

[syoungs]

also, theres only about 600 billion of them running around out there still. gotta have something right. 

[dscubame]

All my check engine lights were just due to sensors failure in the exhaust.  Had well over 200k and steering box needed to be replaced before I gave it away.  Back then there was way less electronic bs to trigger codes.  The engine compression would be a good indication of what torque would be left (engine strength) when pulling your boat and getting it out of the launch.  Being it is a suburban with all the weight in the back over a pickup it was a dream to tow my toys with and pulling out of rock/sand launches where trucks could not do the job nearly as easy.  One true joy of older trucks is the simplicity and a whole lot less to go wrong.  Wish I had my late 80's pickup back too.  Manual everything with vinyl floor, use to just take a hose to it.  My suburban back carpet ended up with so much blood in it I eventually had to replace that too cause it would get damp and reek.