Middle East Expat Vehicle, yey or nay?

I'm thinking about trading in my Land Cruiser for a GMT900 suburban 2500. The Suburban won't be as cool or good off road, but will have more room for the family, be able to tow a camp trailer and probably get better fuel mileage.

The 2500s are somewhat rare, but I have found one locally that seems to be fairly priced. I had a friend that works for GM look up the VIN and it says that it was exported to the Middle East when new. It has some interesting options like arabic warning stickers that I am curious to see if are still in place. It also shipped with a KPH speedometer, which seems to have been replaced with a US MPH version. Is it safe to assume that the milage is accurate since it is stored in the ECU? 

Would you consider buying an internationally traveled vehicle? What else should I look for beside normal used car stuff?  At least it shouldn't be rusty!

I would take a hard pass on that truck. There's bound to be better candidates that pop up.

If it's still in the middle east, this sounds exactly like the scam that led to my dumb-ass BIL's dumber brother wiring $18k to Poland for a Jeep.

I lived in Saudi, so unless it was of some value restored, heck no. 

Keith Tanner said:

If it's still in the middle east, this sounds exactly like the scam that led to my dumb-ass BIL's dumber brother wiring $18k to Poland for a Jeep.

That is... Yeah. Wow. Some people need adult supervision.

It has been shipped back to the states and is in Oregon at a used car lot. I think I will take a look at it, if nothing else for curiosity.

does it have USA  smog stickers etc

And how much of a discount  compared to a USA delivered truck ?

Here are the option codes. It says it is 50 state emissions compliant. It's right around book price, but maybe $1-2k less than others I have seen in the area. 

The option code that sticks out to me is:

UD4: alarm vehicle speed, 120km (74.5 mph)

Sounds annoying. 

It would have to be a lot bigger discount for me to consider it. 

bgkast (Forum Supporter) said:

It has been shipped back to the states and is in Oregon at a used car lot. I think I will take a look at it, if nothing else for curiosity.

WHY? It isn't because of the Great Suburban Drought here. How long has it been back? 

Why spend the $$$ to ship it back? To have it put on a used car lot? Are there no used car lots a bit closer to Saudi?

"Come see the beautiful lil cream puff Suburban we just go in at Bob's Used Infidel Cars in downtown Riyadh"

In reply to John Welsh :

It is. I was once in a speeding Genesis Uber and that's how I knew we were flying. 

I cannot stress this enough: You. Do. Not. Want. This. 

Seeing stuff like this is not uncommon. 

In reply to Jordan Rimpela (FS) :

That's a Ford. ​​​​​

In reply to bgkast (Forum Supporter) :

I wasn't able to photograph the rolled Suburban. 

Since I own a odd duck with a lengthy travel history I will tell my cars quick history. 

1988 Dodge Daytona  C/S was sold new in Switzerland, the car spent about a year there. Next was Milan Italy,  then on to Rome for another two years and finally it makes its way back to America. Later it would be come a Challenge car.

I have never had an issue with registration, title or tags. The things that would get me were small.

There have been certain things that are different or hard to find, light bulbs and their placement, head light adjusters, and  some trim parts are hard to find.

The one thing I would be wary of is aftermarket add on parts like sunroofs,  my car has a sunroof made by an European manufacturer and they would not sell me the parts I needed, later I was able to make my own parts. I am not sure if this is such an issue now with the internet.

Either way I think it would be worth looking at, I would bet 98% of the parts are off the shelf G.M

YMMV errr.. YKMV

Paul B

In reply to Donebrokeit :

I don't think anyone is implying there will be parts issues or anything like that, it's more that a commodity vehicle that has made an around the world trip after spending most of its life in a region known for being absolutely brutal to vehicles probably has more downside than upside.

I would be curious how they got it titled if it's less than 25 years old. Would require a federal certificate of conformity or FMVSS waiver to be legit (very well could be one on file for the GMT900 but I can't be bothered to check), if it doesn't have one the title was probably washed.

In reply to bgkast (Forum Supporter) :

If you ever seen how they drive and treat cars over there. 

Hard Pass. Land Cruiser for ANY Suburban is a downgrade in my book, much less a Suburban that was probably hooned in the dunes by some minor sheik before he fried the transmission and left it there and went and bought a new one :)

POD, My post was from real world experience, which is why I included the possible parts issue. 

As for how the truck came back to America,  like my car (5 years old at the time) I would have to say Military.  I am not sure how it works now but back in the 90's if you purchased a car through the car buying program on post you could  have the car sent back and not have to pay taxes on it. 

Paul B

yupididit said:

In reply to bgkast (Forum Supporter) :

If you ever seen how they drive and treat cars over there. 

They don't use the horn to tell you to move out of the way.  They just give you a tap on your rear bumper.

Somewhere I've got a series of pictures of when I was a passenger and they were repaving the equivalent of an interstate in Kuwait.  Was a 12 lane job, at one point along the job they hadn't put the lane stripes in.  Going by the position of the vehicles, there are 10 lanes on the portion of the highway I was on.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I know exactly what you mean. It's a demo derby there

Donebrokeit said:

As for how the truck came back to America,  like my car (5 years old at the time) I would have to say Military.  I am not sure how it works now but back in the 90's if you purchased a car through the car buying program on post you could  have the car sent back and not have to pay taxes on it. 

These days it's nowhere near that simple. Feds cracked down HARD after Mercedes Benz lobbying against the grey market and the Motorex Nissan Skyline fiasco. 

https://help.cbp.gov/s/article/Article-218?language=en_US

There were lots of military vehicles that went over and came back.  Not common, but it happens.  From what I understand, they were pretty normal US vehicles with stickers and an extra oil cooler.

What would concern me is the not one, but two month-long journeys in a shipping container across salty oceans.  European and Japanese cars shipped here are doused with cosmolene to prevent rust and they still sometimes have problems.

Mr_Asa said:

yupididit said:

In reply to bgkast (Forum Supporter) :

If you ever seen how they drive and treat cars over there. 

They don't use the horn to tell you to move out of the way.  They just give you a tap on your rear bumper.

Somewhere I've got a series of pictures of when I was a passenger and they were repaving the equivalent of an interstate in Kuwait.  Was a 12 lane job, at one point along the job they hadn't put the lane stripes in.  Going by the position of the vehicles, there are 10 lanes on the portion of the highway I was on.

+1 for why you shouldn't buy it: How badly Middle Easterners treat their vehicles. I learned this from some documentaries that detailed the Yom Kippur war and other conflicts so YMMV, but essentially the patriarchal system of "I'm older, thus know better than you" coupled with Islam's teachings that "Everything's gonna be fine in the end because you believe" leads to a society that just goes FULL SEND on their stuff.

I see this thread is still alive. I had another thought: if you buy it, eventually you may be the one trying to sell it. At that point, it's going to be like trying to sell a vehicle with a salvage title, only harder. 

Consider it's value as what you could get for it if you have to part it out.