Good morning! Today we’re looking at old trucks. Not classic trucks, nor anything you’d want to drive daily, but scruffy, nasty, beat-up old trucks that get terrible mileage but will haul whatever you need, without worry of scratching the paint. Think street-legal wheelbarrows.
Yesterday was all about beat-up commuter cars, and I expected the vote to be close because the cars were pretty similar. The Avalon took home a narrow win, but I don’t think you could go wrong with either one.
The disparity in mileage, and interior condition, between these two is what makes the difference for me. Yes, Toyotas “run forever,” but after a while the niceness gets eroded away and you’re left with a listless lump of a car that’s just going through the motions. And yes, GM plastic isn’t the sturdiest stuff in the world, but it all looks intact on that Bonneville, and I wouldn’t feel like I needed gloves to touch the steering wheel. Make mine the Pontiac.
Now then: Ever since we moved, I have been giving my old truck a workout. It doesn’t get driven every day, but every time it does get driven, it’s hauling stuff. There is just so much to go get when you move into a new house, especially one with essentially no landscaping like ours. My wife’s Yukon has hauled its share of things home as well, but when we needed to bring home half a dozen apple trees to plant in the back yard, or a pair of seven-foot-tall bookcases, it wasn’t much help, and the big green Chevy came to the rescue. Sometimes you just need a big ol’ truck, and if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to rent one every time you need it. It makes sense to have something there, parked in the side yard, ready to do what needs doing. Here are a couple of good prospects.
2000 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 5.3 liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, part-time 4WD
Location: Ballard, WA
Odometer reading: 167,000 miles
Operational status: “Purrs like a kitten”
The first thing I noticed about this truck is that, while it’s in Washington state, it wears Alaska plates. I’ve never been to Alaska, and in fact all I know about it I learned from Northern Exposure, but I seem to remember that damn near everyone in that show drove a beat-up Chevy truck. (Except Maurice, of course.) I take that to be a good omen for this truck.
This isn’t just any old Chevy truck, though; it’s a GMT800, the truck that took the near-perfect GMT400 series and somehow improved on it. It’s powered by a 5.3-liter version of the Gen III Chevy small-block, colloquially known as the LS, and GM’s often-maligned but generally pretty damn durable 4L60-E automatic. This one also has shift-on-the-fly 4WD. The seller says it “purrs like a kitten,” and I believe it; with only 167,000 miles, this thing is just getting broken in.
This is an extended-cab truck, with a pair of “suicide” doors for access to the rear seats. GMT800 interiors hold up better than the GMT400s did, and this one still looks pretty good. I’m sure some of the plastic stuff is broken, and I bet it has its share of electrical gremlins, but I also bet it’s still mighty comfy.
Outside, it’s beat-up and a little rusty around the edges, and of course it has that one mismatched door. But who cares? The mechanical core is sound, and the bed still holds stuff, and that’s the important part. Pretty trucks are only for people who don’t know how to do stuff.
1992 Ford F-250 XLT – $2,200
Engine/drivetrain: 5.8-liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Stanwood, WA
Odometer reading: 259,000 miles
Operational status: “Starts every time and goes right along”
Before the GMT-series Chevy trucks, and Ford’s “jellybean” F-series, all three of Detroit’s big three held on to their truck designs for a long time. This style of Ford truck debuted in 1992, but the basic design dates all the way back to 1980, and hung on until 1997. This is the F-250, the precursor to today’s Super Duty trucks, a burly 3/4 ton beast of burden with an extended cab and a full eight-foot bed. In other words, you’d better level up your parallel parking skills.
The F-250 was available with two different gasoline V8s: a 5.8 liter version of Ford’s Windsor V8, and a big-block 7.5 liter. The ad doesn’t say which one this is, but it looks like a 5.8 from what I can see. The big block is usually a selling point anyway, so the ad would have mentioned it. This truck has a lot of miles, but the seller says it starts right up and runs great.
It’s an XLT, so it has the “nice” interior. It’s holding up well, especially for that many miles. I’m trying to figure out what the tangle of black stuff on the floor is: a cargo net, maybe? If anyone has a better suggestion, please say so in the comments.
It’s a little scruffy outside, but in a good way. These trucks wear their patina well. And of course, it’s a two-tone. Ford trucks of this style should all be two-tone.
I would never suggest that either of these be used as daily transportation. They’re old, rough, inefficient, and probably not as reliable as they once were. But they’re also cheap to buy, cheap to insure, and if you’ve got the space to park one, easy to just keep around for when you need it. One’s got 4WD, the other has a little more capacity. Either one would make a great yard tool. The choice is yours.
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
Good running, shifting, driving GMT800 not rusted to crap with working 4×4 – for $2k?
At that price they usually have mileage well north of 200k. Sure it’s beat up but this is a great deal.
That’s a screaming deal in my book. I thought the absolute floor on usable 4wd full size was 3500 bucks or so.
Did a quick search of my metro and you are correct.. but they are all rusted out too. Good deal here, should sell fast.
