Another Chevy Silverado over 500,000 miles
Posted on July 21, 2009
Filed Under Chevy Silverado News and Info
From http://www.eagletribune.com/
Motor Mouth: Chevy pickup runs half a million miles
Motor Mouth
Jeffrey Zygmont
Charlie Daher has seen an awful lot of trade-ins. But none ever grabbed him like the 1997 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that a customer returned to his dealership early in June.
“I have never seen a trade come in with mileage this high,” said Daher, who has run Commonwealth Motors for the past 18 years. Located in Lawrence, Commonwealth sells Chevrolet, Honda, Kia and, since last year, Volkswagen vehicles.
The 12-year-old Chevy belonged to Windham resident Fred Nader. He had driven the pickup for nearly 558,000 miles.
“I told him he was one of the reasons GM had to file bankruptcy,” Daher joked.
What’s especially remarkable is that Nader did not pamper the truck. It was his everyday work animal, driven to make the rounds for his business, Modern Amusement. Nader owns and is the sole employee of the company. He operates vending machines, including the kiddie rides and gum ball machines you see at the entrances to supermarkets.
“I have machines down on the Cape and as far south as Meriden, Conn. I go to the western end of the Mass Pike, and basically every place in the middle,” he told me. “And I used to have machines all the way up in St. Johnsbury, Vt.”
Nader has worked the business for 30 years, inheriting it from his father, Fred Nader Jr., who still lives in Methuen. This Fred Nader, who is Fred Nader III, grew up in Methuen before settling in Windham with his family: wife Karin, and 14-year-old Fred IV, John, 11, and Tommy, 5
Nader likes Chevy Silverado pickups with a long, 8-foot bed because he can fit two of his coin-operated merry-go-rounds in back. The trucks have also served him very well. He drove a 1988 Silverado for 307,000 miles. He traded that at Commonwealth for a 1994 model. But he ran the ’94 for a mere 120,000 miles before replacing it because he didn’t like the seats. That’s when Commonwealth sold him the ’97 Silverado that traveled more than half a million miles.
“It’s not like I committed myself to keeping the ’97 forever. But nothing ever happened to make me say, it’s time to get another,” Nader explained.
Most of the thousand or so miles Nader drove each week were on freeways. That helped a lot, because steady-state highway miles produce less wear-and-tear than stuttering, jouncing, in-town travel. Still, Nader took some very practical steps to coax so much longevity from a work vehicle. He credits seven primary measures. They’re fresh and unique – not the usual bromides you hear from for-hire car-care experts.
1. He always warmed up the engine. Rather than starting the pickup and rolling away immediately, Nader let the engine idle long enough to warm up all its internal components. “I let it run a couple of minutes before I take off,” he said.
2. He topped off engine oil between oil changes. As with all engines, the Silverado’s dip-stick showed an upper level and a lower level, with any reading inside that band considered OK. But Nader never let his oil level fall below the upper reading. He added oil to keep the dip-stick at the top level, or a half-quart above.
3. When driving, he accelerated very moderately. That doesn’t mean he drove slowly, Nader noted. Especially, say, when running up to St. Johnsbury on deserted stretches of open freeway, he would push the pickup to speeds we won’t mention here. But he didn’t rush to attain high velocities. “I would take my time to get up to speed. Then it was just the left-hand lane and cruise,” Nader said.
4. When stopping, he applied the brakes moderately. That reduces wear and tear on the brakes themselves, while it eliminates overall stress on the vehicle.
As an added bonus, Nader noted that both moderate braking and acceleration saved him dollars at the fuel pumps.
“When you accelerate fast and you brake hard, you’re just throwing away gas mileage,” he said.
5. He repaired problems right away. For example, even if a leak in the truck’s power steering looked small and insignificant, Nader didn’t wait until it grew critical. He brought it immediately to his mechanic, Joey Nicolisi, who runs Quality Auto Service in Methuen.
Prompt repair eliminated problems before others occurred, Nader explained. Therefore he never faced a discouraging, costly hold-up in the repair shop to fix multiple failures.
“You hear a lot of people say that they have to get a new truck because this is going wrong that that’s going wrong and this part is ripped. You end up with too much stuff going on at the same time and it looks like too much to fix,” said Nader. His approach “keeps them all small and it doesn’t turn into this big huge problem.”
6. When repairs were necessary, he used only top-quality parts, rather than trying to economize by using inferior replacement gear.
7. He treated the engine with the Slick 50 oil additive at the first oil change. Like other oil enhancers, Slick 50 claims to coat engine parts with substances that reduce friction.
That last tip will raise some objections, because vehicle manufacturers typically recommend that you avoid additives. But Nader considers it one of his keys, and it’s tough to argue with a guy who goes 558,000 real-world miles.
He plans to add Slick 50 to the engine of the new 2009 Silverado he just purchased from Commonwealth, as soon as the first oil change is due. In fact, Nader plans to follow the same regime with the new truck.
“I’ll treat it exactly the same. I’d be silly to do anything different,” he said.
That’s not to say this high-miler isn’t open to experimentation and new ideas. With the new truck, he is considering using Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil rather than petroleum-based oil.
Will that produce even better results? We’ll have to check back with Nader in a dozen years to find out.
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