We Just Bought One Of The BEST SUVs Ever Made: But did we Pay TOO MUCH??

[Music] we bought one of the alltime greatest SUVs ever made that's right case and we paid a ton of money for it at the end we'll tell you how much we paid for it and we're going to go over why the GMT 400 series of trucks and SUVs is quickly becoming one of the most collectible vehicles on the market if you've waited for a one-of aind vehicle a vehicle that provides more spacious luxury more cargo room and more power to get loads moving than any common sport utility and provides a full complement of standard luxuries and safety features then your patience has finally been rewarded so case when we say GMT 400 what does that mean well the gmt400 was this generation of GM body onframe Vehicles like the Suburban like this Tahoe like the Escalade like the Yukon and the GM trucks and this Tahoe specifically came around in 1995 went to 2000 and this would be a GMT 420 that's right yeah so they all had their individual chassis Coes but for the most part case sat Tahoe the blaze of the Yukon were variant on the same platform under the hood of the Tahoe lives a 5.7 L V8 this is a vortek 5700 255 horsepower 335 lb feet of torque and it is paired to an old school four-speed automatic transmission this engine is code named l31 and it replaced the l05 unit this engine came out in the Tahoe in 1996 and continued through 200 however certain applications of this engine made it all the way through 2003 and to this day it is still a popular application found in a lot of marine uses boats pretty cool stuff a very long lasting durable engine it replaced the throttle body injected unit that stopped in 1995 And the cylinder heads on this engine are very desirable for hot roders similar to the LT1 design but without the weird reverse flow cooling system the lt1's had the automatic transmission behind this l31 is specifically the 4l60 automatic and this Tahoe has two specifically very cool options it has a transfer case with four-wheel drive Auto and it has a G80 rear Locker so the GMT 4 400 debuted in the late 1980s but the Tahoe lineage actually debuts to 1992 with the GMT 400 Blazer which was then renamed Tahoe in the mid 1990s and the Blazer name was Kept For the little S10 base to SUV that that's not super important but what you need to know is the Tahoe is shorter than the fulls size suburban and in the GMT 400 unlike today the Tahoe was two row only whereas the Suburban had the three row variant one of the best things things about this Tahoe is actually driving it this is one of the most comfortable vehicles I think I've ever been in you're 100% right case the way that these older GM full-size SUVs and trucks just ride down the road I mean there's a weight to them and they're incredibly soft but they don't feel floaty like a 1970s Cadillac or Lincoln or something so so they don't kind of rock around they're just perfectly level on just about any kind of flat terrain now if you want to Corner fasten them well they're not going to be super happy but for daily driving or road trips this is where it's at yeah and it is very tractor likee steering very light steering super over boosted yeah and all the controls are very light except for the brake you put a decent amount of pressure into the brake to actually slow this vehicle down which I like the brakes aren't jumpy at all and your visibility is overall pretty good there is that split in the rear window which limits a little bit of your rearward visibility but for the most most part it's a really easy vehicle to drive in every way K I think we both agree that this generation of Chevrolet full-size truck is one of the best looking ever yeah especially today this design has aged so well and looking at one in this condition is spectacular this vehicle looks awesome now as far as specific styling goes there were some differences between different GMT 400 platform Vehicles yeah that's right and depending on which trim level you got the front end can look very very different also depending on the year now this is a fairly late example of Tahoe and this one has the Dual stacked headlight turn signal combo however some of the more entry-level trims would have a different headlight setup yeah they'd have dual sealed beams instead so depending on how much you want to spend in exactly what you're looking for the front ends can vary a lot just like the front end design the side profile of the Tahoe is beautifully simple it's almost completely slab sided with one simple character line now this one does have the optional running boards down the side you can also spec this vehicle with the Z71 off-road package which gives it which gives it a more rugged look and then these wheels are fantastic a five-spoke design with a 16-in wheel which gives you a nice thick sidewall and a fantastic ride and I love the way that the GM Engineers molded the Side Glass into the rear quarter it looks great and then the back portion of this vehicle is also hiding some cool features yeah this is pretty iconic these are the barn doors that you used to be able to get in these vehicles which some people loved some people didn't like as much because there's a split in this rear window which doesn't help your visibility but I think by today's standards this is pretty cool yeah and they have a really interesting feature so they open up this much typically but you can fold it halfway closed pull out on this little lever and then you can actually fold them all the way open for even more room certain versions of this vehicle also had like the swing gate that lifts up I guess it's more of a lift gate let's be honest but um honestly the barn doors are the way to go so okay let's talk about about that engine so 5.7 L V8 255 horsepower but over 300 lbet of torque is that enough to motivate this thing