That’s a great deal. I just sold my 2005 GMT800, with some rust and another 45k miles on it for 50% more than that.
I want the Ford but I need 4wd. So the shitbox Chevy gets my vote. And yes, the netting in the F-250 looks like the bed cargo net that Harbor Freight sells.
For the described purpose of doing nasty truck things, you’d be hard pressed to go wrong with either one. I went with the Silverado, only because 4WD.
Er, cheap to insure? I just put a 2006 Silverado on the road with no comp and it costs considerably more than my brand new MX-5 with it.
That just seems completely odd. We’re talking replacement value of 4 grand vs 40 grand, or thereabouts.
My insurance agent could provide no rationale, but I did a comp and it came back just 10% or so lower. Shrug.
Close call, I like Ford’s OBS styling better than early GMT800s. Interior condition is a tossup but they all present better than what I’d have hoped for work trucks. It all depends on what you consider more useful: an 8′ bed or 4×4. For me it’s 4×4 so I had to go with the Chevy.
And from all the GMT800s I still see on the road I’d say this could be daily driven
I can smell the interior on both of these, and I don’t like extended cabs. I’ll pick the Ford because I have a bit more direct experience working on those, but I’m not exactly fired up about either option.
I chose the Ford, look how beat that Chevy is, they didn’t care about beating it up, I’m sure they didn’t care about anything else on it.
I voted the fjord. I am a much bigger fan of older body styles trucks like that vs the more modern look.
Taking the Chevy because of age and mileage. That mismatched door kind of reminds me of the original Petey the pup in the “Our Gang” (Little Rascals) serials from the 30s. I actually prefer the looks of the Ford, but I’d need Coast Guard certification to park it and there’s no 4wd. Mechanically, it’s a coin flip.
Condition matters. The Ford is in better overall condition, at least from the parts I can see. Being an F250 vs a Chevy 1500 also makes a difference. It would be exactly that…a hauler, not a mudder, so 4WD isn’t critical. I have driven a Ford lately, and I’d continue to do so.
This is a tough one, because I’m a die-hard GMT-800 evangelist. But nobody can deny that the Ford in question is also a damn good truck, and it is in way better condition. Condition wins the day for me, especially since I’ve been running 2WD trucks through Chicago winters without a problem for the better part of 25 years now. I’ll have the Ferd.
You know you’ve lived in the rust belt too long when you’re expecting the Silverado with a mismatch door to be absolutely caked with rust, but it isn’t! Parts for these things are everywhere so I’m going to gamble on it despite both being really good choices like yesterday.
I have both a GMT400 and GMT800, and I believe the older one has a far better interior. At 400k miles, the interior on my ’97 still looks pretty good and everything works. The only things that work in the ’00 interior do so because I have replaced them. Recently. I’ve heard GMT800 interiors described as “Megablock” plastic and it’s really that bad.
But I’ll take it, because a truck has to be 4 wheel drive.
I may have some awkward news for you about where that series was filmed.
My immersion!
I voted Ford. That Chevy may be nigh on indestructible, but it sure looks like somebody took their best shot at it.
I couldn’t decide, as I’ve owned both and both are good in their own ways, so I closed my eyes and randomly selected one – the Chevy. Honestly, if the Ford had fewer miles or was an 4×4 HD with the Dana 60 solid axle instead of the Dana 50 TTB, it would have won my vote easily. Being RWD isn’t a huge knock, though it limits my use a bit in the snowy Rockies.
For a utility truck like this I would take either one, but the Chevy wins for me with the 4WD. Snow and mud is a regular occurrence here in Quebec.
I think that is a cargo net in the Ford. Super useful if you need to fill the bed with lighter items and not have them get tossed out by potholes and speed bumps. The F250 has the perfect configuration for me. You get a full 8 foot bed and a decent amount of cab space for small/valuable stuff that you don’t want exposed to the elements or 5 finger shoppers. I don’t care about the mileage because I would probably put less than 1,000 miles on it a year. I’ll take the Ford for my beast of burden today.
The bowtie may have lower miles but they look to have been hard miles. Also the number stenciled on the front quarter tells me this was a fleet truck, probably for a construction company or something similar. This leads me to believe it was probably rode hard and put away wet any number of times.
The Ford has more mileage but I think presents better, looks to have been taken care of and probably has had an easier overall life.
Also, that’s an elastic cargo net on the floor of the Ford. I have the same one on the floor the back seat of my truck.
I really do think that something like 50% of GMT800s left the factory in that beige color. Very few vehicles are associated with a specific color in my mind like this pair.
This is a tough call. I prefer the look of the Ford by a large margin but the Chev is newer and cheaper. Voting Chev because of the easier rear seat access.
While I like the F-250 more, I’d have more uses for the GM. Silverado for me.
that Ford has all the right parts.
So the newer, lower mile truck with what is in my opinion the better engine is also $200 cheaper? Yeah going Chevy without a question here. The Ford being a 3/4 ton is nice, but I have never needed the extra capability, half ton is plenty for me.
I’ll take the Chevy. It’s still in GMT800 showroom condition!