Well, I bought my '96 new so....
Any abuse is 100% my fault.

 

Same here. Can't complain about my mechanic. i wish I could get him to some more mods but he won't because he can't afford it, the cheap sucka.

 

I can't complain too much about my PO, he had a can of starter fluid inside the cab too because the fuel bowl heater was crapping out, the only other problem was that there was a ton of OK red soil in the cab and i had to take the entire interior apart to get it all out, dashboard included

**EDIT**

Also, he ripped the mudflaps and brackets off, but I recently fixed that problem for 30 bucks per side and it looks great

 

im not too mad at the PO, they owned it for 165k of its 266k miles. Had a hand written log of maintenance from oil changes, to brakes, to vacuum pumps.

Only thing i dont like: put all 12x3" brakes on the rear, not 12x2.5" shoes and write down when you put in a rebuilt or new transmission!!

 

I'm not upset with the PO at all.

He kept very good maintenance records in the owners manual supplement. Everything was clean with I bought her from the dealer (the dealer could have cleaned it up before I saw it though).

BUT, when I was shopping, I looked for the records and thoroughly inspected the trucks. The catch is I paid about $500 to $1000 over blue book for the one I bought. So I just spent the money up front instead of fixing it after the fact.

Since buying, I've replaced the fuel pump (no way to know it would fail) and the clutch. Clutches are wear items, and 140K on a factory clutch is pretty good.


I do have a truck at work I'd like to kill the previous owner from though. 2005 International 4200 with DT365 (dreaded 6.0L). I swear the add read DT466, but I was obviously wrong. I had it delivered from GA to WV and it made the trip. After that it set for about 4 months while I had to wait for the body install (stupid government). The problems started immediately. It needed almost a complete HUEI rewiring, then it threw a fuel pump. Then it was a few sensors in the transmission, then....well lets just say the engine initiated self-destruct. So, now after almost one year, we've had the truck on the road almost 2 weeks total and it needs a new engine.

 

I paid premium dollar for my truck but what I got was a 158,000kms(97,000mile) truck that was overserviced with 3000km oil changes, what is that, 2000 mile oil changes???

All other fluids changed way before schedual, all serviced at Ford between Canada in the summer months and Florida in the winter months pulling his camper and had all the papers to prove it.

Unfortanitly, I'm my worst enemy and the only time my truck is used is when its worked and the remaining time it sits and siezes up, which gets expensive. I've owned my truck for 6 years now and put 60,000miles(100,000kms) and have done the brakes 3 times, front u-joints are on the 3rd set now. On my 3rd serp. belt, appears to be stuff that ages from the truck not being used........I pay to keep it going but its a bit crappy when your forking out money to keep it rolling when you need it and hardly putting miles on it. My truck has been sitting for the last 6 weeks now and I've been making a point now to at least start it up every 2 weeks and get it up to operating temperature.

 

Sounds like you have some bad luck more than anything David. Mine, I've put 70k on it in 11 yrs, sits all winter every year, only problem I've had is batteries dead.

 

the p/o's beat the crap out of my truck. It wouldn't stay running when I bought it and if it ran, it ran like crap. Thanks to FTE, the week I bought it I had
Replaced:
Injector O-rings (they were really bad), GPR, GP's, IDM, CPS, ICP, Ditch cat (clogged).

Trans went a couple months later...

 

I can't say too many bad things about the PO of my truck. I bought it from a guy that only had it a couple weeks after taking on a trade. He got it from what I believe was the original owner. The truck was owned by a contractor and was used pretty hard, but it seems to have been pretty well maintained. It's rough cosmetically, but with 387,000 miles on it, I can't say that the PO did anything too bad to it mechanically.

There are lots of little things that could bug me (like the 30 + pounds of gravel I removed from inside the tailgate after the latch cover panel was lost and left off for who knows how long) but it is an awesome truck, and it gives me something to tinker with. Lots of work ahead, but it is a labor of love I guess.