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No More Avalanche, Now in Silverado

Dalefan

Full Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2004
Messages
589
Location
Front Royal, Virginia
Sadly, I no longer have my 2004 Avalanche that I have owned since new (Nov 2003).

It hadn't run for a little while, so I recently put her in the shop to fix that and figured I would throw some coin at her and get a good mechanical refresh. She had 125,000 miles.

My list was extensive, essentially everything you read about on here that fails. I was planning on spending 7 to 10 thousand, but hey, new trucks cost 50 or more. Dealer called me up the next day with bad news. They put her up on the rack to start looking around and I had terminal frame rust. There was one spot near a body mount that was all the way through. Their guesstimate was if I took it to a body shop I might be looking at 5000 or more.

So I had to make the hard decision that our relationship needed to come to an end. Started looking around for a 4x4 in the 15K range, but all those had 150,000 to 200,000 or more miles. My need for a truck is limited to weekend work and occasional commuting/errands in bad weather, but at the same time I need it to be reliable for a 70 mile one way commute if needed. So I upped my target dollars and found a 2016 Certified pre-Owned Silverado Double Cab 4x4 with only 39,000 miles for 27K.

Here's a quick picture of the "new" truck. Notice the Avalanche bed panels leaning against the garage? Look in the For Sale section for info on those.

 

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Congrats to your new truck.Looks great!!.i can understand your choice,cause rust kills all steel..im just in the same spot now,as i noticed some bubbles in the paint behind the rear door..and cut out all the rotten steel,and replaced it.Also cleaned up the inside of the quarter panels,as there have never been rustproofed form GM,and none of the owners before me have done it either..so i guess our beloved Avalanches will only survive,if we now take care of them for the future.
 
I feel your pain.  I bought a 2006 Avalanche last October and have loved everything about it.  Now I am waiting for the insurance adjuster to show up and write me a check.  :mad:  I was in traffic, following a car towing a small trailer when something, I think a brake hub and drum, fell off and I hit it.  Now the anchor point for the lower A-arm is smashed in and the front end is out of alignment.  A new frame from Chevrolet was quoted at $4200, the entire bill totaled about $6500!  So, the 2006 leaves me, still looking as good as when I bought it.  However, it looks like a 2011 Avalanche is soon to be in my garage.  Maybe life is not all bad.
 
Know the feeling and nice find on the Silvy. I leased a '16 LTZ/Z71 Crew Cab almost 3 years ago. It's been a great truck but I've only put just over 23k miles on it. Sticker on the damn thing was $52,500 :eek: I put more miles on my bike than I do my trucks so a lease was an easy decision for me. When the lease is up in June, The buyout is $31,500 so I'd say you did good on that one even with it being the double cab.
 
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