It's one thing to say that trucks like the GMC Sierra are long-lasting. It's quite another to buy one, push it to its limits and prove that when GMC says that their trucks will endure, they aren't kidding around. We know of three very bold GMC owners who have done just that - one of whom put 1.2 million miles on her Sierra 3500HD.

Before you reread that last bit again, we promise you read it correctly. Tammie Roeber makes her living transporting horses across the eastern U.S., and she signed the lease for her one-ton pickup in 2006 when it was brand-new. Since then, it's journeyed all over the country, with a 48-foot, 16,000 pound trailer hitched up to the back. "From 30 below zero in Minnesota to 100 degrees in Miami,"¹ she says. Oh, and that trailer? It's usually carrying nine horses, too. Roeber has never had to change the Duramax diesel engine or Allison transmission.

Chicago resident Dave Cleveland travels to trade shows all over the country in his Sierra 1500 from 2002. He also has a 60-mile round trip commute to-and-from work every day, and in the last 10 years, he's put more than 420,000 miles on his truck. He and his wife love it so much they bought one for her, too, in 2010. Cleveland says, "This truck runs as good today as the day I bought it."² He too, has never had to change the engine or transmission.

And then there's Don Impson, a retired veteran who lives in Arkansas. His truck is definitely the oldest of the three - a 1986 Sierra. He owns a mobile veterinary practice, and travels to around to farms in the counties surrounding his home. Even after 520,000 miles, his '86 truck is his favorite mode of transportation. In 1995, he bought a new GMC 3/4-ton pickup thinking his original truck was getting ready to call it quits, but it still hasn't. Like the other high-mileage heroes above, Impson has never had to replace his engine or the clutch in his manual transmission. He says, "We're both getting older, but me and the truck may still be hankering to make a cross-country trip and I bet we could make it."³

If these three stories aren't enough to convince you that GMC has some of the toughest trucks on the road, then we have one more challenge for you: stop into Walser Buick GMC at 4601 American Blvd West in Bloomington to try one out, we're sure you won't be disappointed.

Source:^1,2,3http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gmc/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/May/0524_sierra.html