Michael Riley's Blog: Hemmings Find of the Day – 1991 Chevrolet Suburban Silverado

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Hemmings Find of the Day – 1991 Chevrolet Suburban Silverado

When shopping for a used vehicle, there’s no such thing as having too much information about its past. After reading the seller’s narrative of this 1991 Chevrolet Suburban Silverado, for sale on Hemmings.com, we have a vivid picture of how this truck has spent the last 25 years (and why it’s in the remarkably well-preserved state pictured in the photos). Purchased as an occasional-use vehicle by a Texas ranch family, the Suburban proved too nice for regular use, spending much of its time indoors in a windowless garage. The current owner, an automotive engineer, inherited the truck in January of 2014, and has since replaced brakes, fluids, belts, tires, shocks, and serviced the air conditioning system. Even the factory radio was pulled and sent to Delco’s service center for a rebuild, meaning that this rig is as much of an early-1990s time capsule as you’re likely to find. The only drawback we see is the truck’s rear-wheel drive instead of four-wheel drive. While that’s a plus for fuel economy, it may discourage shoppers in Snow Belt states (though honestly, this truck is too nice to drive on salted roads). From the seller’s description:

In 1991 Grandpa and Grandma went to Fredericksburg, Texas to Hein Chevrolet for a new vehicle. This one would probably be their last new one so they splurged. On the showroom floor was a new Suburban Silverado loaded with every available option. This one had the 350 V8 with the Automatic Overdrive Transmission, PS, PB, AC front, AC rear, third seat, PDL, PW, chrome mirrors, barn doors with rear window defrosters (that nobody can ever remember seeing on a Suburban in 1991), Delco premium am/fm, cassette player with graphic equalizer, velour interior, two tone paint, alloy wheels, bumper guards and rub strips, underhood removable trouble light, full size spare with cover mounted in the carpeted cargo area.
The dealer took it to a local shop and installed a Class 3 hitch and brake controller and wired the vehicle so they could tow a 16 foot camper they owned. Turns out they only went camping a couple of times once they had it.

The pictures speak for themselves, this is a bone stock, unmolested vehicle that when you look at it would only guess it to be about five months old. It was always kept in a windowless garage with a concrete floor so it was dark and dry the whole time.
They bought it with the intentions of taking it to Fredericksburg, Texas on Sundays to go to church. The only problem with living out on a ranch in the Texas Hill Country is that if you drive all the way into town to go to church you might as well take the ranch truck and pick up a few things while you are there. Because of this the Suburban never got driven a lot. When Grandpa and Grandma had passed and we got the Suburban, it only had a little over 78,000 miles on it. That was in January of 2014.
My wife and I brought it home and I went through it over the next few months. I am an Automotive Engineer so am pretty fussy about my vehicles. This vehicle has ZERO RUST on it and the underside is AMAZING. It still has all the chalk marks on the frame. When I changed the front shocks I saved one because it looks like it was never installed on a vehicle. Break it loose with a wrench and a little oil and disassemble it by hand.

Here is a list of what was done to it to get it ready for some trips we had planned-
I changed all the fluids and put a new set of Michelin tires on it and went through the brakes all the way around. Water pump, alternator, cap, rotor, wires, plugs, battery, hoses and serpentine belt, 02 sensor, Monroe Magnum shocks all the way around, new windshield, sent the factory radio down to the Delco Radio Service Center in San Antonio (one channel was out due to a blown capacitor, had all of them changed at the same time). Vacuumed the AC System down and refilled it with new oil and R12. Pulled the drive shaft and had the u-joints replaced and checked the balance of the assembly. After everything was done I installed an XM radio but hid the mount in the ash tray door so when you are not using it you can out the XM radio in the glove box and close the ash tray door so it looks bone stock inside.
Since we have had it we have been to Florida twice with it to see our daughter and in 2014. We took it for a tour through New England for a few weeks in July of 2014. We get comments on it wherever it goes.
On the road at 70 we were getting just over 18 miles per gallon. It went on all of these trips without using any oil at all. I have been changing it every 3,000 miles and it stays really clean between changes. This is a VERY nice rig and it rides like a Lincoln on the road. Vehicles like this are once in a lifetime finds in this condition. It should really go to somebody who would appreciate and cherish it, like Grandpa and Grandma did for so many years.