Someone’s not shy about telling the world what’s rumbling away under the hood of their old Suburban. Has it ever broken out of the single digits, mpg-wise? Who cares; gas is cheap, although not as cheap as it was a couple of months ago.
I’m not going to even guess at the exact year given the custom grille. I tried CarFax with the license plate, and it didn’t know. These were built for what seemed like an eternity. Eighteen years, actually. try doing that nowadays.
Maybe the Grim Reaper or Angel of Death on the front knows the exact year.
All I know is that it’s a beast. And the eight lug wheels and home-brew “454” call-out rather confirm that.
The ‘ Square Body ‘ GM’s really were solid trucks albeit with designed in rust pockets .
I still see them doing Yeoman Duty all over Southern California .
Sunday in Lone Pine I ran across a couple – three that had 454 badges in the grilles , who know what actually lurks there now .
-Nate
Here in Wyoming, plenty of farms still use square bodies. We have a 1987. They’re very well put together, comfortable enough, cheap, and reliable. Perfect for farm work
My parent’s long-time neighbors next door had one and we watched it rust into pieces within four years. Us kids called it the white whale, and my dad called it the Titanic.
Then many years later, my parents needed a towing vehicle for their large travel trailer, and after months of trying to find a vehicle that fit the bill, and fit their wallet – he ended up with an 1988 Suburban. We swore we would not have happen to what happened to the Titanic years earlier.
When it arrived, I walked around and went through the inside of the Suburban, checking out what needed to be repaired before taking delivery. Outside defects were uneven hood gaps, loose grille pieces, and a crooked back bumper. Inside, there was a damaged front console lid, the carpet was installed offset, so that it didn’t reach across, and a dash light that didn’t work. We waited a week for the dealer to reassemble it.
Some things weren’t fixed – ever.
The Suburban was garaged every night. Washed every weekend and waxed everywhere. I waxed inside the fenders, under the doors and every place we saw the old Titanic rust. I guess our hard work paid off, but we still had to get new door skins on the rear doors, and a new tailgate. The Suburban came with a four year rust protection package, so GM ate the costs of keeping the Suburban rust free.
The 454 pulled the trailer over every transcontinental mile put on it, pulling the 35 foot travel trailer over the Rockies and Sierras, was effortless. Gas mileage was about 12 on flat land and 8 in the mountains. When not pulling a trailer, my mom drove it to her job two miles away and back, and she surprised herself by loving the big bruiser as a daily driver.
But there were many problems. Over the 60,000 miles my parents had the Suburban, it went through fuel injectors, transmissions, gages, a gas tank, door seals and two rear ends. The file my dad kept on the Suburban grew as thick as a catalog. It was regularly at the Chevrolet dealership for one problem or another.
We watched as the mileage crept up to the magic 60,000 mile mark, when all the warranties expired. After four years, we all spent weeks preparing to trade it in. The week it went over, was the week we got rid of it. It looked like new. We got top dollar for the trade in as well. However, there was absolutely no way we were going to afford keeping it on the road with all its repair costs.
It was the biggest lemon my family ever had. I’ve had worse, (Chevrolet Citation and Camaro), but the Suburban was the biggest lemon.
Yup. In 88 also my dad was looking for something to haul their 62 Corvette with to an occasional cross country car show and have room to carry the local corvette club members to dinner, etc., etc. So we went to James Wood Chevy in Decatur Texas (80 miles south of Wichita Falls) which locally, meaning in Texas a 200 mile radius, is a very well known and famous dealership and laid out almost 20 grand for a 88 Suburban with the factory heavy duty everything. Tow package, auxilary coolers, the works. Although to be fair it was the 350, not 454. When we picked it up I counted 12 missing trim screws in various places holding the various plastic garnish mouldings on, a huge paint run on the dash, and in spite of stopping twice on the way home to tighten it up, the spare tire rattled all the way home. In the first two years, we lost the paint job twice, the transmission once (in spite of the fact it only towed maybe once a year and dad never pulled in OD), the AC compressor, and various electrical gremlins. Towards the end it barely got 8 mpg empty and took 20 seconds to hit 60, after just three years. My dad has never been more disappointed in a vehicle ever. God it was junk. That was our “never gonna buy a GM again” moment. And my bosses 87 Caddilac Sedan Dr Ville he bought new was even worse. In 4 months it went thru 3 engines because of soft camshafts and had many electrical faults. I know most people rag on the 70’s as the nadir of Detroit, but in my opinion GM really went bad in the 80’s.