down the road it is when you're at altitude like we are going up the side of a mountain you might notice that the transmission being only a four-speed it will have to downshift pretty dramatically every now and then but you get on the throttle hard there's quite a good push torque so it doesn't have a problem keeping up with traffic 100% yeah it does pretty well considering that this is going on what 30 plus years old now almost this one is 25 yeah yeah 27 um 20 no you're right 26 yeah Mental Math it does All rights on the highway you can do 7580 it's completely fine look I mean I think to a lot of folks the fact that we're even calling this classic is kind of like a mind-blowing thing seems crazy right yeah cuz this just seems to most people like could use SUV but these now are kind of entering that classic stat is you're starting to see fewer and fewer of them a lot of them were lost to rust yeah like especially in Midwest territories they just rusted out but yeah they're quickly becoming kind of rare one of the greatest things about this SUV are the seats first of all we don't make seats this soft and plush anymore and it is such a fantastic thing but that isn't to say that these seats don't have features they have forward and back electrical operation up and down operation front and back it even has lumbar control in the late '90s and the best feature the heated seats which get incredibly hot seriously though I don't know why we have lost the ability in 2024 to make seats this comfortable it's because we're spending too much time on the darn nurburg ring but another great feature on these seats is the captain's chair so both front seats have individual armest that fold down to allow you to get into the perfect position this is an old vehicle we don't have ventilated seats we don't have a heated steering wheel but we have something far better this is the legendary ball Chiller this is a feature that everyone who knows about it wants this to return so they built GMT 400s from 1988 all the way up through 2002 in some of the commercial applications and the dash design changed a lot throughout the years I really like some of the early dashes they kind of look like old school calculators these later dashes however are much more usable and um just daily drivable so let's get into some of the cool features in true old school fashion we have a very simple but informative set of instruments on the left your Tech in the center your Speedo and then of course you have your fuel gauge your battery voltage your oil pressure and your coolant temp everything you need to know and case this is a pretty common issue but our fuel gauge is vibrating furiously some of these gauge clusters do have issues as they age this Tahoe has a huge steering wheel now it doesn't have any buttons or controls but it does have an airbag and if you want an airbag these later tahos had two airbags driver and passenger and while we might not have any apple carplay or anything like that we do have an Old School radio head unit with of course a cassette player and look at the way that these equalizer adjustments pop out you can rotate them to make whatever adjustments you want to and then pop them back in and we also have a CD player one of the things that Chevrolet really nailed were the cup holders so first of all you've got this cool one that pops out from the dash doesn't look that extraordinary until you pull it out more and then a second mini one makes itself known from the side that's pretty cool we've got more cup holders here in the center this one says removable because you can take it out entirely and replace it with a CD holder how '90s is that GM clearly knew what was going to happen in the future because they created this tray that perfectly fits your phone but if you want to be a little old school you can flip it over stick a piece of paper in there and that's where you write down your notes there is no shortage of onboard power in the Chevrolet you think Pro Power on board is impressive check this out you have have not one but two 12vt outlets plus a cigarette lighter look at all those power ports that is awesome and this little kobby hides your ashtray now the mirror here has a little display which can show you your current outside temp which is awesome but there's a button here to change it to computer and the computer does one thing that they show you the direction of travel I think that's Compass thank God case is here because he reminded me it's probably not computer but most likely compass overhead console also gives you a couple nice features you have your separate rear AC control with this knob up front you've got two lights that you can flip on and position to cast light on whatever you might be reading you have these openers for your garage doors or your gate whatever you need a sunglasses holder and all the way at the back I believe this is storage for a CD cassette so even more CDs Now door handles and the doors in general are a pretty common fail point on these fulls sizee SUVs first of all the doors tend to Sag which make them a little hard to open and close and then the handles can fail as well but I love the controls on the door these buttons are fantastic they feel like something that Ronald McDonald would put in one of his Happy Meals but they're really durable and fun to use Tommy you've also got a pretty neat sun visor there a little strap on the bottom to throw some things in and then when you fold it down you got a big old mirror with some lights and the side of it is very rugged looking it's got that plastic and if you swing it over and extend that you get better coverage the Tahoe uses this little tiny tiny key with a pretty good siiz fob that allows you to access lock and unlock and open the rear all and a push of a button and then to start the vehicle up