This may surprise you, but four-wheel drive vehicles are pretty hot right now. That’s a pretty easy fact to digest with new cars, but what about used ones? I’ve discussed several craigslist SUVs recently, from the Chevy TrailBlazer to the Ford Explorer. Of those two, the Ford was more expensive, at $2,400. This Hummer H3 beats it by a significant margin, in price and in mileage. In fact, it’s coming up on the quarter million mile mark. And it might be worth about $4,000.
With the demise of moderately high gas prices in 2015, the American public reignited its love affair with utility vehicles. I’m not just talking about crossovers, but actual body-on-frame SUVs too. And let’s not forget Jeep. The Wrangler is doing better than ever and the Gladiator will probably find a substantial audience as production ramps up and dealers start to forgo their substantial markups. Eventually, Ford will challenge Jeep’s reign with off-road vehicles of its own, but for now FCA is the king of the segment. Hummer, the last apples-to-apples American Jeep competitor, died an ignoble death in 2009. Is it possible GM regrets the decision? Probably not. Hindsight always has pretty good vision. Gas prices were quite high then and car shoppers weren’t interested in large SUVs or off-road vehicles. But in light of Hummer’s rumored revival, it’s impossible not to think about the alternative universe where Hummer clawed its way back to relevancy with a slew of capable products.
The H3 gets dunked on because it looks like a shrunken H2. Is that such a bad thing? GM created an aesthetic that aged quite well. If the Wrangler can get away with looking very similar to past models, Hummer could have done it too. And apparently it wasn’t as bad as we like to think. Here’s a little excerpt from Car And Driver’s H3 road test:
Saying it’s the best Hummer by far sounds like faint praise, but the H3 moves the ball. The mini-Hummer’s cockpit has a touch of upscale, unlike the explosion of plastic inside the H2. The smaller H3 steers sharply and hustles through turns when necessary. Drag racers don’t buy Hummers, so the weak engine doesn’t bother me, and the fuel savings (however small) are welcome. I can even forgive the bouncy ride as a byproduct of off-road prowess.
The magazine’s real gripe with the H3 was its engine. 225 horsepower paired to a four speed automatic cannot adequately move a 5,000 vehicle. Our featured H3 came equipped with a 3.7 liter five cylinder with about twenty more horsepower than the older powerplant. I can’t imagine it made much of a difference.
Here is the seller’s description of the Hummer:
Price firm at $3800 on my 2007 Hummer h3 all wheel drive 5 cylinders automatic. First $3800 cash buys it. The engine and transmission are both excellent, and it has a good red inspection sticker on it. The body is in very nice shape with no rust, it just needs the molding for the gas cap door a piece of molding on the driver side rear. My car has no dents. My frame is rot free. Nice aftermarket stereo w remote. Owned it since it had 90k on it. Right now it has like 240k. I.m selling it much much cheaper than Kelly blue book. And we just put new brake pads and rotors and wheel bearings on it. Thanks.
$3800 price firm. Don’t ask for less.
Seems like this person is adamant that their Hummer is worth $3800! Despite the cosmetic issues, the H3 does seem like it’s in decent condition. Still, that price seems pretty high.
Huh. Seems like the seller’s asking price isn’t so ludicrous after all. In fact, it might even be reasonable.
Personally, I’d be extremely reluctant to spend my hard earned dollars on something like this H3. At 240k miles, it’s a risky purchase.
But it seems like the market has spoken. And it has determined that a used H3 is still worth something in 2020. No wonder why GM wants to revive Hummer. If and when a new model rolls into GMC dealerships, like the rumors suggest, they might just have a captive audience waiting to take one home.
Not my cup of tea, but it’ll sell in a heartbeat. It looks “cool” (at least once that fender trim is re-applied), and for the same price as a 15 year old subcompact sedan.
Someone, probably very young with a fresh tax refund check in hand, who prioritizes their vehicle’s image over reliability won’t even care that it has 240k miles. They’d probably buy it with 340k miles for the same price.
Priced “much much cheaper than” KBB? It’s been suggested KBB over-values vehicles well above the market for their own self -serving reasons.
Hummers make for great special-interest and collector vehicles, but they aren’t viable mass market products anymore. It’s fine to leave that niche to FCA and Jeep. GM tried and eventually failed at competing in every market segment in the past . It’s better they focused on producing superior mass market vehicles…… not that they’ve done a stellar job at that, either.
