It finally happened! I finally sold my gawd-forsaken Suburban!!! Ok, for those who don't know, here's the story: back in '01 my wife found this beautiful '97 Suburban. She did a real sales job on me and next thing you know, we owned it. It was black, had every option you could get with them, plus a nice stereo and big wheels and tires and not too many miles. The problems started almost immediately. Steering speed sensor (think zero feel in the steering) transmission, rear A/C unit (oh yeah, it has two), fuel pump, battery, alternator, water pump, another transmission, coolant leak, another battery, stereo died, windshield wiper motor, intake gasket failure, heater hose split, another battery, power seat broke, power steering hose, brake master cylinder, water pump (again), front brake calipers and finally the A/C quit again.
With all these failures, you'd think I really beat on my vehicles. Not at all. This thing had never been off-road, always been garaged, and waxed, I kept up with normal maintenance and all those trans failures were before it had ever seen a trailer! This was my wife's daily driver and had fairly low miles! So finally I bought a nice, used F250 for the towing, my wife got a nice used '08 Fusion for her transportation and I drive our '88 Mustang GT to and from work. BTW, in case you didn't notice, all the vehicles we now have are Fords, and we've owned the Mustang since '91 and it presently has 171K miles on it. Not one of our Fords has given us one second's trouble. Nothing. Ever.
So now it came time to off 'Burb. It looks like new, inside and out and aside from the A/C not working (or the TV) it's as good as it's been for a long time. So I offered it on CL for $500 under blue book. The calls started right away and people started showing up ,driving it and never showing up again. The excuses ranged from "too nice", to not liking the custom grille, to it being "too black" to the A/C not working and on and on. No offers, no nothing. So I continued to drop the price about $100 every couple weeks and re-posting. Finally I got a call a couple days ago from a polite, excited guy who wanted to see it ASAP. I give him the directions to my father-in-laws house where it has been stored and soon he showed up. I'm not making this up, he was a white supremacist covered in tattoos, from head to toe, (throat and face as well and he was also wearing shorts and a tank top to show off his ink). His GF had just started to collect her ink and was only half-tatted. So I went to start the 'Burb and of course the new battery was dead! So I jumped it, half-expecting him to walk away, but nope. He asked to drive it, so I handed him the keys (against my better judgement) and he took it for a short drive, returned and shut it off. He tried to restart it, but it wouldn't. So he says, "I'll take it!" I about fell over! I hauled azz home, got the wife to sign the title and got back before he sobered up. Of course he paid cash, and not from a bank. It was a huge stack of twenties, banded together in $1000 stacks and I counted it out, wrote him a bill of sale and we parted ways. I have never been so happy to see a car sell in my life, and I truly mean that. I will never, ever buy another GM product again, nor do I care to meet that particular buyer again...

 

Sounds like a Chevy. I've had two of my own, both I put tons of money into and got minimal use out of, in the process finding they were underpowered, under-equipped and generally lame vehicles. I got rid of my old Suburban (couldn't sell it for $500 so I scrapped it for $650), and got an Explorer with a bad transmission. Rebuilt that, did some other little work and have put over 6000miles including three long highway trips with no trouble. A/C even works, and it tows well. I could sell it and double my money, maybe even triple it, but that would be giving up a good vehicle.

 

Kinda reminds me of our 'fridge. I usually do the buying on items like that. (Well, I do the shopping, get the best price, finalize the deal and THEN I make sure the wife can live with it, LOL) However, this last time she saw a refrigerator that she like so much, it was purchased before I even knew about it. I won't mention the brand name here, but it is the biggest POS you've ever seen. Luckily, she bought it and not me.
Anyway, I'm glad you got rid of it. My sister and BIL have always been Ford truck buyers and this last time they bought a Chevy. They visited me this last weekend and my BIL was telling me about all the problems they are having with it. I'm glad I don't live closer to them because it sounds like I could have a full-time job just putting parts on it.

 

My dad always bought new Chevies. He's run them till 90K or when the problems began, which ever came first.

Two years before he died, he bought a used F-150 as he'd finally seen the light. The truck already had 80K on the clock when he bought and was used a plow truck. It never saw the shop in the time he had it.

After he died it was garaged for about 6 years. I was selling the truck and had no clue if it would run. I charged the battery, poured in 5 gallons of fresh gas and away we went, just like she had never been stored.

 

I had a very similar experience with the '88 Mustang. It sat for two years, because I was going to sell it, but never got around to fixing some of the small stuff that needed to be taken care of first, it needed new tires, yet I hated the wheels too much to stick a new set on them, and it had a funny noise in the steering column and needed to be detailed, but I was busy with my vintage Mustang and didn't have the time. So it sat. And sat. Then sat some more. By then gas was too expensive to drive my V10 F250 every day, so I decided to resurrect my Mustang into daily driver duty. I cringed at the prospect, since it had sat with a 1/4 tank of gas, the battery was beyond dead and was a Costco cheapie to begin with and who knows what else could be wrong since I took zero effort to preserve it before I parked in in the garage. So I charged the battery, and lo and behold it fired right up! I found some wheels I like on the cheap, washed it, waxed it changed the oil, and have been driving it ever since. Can't beat a Ford! Here it is on a trip to SF a few weeks after being used for spider habitat for two years!