put it in the ignition it'll beep starts right up and then the best part about this whole situation is the column shift for Park reversal Park reverse neutral Drive overdrive and then 3 two and one manual selections now case one of the things I love about this platform is that it's old enough and different enough to feel special but not so old that it's a chore to drive yeah it's still works perfectly fine in the modern era but it does have enough going on that makes it cool in a kind of retro way that you feel excited to drive it because it is just something a little different and some of these features are things that you just can't get anymore it makes you kind of long for those good old days you're right I mean you've got that Lumpy up front you've got that body on frame Old School Driving Experience you got the analog controls no adaptive cruise no emergency brakeing but at the same time you've got two airbags and you have abs so it's not completely void of any kind of modern-day safety feature yeah you've even got a fob to lock and unlock the doors so you don't have to walk up to it and put your key in and then hit the lock switch on your door card so that you can let your passenger in it's a pretty easy vehicle to live with for an old school back seat there's really quite a few amenities back here for one on the door card of course we have ashray in the back so as Tommy says your kids can smoke we've got big Nets on the backs of the seats we have cup holders here on the back of the console we've got a large cubby underneath that I have my own AC controls here in the back with vents not only directly in front of me but also to the side of my head I have two grab handles that are about 3 in apart which makes you wonder why I have both and then in the center we've got two more cup holders and really cool a Kleenex holster so okaye let's talk about some maybe not so great things about driving this older Tahoe uh one thing I want to point out the rear window only goes down about 4 in yeah rolling it down yeah how big is that opening is maybe 6 in yeah it's not great yeah so if you want to hang out you know in the back seat have that wind in the hair experience not great in the Tahoe um also fuel economy realistically 15 16 maybe 14 in the city so it is going to use some gas yeah absolutely none of these GMT 400s are going to be very good on fuel and then the tough part for me which is a little sad is that these are getting really hard to find in good condition yeah a lot of them costs way less than what we paid for this one you can find them for just a couple Grand but most of these got used pretty hard and not necessarily maintained all that well because they got so cheap but if you can find a good one I mean it's not uncommon to see these with 200 250,000 Mi they just keep going yeah Parts availability is great everywhere you can get any part for this engine at your local auto part store super easy to work on relative to a modern car you've done some work on some of the GMT 400 8800 and and I think you found them to be pretty simple absolutely now these rear seats do fold out of the way in a very 1990s fashion so first of all you have to fold up the seat bottom just like that and then you start to fold back the seat rear portion except you have to stop parway through and remove the headrest like such and then that can kind of fold down and it will fold flat you got to give it a little encouragement and then there's a spot here to Stow the headrest very clever in the trunk we also have four tie downs and our Jack is right behind this cover there's a spare tire underneath and there are not one not two but three positions for your privacy cover so okay so overall you like the way that these uh older Tahoe Suburbans and trucks drive I love it this vehicle is the perfect amount of interesting it's something that I would enjoy getting in in driving but it's still practical it's something that you could use every day you could pull a small trailer with it you could go up the side of a mountain take it skiing there's really nothing that it can't do yeah and speaking of trailers by the way we have the original owners manual look how 90s look at that look how cool that is 6500 lb of towing capacity yeah which is not good and I know you showed the window sticker earlier in this video but $37,000 was the final sticker price on this that's like 68 69,000 bucks in today's money this was a nicely optioned vehicle yeah and pretty expensive I mean I I don't want to get in the whole conversation about have wages kept up with inflation but certainly in modern day money that that's that's that's quite a bit of change would have been [Music] cheap all right case how much did we pay for this 98 Tahoe one owner 118,000 Mi well we paid paid $9,000 which is at the high end of the spectrum of prices for these GMT 400s but this is about as nice as they get and you know what's Wild is if you look at like the bring a trailer crowd and granted that's at the top of the market but some of these now are going for 15 18 even $20,000 yeah and the two doors closing in on 30 Grand in really good shape unreal but case would you agree that this is quickly becoming a great collector's vehicle it is I think this styling is aged really well so have the features and this is a vehicle that even in today's world on today's roads can still do a lot of things it can do some light Trails it can tow it's comfortable it's reliable it does everything you want so let us know in the comments did we overpay for this 98 Tahoe and as always this has been Tommy and case check out all tf. and tfl Classics case where we got a lot of new stuff [Music] coming

Channel: TFLclassics

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Id: 5GkqcddruZ0

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 06 2024