A friend who’s a serious car guy (Alfa’s, Porsche, Saab’s, even a Jensen Healey in the past; M BMWs more recently) had a 5 cylinder H3 for a while and liked it. I drove it and found it OK, though not space efficient. With the right factory options it’s quite capable off-road compared to most non-Jeep alternatives.
It’s risky enough buying a two wheel drive vehicle with that kind of mileage. Four wheel drive with that kind of mileage even moreso. The ad neglects to mention that the missing moldings were lost in a rock Canyon miles from the nearest paved road. No thanks.
The Hummers remain popular here in Dallas. You see enough of them around that it’s hard to believe that they have been out of production for so long. I definitely see more of them than, say, Jaguars.
Any late-pre-bankruptcy GM vehicle would have to be priced under $2500 to get my interest, and this is before accounting for the mileage. I had developed the understanding that these just weren’t all that good, but that came from a guy who sold cars back when they were just out.
I am always curious about why someone is selling. Maybe it was just that one more repair bill that caused Mrs. Seller to issue the “either it goes or I do” ultimatum.
I think the biggest factor driving the high prices on old SUVs like this one is the crazy-high prices on the new ones. I might consider an old pickup of this age and mileage for that kind of money, but not one of these.
I’ve often thought the H2 never should’ve seen an assembly line, it should’ve been a show concept and licensed to toy and model manufacturers only. That would’ve gone hand-in-hand with Hummer being a sub-brand of GMC, with the H3 taking the place of the more blatantly badge engineered Envoy. The H1 should’ve been treated as part of the medium-duty line, as suited for its’ specific purpose and unsuited for personal-car duty as a 24′ box truck. Two out of three Hummers but no Hummer Division.
“Price is Firm” kill alot of potential sales. Here we are advised not to say it as every thing from records to houses is negotiable. As for Hummer making a come back, please. The US Army rejected them as to heavy so they became the must for middle age jurks. They have no reason to exist.
A Mirage is a better car…
An H2 (particularly the rare SUT ‘Alpha’ V8 version) would be kind of cool to have.
But an H3? Pass.
Funny that you mention the H2 SUT, saw one this morning out the two way turn lane in front of the auto auction yard. The really amazing thing was it had a repo style under mount wheel lift on it and the driver was just strapping down a car.
That’s a lot of miles for a GM product unless it comes with a fat stack of maintenance receipts. Crackpipe! (Whoops, wrong website!)
This Christmas I saw 2 or 3 of these tooling around north Florida/south Georgia. Since they are (were?) basically Chevy Blazers, I am not surprised there are still some rolling around. It just surprised me to see 3 in such a short period of time in a rural area.
Yeah, at this price I think I would have to pass, too.
Gross!
Hmm, I should word that more carefully.
But I won’t.
It’s a very capable off-roader. Loads of clearance, the front end can just about walk up a wall, and unlike the Wrangler with which it shares these traits, it has a real passenger cabin. It’s a workable size as well, unlike the H2.
That’s about where the good ends. The interior packaging is smaller than the exterior suggests. The windows are pillboxes. GM had how many engines available and it still put a 225hp wheezer in this? It gets 14mpg city, 18 mpg highway, and takes ten and a half seconds to hit 60. They had a 295hp 5.3V8 from the Silverado.
You gotta be in serious love with the pseudo-military styling to put up with all of this.
I love my 2009 H3! I am an avid outdoorsman Overlanding, dirt bike riding and beach surf fishing. It is a very capable off-road vehicle esp if you purchased the “adventure package” Daily driving, well it’s very capable off-road!
If you have never owned an H3, there is no way you can give a credible comment. Two key points; 1. An H3 was not built for speed, so it should not be criticized for that. 2. An H3, especially ’09 & ’10 with Adventure package, is a completely different vehicle than H3 without.
Judging from the windshield stickers, that’s a NY car. Anytime a NY car ad mentions that it has a ‘good/current inspection sticker’, that’s a red flag. In NY, the inspection sticker (good for one year) is supposed to be removed when the car is sold and a new inspection has to be done. At lot of older cars with inspection issues are privately sold with the current sticker at a lower price. The new owner will drive the car on the old sticker and maybe fix the problem, or maybe not. Since the car has been exposed to NY road salt for 240K, there’s a good chance the frame is severely corroded or there are wiring-related CIL issues.
That would cost double overhere……