Duramax Suburban Value

[SmokeShow]

My wife is pregnant with our second child (current boy is 5yo and baby girl is due early August) and her leveled 2002 Chevy 2500hd d/a ECSB truck ain’t gonna cut the mustard as a suitable family mobile. While there’s enough cab space in my super cab f150, it doesn’t leave room for groceries, luggage, bags, strollers, etc and I don’t want to use the bed for that sense it’s not temperature controlled. Her truck is forbidden to be sold so mines on the chopping block (fine with me bc it’s nice but I just don’t love it, miss my duramax). So we’re gonna get rid of my f150 & slide into a Tahoe or suburban or something.

Searching online I’ve found a “perfect” ideal truck for us IMO. It’s a 2006 Suburban with a D/A conversion done by Duraburb (that fella down in FL that does a lot of these and does em well from what I’ve seen & know of?).

Obviously it’s going to be priced well above normal market value (per KBB, NADA, Edmunds, etc) and I’ll need to finance most of it. How do I determine a reasonable value for such a vehicle? It’s a loaded up suburban with average to low miles (150k), rust free, LBZ/6-spd D/A etc. y’all know how they do those conversions down there, everything is converted with GM components to be a true 2500HD suburban and everything in, out & on it workslike any Norma factory option would. List price is $26k. Spoken to the guy via email and he says he has a little room to work on price.

Thoughts? Opinions? Help? I’d love to make this happen but don’t want to make too terrible of a purchase, as far as value is concerned.

 

[Kamilmk]

I think for 26k you could find yourself a real nice, loaded up CCSB LBZ with less miles, or one with a little more miles for less than that 26k price tag. Unless you really want a suburban with a dmax in it, I wouldn’t say it’s worth it. For the 26k price tag, I would either just look for a newer body ‘burban, or get a crew cab, truck, LBZ.

That’s just my 2 cents.

But I don’t knock the fact that those duraburbs are rare and hard to find, and pretty damn cool.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DAVe3283]

I agree that a Duraburb is not a great financial decision, but they are really freaking awesome. I say this as the owner of a 2003 LB7 Quadrasteer 6-speed AWD Suburban. Best vehicle I have ever owned or even ridden in, but hard to justify the cost to a bank when getting a loan. They are more likely to loan 2x as much on a brand new vehicle, even though the Duraburb will be (IMO) a much better vehicle.

If you are having a hard time getting the financing, a CCSB with a shell might do what you need. Or get a bog standard gas Suburban. Not as cool, will get crap MPG when towing, but it is still a nice vehicle and should be dead reliable if it wasn't molested by the previous owner.

For what it is worth, my brother and I spent a bit over $30k to build my Duraburb, not including our labor. So if you find one done well in the $25k range, that sounds fair to me. But be careful, there are a lot of poorly done swaps out there. Duraburb Inc tends to do better swaps than most, but even then, don't expect it to be perfect. That's why my brother and I built our own.

 

[TheBac]

Maybe Duraburb has information on valuing their swaps? Tried calling them to ask? Possible to have it inspected by an appraiser?

I completely understand the want of a Suburban than a CC. You run out of protected room in a pickup very quickly when you have kids, and I agree that a bed shell doesnt work for every situation.

 

[SmokeShow]

Yeah, Tom, if something happened and I could end up with this Duraburb, I’ll certainly have to find a way to have it appraised and insured at or above the appraised cost so I don’t take a huge bath if it got totaled while I’m paying off the loan or shortly thereafter. :thumb:

A guy at work says he’s bought his vehicles over the last decade via funds from a HELOC. Given that, there’s no lean on the vehicles so it doesn’t matter what they’re valued out. I’ll have to see what terms & rates I can get. I have plenty equity in my home. A HELOC would probably be my only way to make a purchase like this happen.

The other appeal to this is it’ll be “my wife’s vehicle” and unlike me, she doesn’t grow tired of vehicles quickly. In fact, she keeps em forever - like her truck. So it’s not going to be a “short term” situation. The good side of that is that at this point, we’re pretty comfortable with the ins & outs of the gmt-800 platform. So that really appeals to me as far as maintenance & upkeep goes. ������

We’ll see what happens. With me losing my truck to get the family mobile, I’ll soon be in the market for a new daily driver. Reasonable notion is to get a gas sipper but I’d also love to fall into a rcsb d/a. Anyone think it’s remotely possible to get one to routinely achieve 20+ mpg?!?!

 

[DAVe3283]

We’ll see what happens. With me losing my truck to get the family mobile, I’ll soon be in the market for a new daily driver. Reasonable notion is to get a gas sipper but I’d also love to fall into a rcsb d/a. Anyone think it’s remotely possible to get one to routinely achieve 20+ mpg?!?!

Depends on how you drive it, but it's possible. I got 22.2 MPG with my Duraburb once, but it was all highway and I was going slow (65 MPH), plus I have stock tires and the 6 speed conversion. It gets 16+ easily and 18+ without too much effort.

A RCSB is lighter than a Suburban, which will help your in town mileage a lot, but I think it's probably less aerodynamic, so it might not do as well on the highway. But yeah, I think 20 MPG is possible, depending on your commute and right foot.