Love the grille! I just saw one of these out and about last weekend, they are getting scarce in the rust belt.
About 20 years ago, a neighbor was looking for a good tow vehicle for a trailer he pulled for his race car hobby. He found an early Suburban with a 454 that looked about like this outside, except that where the contrasting color had been inside the chrome strip moldings, someone had glued what looked like kitchen shelf contact paper. Then he found another one with all of the mechanical plusses but that looked good too, and the wallpapered Burban got sold.
As part of environmental work during the 1980s, I sometimes drove a Chevy crew cab pickup of this generation that was equipped with a 454 and 4×4. We used it to tow lab trailers to hazmat jobsites. The truck drank fuel like there was no tomorrow but it had the power to get the job done pretty much effortlessly.
At my Father’s insistence, my parents bought a loaded 454 Suburban, from dealer stock, in October of 1972, to replace my Mother’s beloved ’66 Ford Country Sedan station wagon. They had some vague plans about buying a travel trailer and wanted something to pull it with.
Mom was quietly (at first) insulted by climbing into what was essentially an enclosed pick up truck; Dad was insulted by it’s single digit gas mileage (around town AND on 75+ mph road trips) and the various squeaks and rattles that the Chevy dealer could not hear or find.
About a year later, with rust ALREADY popping out around the windshield and my Mother flat out refusing to drive “The Hulk” (her apt nickname for the ‘burban) anymore; Dad cut his losses and traded it in on a rather classy silver with black cloth interior Toyota Carona Mark II, my Mother’s choice.
When gasoline more than doubled in price about 6 months later, we all congratulated each other on dumping it.
Neighbors of mine ordered an early-80s two tone blue Suburban with the 6.2L diesel, three rows of vinyl bench seats and the side-by-side cargo doors instead of the tailgate. That things came in from the dealer with marks all over the left quarter panel where someone, presumably at the factory, ran over the panel with an orbital sander and repainted a defect of some sort…never really did look right with the sanding scratches all over it.
We took that beast to Daytona Beach for our high school senior trip, and fried the engine in Kentucky on our way home. Apparently spun a bearing. My friend’s dad was not amused when he got the call. He had it trailered to Cincinnati and repaired…don’t know how long they kept it after that.
The thing I remember most about the Suburban was that the A/C would get so cold that condensation would accumulate on the metal lower dashboard…that thing had COLD front and rear A/C.
I also recall the awesome, excellent front & rear HVAC in our short term ‘burban. Even with all that slightly tinted window area; it was more than a match for the oppressive Heat & Humidity that permeates New Orleans for 10 months of the year.
IF ONLY the rest of the vehicle had been up to the excellence of the HVAC system…….
I’m a Ford man all the way but here in Houston on a HOT ass day i’d always choose a GM.
90% of the time they had the best A/C’s across the range and for decades from the 50’s to date
Just faster, colder, dryer, better………
There WERE exceptions.
Best A/C we ever had on a family car was Mom’s ’86 Parisienne. Second prize would go to the ’79 Malibu. GM certainly knew how to make a better icebox.
A buddy bought a well used Suburban, much like this one. It was 4×4 with a 4 inch lift and fairly large tires. We went off roading, down some trails with me following him, in a Jeep CJ.
We started on logging roads, where the Chevy sunk and wallowed alarmingly in every puddle and soft spot. By comparison, my Jeep just floated over the soft terrain. 400 yards into what was supposed to be an all day trip, the Suburban simply sunk in a hole and stayed there, a hole that the Jeep easily crossed. Dispite the big mud tire it was stuck. The Jeep was too light to pull it out.
Eventually we fetched a tow truck with a loooong cable and tugged it out. It was a lesson that, regardless of how mean or capable a Suburban looks, they are too big and heavy for anything other than the easiest of trails.
But it was an awesomly huge and useful cargo hauler. Too bad it rusted quickly.
Sweet looking Suburban. I’ve always liked this generation Chevy/GMC Suburban.
