Chevrolet Suburban 1500, 6.5 turbodiesel, 4x4

NO RESERVE
For sale is my 1997 Chevrolet Suburban 1500 turbodiesel 4x4. This vehicle first belonged to a small town fire department in Louisiana, where it was apparently used as an EMS response vehicle. It was eventually auctioned off, and as far as I know has only had 2 owners since. I bought it from what I believe was the second owner, who had intended to make it into a kind of hunting truck; but he never got around to it, and sold it. I bought it as a primary family vehicle, and used it for that purpose for several years. We are selling because we were needing an actual pickup truck, and my wife wanted something a little newer.
It has 366,000 miles on it, and runs very well. It starts right up, even in the coldest weather, and is a great interstate cruiser. I have been commuting in it lately, and it rides smoother on our rough Louisiana back roads than my wife's F-150 which is 17 years newer. It should be noted that Chevrolet marketed these diesel Suburbans as a 1500 series, or 1/2 ton in other words. However, they are actually in some ways more similar to the 2500 or 3/4 ton suspension/axle setup, which is heavier duty. You can verify this by looking at the lug pattern, axles, and suspension compared to the 1500 Suburbans from the same era.
The engine runs well, transmission shifts smoothly, pushbutton 4WD works (although the indicator light is burned out on the 4 Hi setting, but it definitely works). All four power windows work, but the power locks are very slow (sometimes have to push lock or unlock several times to get them all the way up or down). The passenger side rear door lock doesn't work at all, not even manually.
It was apparently ordered with no 12V power point or cigarette lighter, presumably because they intended to install a radio console stack, which it clearly had. Several legacy wires are hanging down from its fire department days, so I installed an inverter by hooking one of the wires up to provide a way to charge phones and such. By the way, it appears to still have the sirens from its fire truck days, although they aren't hooked up.
It also was ordered without a 3rd row seat, so I acquired one from a very clean junkyard Suburban, which is currently ratchet strapped into a rear-facing configuration in the cargo area. The 1st and 2nd row seats are leather, and in fairly good condition except for the driver seat which has some tears. Also, the power function to the drivers seat recently quit working. The 3rd row seat is non-matching cloth, but is in superb condition. I have black slip covers for all seats.
The paint looks pretty good overall, except on the hood and roof, where there are surface rust spots, and some paint cracking. I put on an aftermarket grill and headlights, since the original lights were cloudy and original grill was cracked and fading.
It has a receiver hitch, but no trailer brake setup, and no 5 or 9 pin trailer connections. I have towed with it on a handful of occasions for short distances though, including a 3/4 pickup and a tractor on a flatbed trailer on separate occasions, and it towed these 7-9k pound loads very well.
It gets 16-19 mpg, and would probably break into the lower 20s if driven with a light foot and kept to 60mph or below (which gives 600-800 miles theoretical range, since it has the 40 gallon tank). It happily runs along at up to 75mph which is the max speed limit here, and has plenty left over if you needed to go faster than that. Steering is typical '90s Chevy truck, which is to say a bit numb and overboosted. It has a very slight pull to the right. Brakes are fine. Tires have quite a bit of life left in them.
The Achilles heel on these was the pump mounted driver (PMD), which was known to constantly fail in the stock location unless it was relocated away from the engine heat which caused its premature failure. Sure enough, it failed right after I bought it, so we installed a relocation kit to get it into a cooler area of the engine bay. This fix has worked great, and we have had no more PMD failures in the 4 or 5 years since. I had a local Chevy dealer do a few thousand dollars worth of front end work on it when I first bought it to make sure front end components were safe. The only other thing that failed during my ownership was the rear wheel speed sensors (which is also a common problem on Chevy trucks from that period, but a quick and cheap fix); and the starter. I also had the flywheel replaced when I did the starter, because there were some missing teeth and it was grinding on startup sometimes. With the new starter and flywheel, no more such problems.
The air conditioner leaks refrigerant fairly quickly (within a month), but works if you keep it charged (I just haven't had time to track down the leak). The front fan blower has stopped blowing, but the rear fan works fine, and it keeps the truck warm in the winter by itself.
The cruise control works, and the radio was working until a few days ago when the display blacked out. Not sure about the single disc CD player, I haven't tried it. The only other thing I can think of that doesn't work is the horn.
Overall, this is a really quality built vehicle, as evidenced by how well it has held up to 366k miles of being a working truck, family car, and commuter. I'd jump in it and drive it anywhere in the US right now without hesitation. It is roomy, comfortable, and reliable. If the hood and roof had the surface rust addressed and were resprayed, the exterior would be very good looking. If the air conditioner & fan were fixed, an aftermarket radio installed, and the issue resolved with locking the passenger side rear door, this would be perfect.
On Nov-23-21 at 01:00:27 PST, seller added the following information:
(driving)
(cold start)
(4wd in snow)

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