i have an 06 gmc with a duramax which i love. this was my 1st diesel truck. i have recently found a 1983 chevy reg cab long bed 2wd with about 85k original miles, no rust and paint is fair. they guy wants $3000. i just wanted some advice on the old 6.2, it seems to me from what i have read they were not the greatest engines. any advice is definatle appreciated.
thanks in advance
nathan

Not bad engines. Not race engines, but not what I'd call real slow either. In my opinion they drive a little more like a gas engine than the Dmax, PSD, Cummins etc. They're not gas-engine based as you might hear though.

They're just plain reliable engines though, as long as you don't hotrod them anyway... Just change the oil every now and then, keep the fuel clean and the filter changed, and they just keep running. You might have to tinker with it on occasion, but the motor is, in my opinion, quite a bit more reliable than a 350 gasser. The truck around it is another story, quite frankly most of these '80s GM trucks that are still around could use some help at this point.

$3000? 85k miles in 25 years? Only 3400 miles/year?

My experience with vehicles that haven't been driven much is that once you start driving them, lots of issues show up you will then have to fix --- many more than on vehicles that have been driven a lot more, like daily. If someone drove it daily, he's more likely to have noticed and fixed the problems because he depends on it. It's 25 years old --- they hold up extremely well if cared for and not so well if not, but in any case, things age. There are good chances that one of the first things you will need is a new set of tires because the ones on it are too old to be still safe.

You may get a decent deal if the seller has done all the maintenance that may have been needed --- and that includes things like repacking the front wheel bearings every now and then (every 24k miles if you go by the owners manual) --- not to mention brakes, brake lines, (regularly) flushing the radiator, changing the gear oil --- just about anything you can think of. Does it have a new alternator? What about the A/C compressor? The transmission?

If you buy it, it's probably a "one way deal": You can't sell it for $3000 because nobody would buy it, even if you end up spending another $3000 on fixing it. On the other hand, if everything is fixed, you may get a truck you can drive for at least another 10 years. But for $3000, I think I would expect it to have at least tires not older than two years and with lots of tread left ... or maybe even new ones.