Buying a 99 Yukon: opinions

[BladeMaker]

Looking at picking up another Yukon tomorrow. My concerns are the motor never had a gasket job done ever and it's at 245kms. To me the exhaust smells sweet.
Guy claims he replaced the water pump a year ago and never drove it since. He also never refilled the radiator after doing water pump and when I ran it for an hour in the cold weather here the engine temp gauge on the cluster was at 130 Celsius and there was no heat from the vents. Exhaust smelled a sweet.
I've asked him to fill it with coolant and I'll come back tomorrow to see if all is good.
Motor seemed to idle good but hard to tell much without a test drive and the vehicle has no plates on it. And of course had no coolant.
Oil looked ok. Probably changed recently from the looks of things. Didn't seem to have any problem starting from frozen solid in -20 C. I would like to get the transmission warm and get on the highway but with no plates I'm limited in what I can do before I buy it.
Any thoughts on what I've said? Am I being blind to the possibility that this motor has been overheated and might be trouble? I don't mind doing gaskets if that's all it takes to get this truck where I need it to be for a reliable daily, but don't want to bite off more than I can chew with warped heads or something.
If anyone knows any good little tricks or tips to check condition of the motor or the compression without driving much at all - then let's hear them. Even if its something dumb maybe I forgot to check or it can help someone else reading. Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[Chubbs]

What's it have? 245,000 km?

With a 20 year old truck that has a ton of miles and sat idle for over a year the coolant deal is prob only half the battle. All of the bushings are possibly dry-rotted, who knows about the brakes & steering linkage, shocks/springs all needs replacing. Seems like an uphill battle to flip that thing into a daily driver. Could make a farm rig @ the right price but for the larger perspective I would start with something already running/ proven truck with detailed maintenance history that correlates with odometer. Plenty of good deals out there.

You can pull up YouTube vids explaining the process for examining engines & the tools needed, which you can buy @ HF and NAPA; a comp tester will reveal a bad head/valve/seal for sure. the coolant system may need to have the air purged out so look that up. Basically just get the front of truck higher up than the back end, take the pressure cap off while the engine idles & raise the RPM in intervals. Just look at all the small things that will nickel & dime you to death. You are going to spend $500 on lube & filters, regular maintenance items before you even start addressing issues.

 

[drowssap]

If the truck is in decent shape and you can get it for anything less than $700....buy it! Get a low mile used motor and drop it in if the current one needs too much work.

 

[BladeMaker]

I totally disagree with everything said.
suspension doesn't die if it sits for a year. Nothing dry rots in a year. I could go on but why bother. It's enough to say I respectfully disagree.
And I don't know where you're getting the idea that a 350 is dead after 240,000kms. But that is nothing on one of these motors. I have one with 450,000 and With regular maintenance and not abusing it they Easily go 500k before any serious work. I've done it on more than one of these motors. Anyway I've made a decision on this truck. But thanks for your attempt at help. I would not consider it good advice but that's just my opinion.
240 is a low mile used motor. The ones with 100k on them have sat for a long long time if that's all they've been driven in 20 years. And those are the motors I've had problems with. Not the ones with 180-240 on them.
I must be way out of tune with you guys here.

 

[drowssap]

I totally disagree with everything said.

I must be way out of tune with you guys here.

Here is the problem...We have absolutely no idea as to what climate this vehicle was driven in nor do we know how the vehicle has been maintained. We are all assuming that you know what you are looking at and make the assumption that if the vehicle was a piece of garbage....you wouldn't even be asking this question here. I can take a brand new truck with 5k miles on it and force it to throw a rod right out of the block so your assumption of making a decision based on the fact that you have plenty of miles on one motor means that his other motor most definitely should hit those miles too is wrong. It all comes down to how that motor was pushed or maintained! All of our answers are based off the assumption that you feel the truck is in good shape but want to know what you should do in the event that certain things pop up that you haven't anticipated. Our responses are going to be general as well!

I myself would go into this assuming it needs a lot of motor work. Considering how cheap these used motors are...is it worth repairing or replacing. If you purchase the truck and bring it home to button back up and everything works flawlessly...BONUS! But I would rather assume and be prepared for the worst than be hopeful and let down!

 

[RED TAHOE LS]

Sometimes reality is hard to accept or recognize, I gotta agree with those that gave you some good advise.
David g........................

 

[swathdiver]

It probably has a blown head gasket, coolant going through the motor and into the exhaust. Cracked block or heads are also a possibility. Don't think I would venture more than scrap value if I had the ability to source and drop in another engine on mine own. And everything else ought to be in excellent condition to make the project worthwhile.

 

[rockola1971]

Im assuming this a Vin R 5.7l? I have a 99 Sierra 5.7L with 275k on the clock. Do people here realize 245km is 152K miles on the Yukon? Id have a very hard time believing this to be the true mileage. I also would suspect the owner is pulling some fast ones here. Who expects a buyer to come look at a vehicle when the coolant isnt even filled all the way? Bushing dont dry rot because the vehicle has been sitting a year or so. Driving down the damn road doesnt stop dry rotting from happening. (Wtf?)
Sweet smell from exhaust is coolant in the exhaust which can be anything from a blown head gasket, cracked head or block to leaking intake manifold gasket which is very common on the 5.7L.
I would run UNLESS you have the tools and the know how to fix this matched with the wallet ready to open up AND you can get this Yukon VERY cheap. Im talking highway robbery cheap here. How much they want for it?
Keep in mind the times of decent low mileage Vin R 5.7L engines used in a salvage yard are just about nonexistent. They havent put the Vin R 5.7L in GM vehicles since around 2000/1. The 5.3L and 6.0L were the only new kids on the black after that and those of course are in every salvage yard and they are cheap.