'06 HD Questions. Looking to purchase.

andyems · November 1, 2014

My father is currently in the market for and looking at a '06 HD Silverado to pull his camper. He found one at the local GMC dealer that seems to be a really good deal. It's a 6.0 Duramax, 4 door, 4x4, with 134,000 miles. $26,000.

Interior is show room new quality. Outside looks good too. It's the dealer owner's personal truck and he just upgraded to a 2015. I wasn't able to be there when he test drove it today. We are both ignorant to a diesel truck anyway. He said when he test drove it today and pulled out into traffic it seemed to blow a lot of black smoke out the exhaust. I thought the days of black smoking diesels were gone years ago. It also has a sticker on it for Banks Power, although the salesman didn't know what that was for. He going to speak to the owner about it tomorrow.

Is this normal for a '06 to smoke when pulling out empty? Any ideas on what else we should look at before signing the papers? Any known trouble issues with this year and model? Any insight would be great, again, as we're not familiar at all with diesel engines. Thanks for the help.

Carder09 · November 1, 2014

If it is banks tuned, probably has a "dirty" tune on it. Rollin the coal like a boss!!! Do the tow mirrors have stacks on stacks and flipped up??? lol.

02suburbanZ71 · November 2, 2014

06 is lbz with allison so you should be good. Others here will tell you to stay away from a tuned diesel. Typically tuned diesels see a fair amount of racing or truck pulls lol

kstruckcountry · November 2, 2014

Sounds like it's tuned (badly). Typical banks fan. I don't know if I'd let that turn me off to the pickup, I'd just want to look at it closely.

Colossus · November 3, 2014

6.0 Duramax? No such thing. Either it is the 6.0L V-8 Gas engine or the 6.6L Duramax diesel.

02suburbanZ71 · November 3, 2014

^ he's right it is a 6.6, obvi because of the coal

andyems · November 3, 2014

Ok. I thought I saw 6.0 on the top of the motor cover but it was for sure a Duramax diesel so it obviously was a 6.6. He's looking at that specific year because he read/heard that was the best year for a Duramax before they added all the smog and pollution control. Again we are new to the diesel world altogether. I'm just helping him research a little.

He's going to get it first thing tomorrow and let his personal mechanic look it over. He's also going to find out exactly what the "banks power" sticker is about from the dealer. I went to their website and also talked with a guy at work. I found it could be a number of upgrades. I was under the assumption it was one type of upgrade or mod and not the name of a company with several different products. Thanks for all your time help.