Huge fan of the 80’s Chevy trucks, especially the K-5 Blazers. My family went through 4 of them over the years. They were rolling rust buckets, but lots of great memories.
We owned two Suburbans of this generation in my family, a ’79 and an ’83. The ’79 was a good honest truck, very basic, with “barn doors” in the rear and a 350. Dead reliable. The ’83 had the 454, an electric tailgate, a plush velour interior and a zillion options. It was bought as an upgrade to the ’79 but turned out to be nowhere nearly as good. Lots of mechanical problems, unreasonably early rust, a total gas pig, crappy assembly quality (especially the interior), just a total disappointment. And we eventually got rid of it when the frame rail cracked under that overweight 454. This CC only brings bad memories…
It is amusing to see old vehicles from far away places though Arizona is not too far away. Wonder if this Suburban is from a part of Arizona that requires emissions testing? Does this Suburban’s patina match that of an Arizona vehicle? I was expecting more fading. The grill cover is a shelf from a shelving unit that can be bought at Target. Not too many of these rigs in the Portland, OR area, but the Pickups are more common.
What is going on with the hood ornament on the Bread Van behind the Suburban?
Teddy:
After enlarging that last picture, I could see that there was more “going on” with that bread van than the pyramid with a stylized “A”(?), there is some kind of extension over the passenger side windshield….almost like a snorkel or a periscope but aimed to look at the hood, and a fairly sizeable amount of extra metal has been added to the upper body (above the main body)…..a command post/club house?
We used to joke that 454 to a Suburban was like 442 was to a Cutlass. 4 wheel drive, 5 mpg highway and 4mpg city.
My friend has a crew cab pickup from that era. 4wd, dually rear axle and a built 454 under the hood. The crew cab shares the same doors as the Suburban which made rust repair easy and the bonus was power windows and locks that came with the new doors. It gets the same gas mileage pulling a car trailer with a cadillac on it as it does with no load but if you need something moved it’s always up for it. Mind you he always drives it like he stole it.
A friend of mine bought one of these. A 1988 3/4 ton 4X4, TBI 350/Turbo 400. At the time it was 6 years old with over 100,000 on the clock, So. Cal. so none of the common rust issues. Aside from a fuel pump and a bad coil, the big barge was dead reliable until nearly 200,000 miles, when the 350 started loosing compression. One weekend and a new GM ‘crate’ engine later, it was back in the game. All and all, a good experience. A very capable vehicle in all respects.
I had a late 80’s, early 90’s Suburban 2500 with the throttle body injected 454 as a company truck long ago. It was the square body style but had the quad lights before they did the full redesign in ’92 (I think). It was also fully loaded but had little problems getting up to speed. In fact, it could outrun the TBI 350’s in the lighter 1500 4×4’s of my co-workers.
I know it wasn’t as fast as today’s 355hp Tahoes and Suburbans, but I guess the old-fashion platform and loose steering made the old Suburban seem faster.
Like the grille, looks like Winn-Dixie is missing a shopping cart!
I had a square body short bed 87 Custom Deluxe. Great truck. As long as I fed it a new radiator every few years, it ran without complaints. I would probably still have it if some a$$hole hadn’t stolen and stripped it.
That grille looks like restaurant surplus. I’d rather own an International Travelall.
Were the Suburbans built somewhere else in an inferior factory to the pickups? I’ve had a fair bit of exposure to both and have had great luck with the square trucks but the Suburbans always seemed so junky by comparison despite so much mechanical similarity. Some of the job sites I was on had Suburbans and k20s purchased at the same time even and the pickups just seemed better.
Gas has crashed to $1.76 per litre here,4.5 litres to a gallon, Chevy Suburbans are quite rare, good find.
In a variant of the CC effect, a friend of mine just bought a ’91 Suburban 2500 with the 454 as a tow rig for his 70’s vintage Airstream Argosy trailer. I’ve not seen it in person, but the photos look very nice for a 25 year old vehicle. Silver/blue two-tone, no visible rust, super clean for 139K miles.
Funny thing is, it’s newer than his other three vehicles! (’87 FJ60 Land Cruiser, ’89 Civic Wagon, ’85 CRX.) I think his wife drives something more modern though.