I'm about to haggle on a $20,000 (Can $) used work truck with 200,000 km. For you guys south of the line that's about 124,000 miles.

It's being delivered to the stealership on Tuesday.

I live in a fairly remote area of BC and my wife will be the primary driver. She does a fair bit of evening driving with her lady friends and if she runs into a bug, a Honda Civic, or a moose I want her to have good chances of walking away from it.

Our '93 7.5L crew cab long box 4x4 is getting old and is too rough riding for her and I can't blame her, plus it is a manual... It's hilly here and town driving is a pain for her. So- that's the why story.

I've never had a diesel or a new vehicle and I own a very well equipped backyard play-pen/garage with a hoist. I do all my own work.

I've done a ton of reading. Know about the high egr temps, the dpf, rads leaking, intercooler condensation and the cracking injector lines under the valve covers.

I'm told this truck wasn't someones play toy so I hope it will have factory intake and an unaltered exhaust. I suppose that if it had a dpf removed that would be a good thing...

What can I look for to judge the engine? Can I tell if it had previously been chipped or a guy hung a tuner on it??

Thanks for all of the advice. Please school me.

 

Only way you would be able to tell it has been chipped before is to look at the tailpipe. If it is 100% stock and has a DPF inside the tailpipe will be clean. Take a flashlight and try to look deep. It is impossible to clean real deep and take all the soot out.

 

OK, thanks.

 

Do you get some kind of warranty?

200,000 km's on a properly maintained 6.4, it should be in great shape.
200,000 km's on a poorly maintained 6.4, you could be the sucker that buys it.

Are you getting it from a dealer? ask for maintenenace records.
Who owned the truck previous? If it was a little old lady that drove to church on sunday, walk away. It will probably be in the best possible shape if it was owned by someone that used it lots on the highway.

If you plan to "sunday drive" this truck, plan on getting a tuner and removing the DPF, you won't want it. The tuner will also help you if there are ever any issues, as it can read codes from the truck, let you monitor things that aren't on the dash, etc. very useful.

What kind of truck is it? (trim level)?

 

I've asked if they can give me 30 days coverage after purchase on the engine and tranny. We bought a nice used Grand Cherokee some years ago and 30 minutes after leaving the Chrysler dealer's lot the tranny piled up. I told the salesman this story two days ago and he said they would do something similar or "take care of us"... I'll get what ever they promise in writing if we make an offer on it and we come to some agreement.

It's a 2008 Ford F350 King Ranch Crew 4x4 Longbox. We'll be seeing it Tuesday and will have overnight. It was, from what the salesman tells me, a trade-in from the father of the dealership's receptionist. He used it for his work truck. It apparently has a dinted tailgate and door sill wear on the driver's side and comes with brush scrapes that they are offering to buff and detail out. It is supposed to be clean inside with good leather. It was listed at $24,000 and has been on the lot for a while because of the appearance. 40,000 km or 25,000 miles per year doesn't seem excessive, but it has been driven. The dealership just "marked it down" to $19,900...

We've never spent so much on a vehicle before. My old '93 F350 crew 4x4 with the 7.5 was bought for a whooping $2000 and is old but awesome. I'm old and cheap

I'll post some pics on our server as soon as we get it Tuesday and maybe you can take a fast look?

Thanks, Jim

 

miles vs hours..if somewhere around an average of 38 mph (US) over the life of the vehicle then that is a good indicator that it has not had to much trouble.

Get them to change all the fluids and filters and flush the coolant.

If you look under the truck and the dpf is cleaner then the rest of the exhaust, then he ran a tuner.

 

Good call on the hours VS miles/ KM's
That spells out how much idling and in town driving was done.
You can access the hours on the information display on the dash.

Also great idea about flushing the coolant; I'd get the tranny flushed too with a new filter, you might get a better bargain haggling over servicing rather than dollars.

As for the exhaust, and the DPF being cleaner; what if he ran an entire exhaust system?

 

Oh, and also look for white soapy looking residue around the coolant resevoir, and even the hood over the resevoir.

 

OK. 24 hours from now we'll know what it really looks like. I know that Ford has built a zillion of these and that the 6.4 is a great engine. If the dpf is still there I still will need to remove it to increase the engine's service life, right?

Same thing goes for the egrs?

 

Good to know about the engine hours meter on dash. That'll be the first thing we check. I think I'll be able to gauge the visual condition of the exhuast compared to the rest of the frame.

We'll go into the purchase price and discussion keeping fluid changes as an option.

Thanks

 

What will this residue be? I haven't heard of this. You're not pulling my leg and going to tell me it's compression powder, are you?

 

From my own experience, let me stress that you DO NOT use BioDiesel
unless you made it yourself and know it is good quality. I got burned
badly on inferior biodiesel from a station and it ended up costing me $9000
in repairs to replace the whole fuel system, injectors, rails, etc...

Overall, there are no federally mandated quality standards with Biodiesel.
At least in the US, maybe Canada is different. But since that day a few
years ago, I have sworn off biodiesel and never had an issue with my fuel
system since.

I also have a 2008 6.4L King Ranch Crew Cab.

 

If there are issues where the cooling system get's over pressurized, like head gaskets, EGR cooler, thers lots of reasons; the coolant would bubble or puke out of the bottle and splash around the bottle and maybe the hood.

You want to look all around there for any white residue, it might look like if you mixed baking soda with water and wiped it around and rinsed it off, maybe just a little residue, maybe more...

 

The DPF usually is fine if you're all highway.

You sound like you want a general purpose vehicle, so I'd suggest a tuner and exhaust.
That should cost 1000 - 2000$ all depending on what you end up buying.

Then, you can get EGR block off plates, which leave everything intact, but just block it off. (99$ ?)
Just FYI, a 6.4 truck with a hot tune, can make some serious power, like 500 to 600 HP. Enough to get you a repair bill.

With the tuner, you want one with DPF off tunes, then you get a pipe to go where the DPF - cat goes, so it's just a straight pipe. Now, the truck runs without any regens and mileage issues.

You're stock air intake should be fine, it doesn't sound like your racing.

You should be able to get a good tuner and exhaust pipe to delete the DPF for around 1000$.

I'd say make sure you get a nice tuner, I got the spartan tuner, it can read codes, and do everything, and also has lots of different tunes.

 

Why is that? I was thinking of doing the DPF Delete, but a lot of my
driving is local and occasionally highway. What about the delete favors
Highway driving?