Nice score. Every time I find something around here on CL in that price range it's got dents and dings, scratches or rust, and the interior looks like someone shoved a grenade in front seat.

And then there's the ones that are nice but people are asking $18k+ for them, I'd like to know what they are smoking lol.

I'm not looking for a steal, just a deal

 

Maybe the gas prices out here scare folks off. Any V10 X before 2003 was $7000 or less on cargurus. I did have to drive ~50 miles one way but well worth the trip...there is one bit of rust under the rear roof track about a two inch circle with bubbling, but it will get fixed easily enough....

 

Mark (mecdac) is good people, I only knew him here on FTE and took a road trip to Georgia from Houston to visit for a week. Many shenanigans were had

 

Pretty sure Florida sold the highest number of 2wd in the country, here in NorCal they are fairly rare, but the 4x4's are abundant. I know of 3 of them within a few blocks of my house.

If you want a rust free 4x4 I would search

Dallas
Phoenix
Sacramento
Reno

2wd ( probably not rust free but no road salt rusty )
Florida
Las Vegas
Palm Springs
( basically where old rich folks live )

 

Well that was 6 hours of my life I'll never get back. In case any other people are thinking of looking at it here is my review.

The Good: No rust what so ever anywhere on the truck. Mechanically everything was nice, still had the original U-joints and Ball joints which at 160k was impressive that there was no noticeable play or visual damage. All 20 bolts on the manifold were in place with no cracks and there were no oil leaks besides the 5 gallons of armor all they sprayed everywhere. Felt no slipping in the transmission, every button worked the way it should except the OEM DVD unit, it didn't respond to anything or I didn't push the right buttons Paint was in good shape, some clear coat flaking on the bottom driver back side behind the wheel. She drove straight and true and has no play in steering or wobble at any speed. No strange noises either.

So why didn't I buy it??

The bad: This thing was disgusting on the inside. I mean the "I need to go take a shower" after sitting in it, I do not know why they didnt clean it?? You couldnt find a crevice without crumbs or stains or sticky residue of food in it. Someone had used wood screws on the backs of the second row bench to keep things together. The backup camera didn't work, who knows if the seat dvd players worked at all, I couldn't get them to do anything and the salesman didnt know and could care less to find out. Whoever owned the vehicle before had done some real "jerry riggin'" of wiring and switches, it wasn't cleanly done and I don't trust it to be done properly. Front end above the chrome bumper looked to be repainted and had bubbling in it as well. Concerning.

I was willing to negotiate but after looking at it the salesman said "what do you think" I responded "with all the accessories non functional, condition of interior, and looking at NADA and KBB I can't give you what you are asking for it". Expecting to start bickering back and forth over prices the guy says "Ok" turns around and walks off.

Needless to say I got in my truck and never looked back.

Quick question though as I don't have experience with these SUV's at all. This was a V10 3.73g. I know these bad boys are heavy but are they normally slow on take off and heavy footed to stop? This was my first one I got to test drive so I don't have a comparison.

 

Oh yea on the way back I found a 2003 V10 4x4 in black to stop in and look at. I can tell you that I definitely like the way a 4x4 looks and sits over a 2WD stock, and black is pretty badass lol. Too bad this thing looked like a Deep Sea Excursion model from all the rust damage underneath. I didn't pull a carfax because it was so bad but I'm willing to bet it was a Katrina special.

 

The biggest thing anyone needs to learn about a V10 is it LOVES to run at 4000 RPM under load(not that I do that but the uphill high rpm seems to be its sweet spot!)... You will get the best performance by running it out.IMO.

 

Thank you fine bearded one. Looking forward to our next adventure.


Glad I went flying instead. Sorry.

 

No worries, hope you had fun. Thanks for the offer though.

 

Sorry you went through that, both with the vehicle AND with the salesman. That's really bad on their part for not cleaning it or trying to make a sale. What ever happened to customer service?

 

I went through similar crap on several EXs before I found my keeper, don't get discouraged and keep searching.
My favorite was a 6.0 Limited 4X4 in Ellicott City MD, looked pretty clean in the CL ad and seller claimed 45k miles. When I got there hours after the ad first posted the miles had somehow climbed up to 90k and the guy was a "contractor" who used the EX as his work truck. It had a red genny and a blue air comp living ON the second row seats! One side of the leather seat was now red and oil soaked and the other was blue and oil soaked. When I mentioned that he had ruined the seats he said "but look at how clean the third row is!"
The Ex is a big heavy wagon and in my opinion Ford should never have offered the V-10 with the 3.73 gears. The will perform fine for general usage but they are doggy for any serious towing and off the line performance. The optional 4.30 gear ratio is much better for all around performance and towing with only a minimal MPG penalty. Loading a decent custom tune, such as those from site sponsor 5Star Tuning will wake the motor up a bit and seriously improve the trans operation.

 

I will only EVER pull a travel trailer and the 3.73 should be fine for that. It was fine in a 5.7 chebby with 3.73.....but it's only 6000 lbs. I plan on getting one that you can walk up both sides of the bed in the near future(we're 65 so...), and none of those it sleeps 6 with 3ft by 1 ft supposed 'BEDS AND BUNKS". Our queen bed is on a pullout so one has to crawl over the other to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Other than that the tt has a great floor plan, so we get by....

 

Don't get me wrong, the 3.73 behind a V-10 will get the job done (and pretty well with a 6k TT ) but it will get it done much better with the 4.30 gears. Slow and steady is fine, but quicker and steadier is more better!


Our old TH was a crawl over queen bed, the current TT has the queen on a slide out and has good access to both sides, much more livable!