 

[TheBac]

I seem to remember Chris saying he was getting mid/high 20s out of his 1/2 ton rc/sb when he did the conversion ( the black truck that meshanic owns now), so a 2500-based one should be just above avg 20mpg.

 

[six5creed]

Personally, I think you and your wife need to have a heart to heart conversation and realize her ECSB is what needs to go and keep the super cab F150. If you are looking at buying a Suburban and then shortly after buying another daily driver for you, it would make more financial sense to sell hers and buy a Suburban and keep your F150. We have 2 kids and I can't imagine trying to get them into an extended cab.



If you sell your truck, keep hers, buy a Suburban then another DD you are still stuck with the ecsb and what will it be used for?



We have a 3 year old daughter and 7 year old son, life doesn't get any cheaper. Reality is a hard thing to face but she needs to put her feelings with her truck aside and think about what's best for the family.

 

[RickDLance]

I had one a while back and it was a pain in the a$$ to get rid of.

 

[Duramax710]

Unfortunately banks do not loan the value of what people are wanting for them. I think you would be better off finding a suburban or Yukon 6 or 8 lug and paying the fair market price with the 6.0 gas motor, they seem to hold there value really well.

 

[SmokeShow]

I had one a while back and it was a pain in the a$$ to get rid of.

I know, I even went back to try to see if yours might still be for sale but couldn't find it. I should've bought yours but at the time but I don't think we knew she was pregnant back then.

 

[SmokeShow]

Unfortunately banks do not loan the value of what people are wanting for them. I think you would be better off finding a suburban or Yukon 6 or 8 lug and paying the fair market price with the 6.0 gas motor, they seem to hold there value really well.

This is looking to be the more reasonable route, honestly, and the one I had figured would happen. I just happened across this conversion for sale and am giving it some thought. But for no more than my wife drives, the poor fuel mileage of the gasser won't hit our pocket too hard anyway and we should be able to get a lot newer vehicle for the money.

 

[zakkb787]

Buddy of mine has a half ton burb. Probably 2010 ish? And I’ve seen that thing haul some stuff that was way too heavy for it to CO and back (we are in NC). Never done the trans either. 5.3 are stout engines and actually get decent economy. Get a 6 speed auto if you go that route tho

 

[clrussell]

I seem to remember Chris saying he was getting mid/high 20s out of his 1/2 ton rc/sb when he did the conversion ( the black truck that meshanic owns now), so a 2500-based one should be just above avg 20mpg.

mine averaged 23-24

 

[Chevy1925]

i grew up in the back seat of a 91 and 93 extended cab chevy. wasnt till i was 12 years old when we finally got a CC/LB truck. around 10 years old the knee room was an issue on long trips but really it wasnt that bad, just turn to the side and stretch out a bit. i had 2 younger brothers in the back with me too.

course this was before booster seats and car seats are kind of a pain for back there but not unreasonable.

i have 0 input on what you should spend you money on, its yours, you do as you please in what you want to keep/sell or buy.

the price for the duraburb is high. a good clean low mile (100k or under) lbz out here will go for 23-25k. i have not seen a duraburb out here go for more than 20 unless its a newer rig (13-14 and up).

 

[DAVe3283]

[YOUTUBE]Pbk0t3Ma9GE[/YOUTUBE]
I think I know who the owner of that one is. If it is who I am thinking of, he bought my brother's Quadrasteer pickup several years ago, and tried to buy our Quadrasteer Suburban too (we turned him down, I'll probably never sell it). If this Duraburb was his rig, it will be VERY clean. He is like my brother and I, and is meticulous with his vehicles.

 

[Mikey52]

Smoke show. I sent you a pm.

 

[SmokeShow]

mikey, I saw your PM. I'm still trying to figure it out for me at the moment but will let you know if/when I pass on it. :thumb:

 

[SmokeShow]

Yesterday we traded in my F150 on 2015 Chevy Suburban LTZ. It’s exactly what I think we wanted for our family. I’m hopeful it serves us well for several years to come.

The initial throttle [non]response is taking some serious getting used to. It feels like I have to move the pedal almost half way before it even starts to go. But it’s not revving. It honestly feels like turbo lag. I push push push nada then all of a sudden it takes off. Like a gun trigger with a long take up then bam, goes off. Is this normal? I’ve heard people comment that tuning on the gassers helps more with responsiveness and “feel” than it actually increases the HP much? If that’s the case, I can 100% see why someone adjusting the low throttle response would make it feel like a completely different vehicle. Another thing I don’t love is the gap prevention thing on cruise control. Screw that! I wear CC out and don’t like it “throwing out the fuggin anchor” when I don’t get over quick enough to overtake a slower moving vehicle. Can I turn that BS off?!?!

I tried uploading some pics but got the “security” error. I’ll try from a computer tmrw. It’s a long black train LTZ so it’s sexy & loaded up.

 

[TheBac]

1) Congrats on the new truck.
2) Yup, time to tune it.
3) downsize your pics before trying to upload, or use tapatalk or 3rd party and link to it.