Just thought i'd share my experience with you guys. Got an 03 7.3 van recently, it had been owned by an old guy 70's, he took great care of it, and it was serviced properly for the time he owned it, tranny,oil,filters, and the whole 9 yards.It was also well maintained before he bought it, as i can see the logs on carfax, from the dealer. I believe the previous owned/dealer not sure, rolled the odometer back before the guy before me bought it. Currently its sitting at 235k the old guy before me bought it with 160k presumably, i know this because the van was serviced last at a ford dealer with 200k just before he bought it. Then between that last dealer visit and him getting it to his mechanic's shop it was filed with 160k at his shop. This is within a year after it was at the ford dealership. So I suspect it was done by the owner before him, or dealer cant really pin point. The point is i was cheated by 47k miles after my exact calculations. This is based on logs from carfax. Now it makes sense why the odometer's first digit isnt fully lined up, at the time I didnt think much of it as I thought it was probably a ford quality working as intended thing, pun intended. He used it to tow his 6k lbs rv, he has spent quite a bit on maintenance over the years so I assumed he was sick of it and decided to sell it. When i got it it had power loss and it missfired after a while of driving, the guy spent more than 4k at the shop estimates based on his maintenance receipts, during his ownership, which is why i concluded this. Hpop leak,fuelbowl,oil lines, seals, turbo, and a lot of little items were replaced/resealed by me. Anyways, its not all a sad story, 1k dollars in parts later and a lot, and i mean a lot of swearing later, I got her back on the road running smooth. The van has 280kish miles accounting for the discrepancies, it has 0 blow by which is what sold me. This is my experience with my 1st diesel ever and it had to be a 7.3, I have learned my lesson. I knew I should have checked this prior, but excitement got the best of me. "dont let it get to you" I hope this helps those of you looking for a used 7.3, check that vin, and if you are lucky it might help you. Carfax is not always a 100% guarantee but its worth it if it has info on your vehicle.

so what did i learn my vehicle has 280kish miles instead of 235, not overly concerned, I only paid 4k for it, plus 1k in parts and free labor, so 5k for a decent 7.3 what do you guys think about this? Good deal, bad deal, meh deal?

thanks for reading my rant, hope it brings me back to earth in the future, and hopefully helps somebody.

 

I think you got an okay deal. How many dollars do you think you put in in sweat/swear equity?

 

i do some 7.3 flipping when i can and i approach every deal with the assumption the odometer has been rolled back. shop, negotiate and purchase based on observed condition.

assume all sellers stories are BS and all odometers are rolled back. at the end of the deal you own the vehicle so know the condition before handing over the cash. lessons are rough and wisdom doesnt come cheap.

also, the reason your digit is hanging is because the person who did it was a hack and did not do it correctly. he forced a wheel back as opposed to disassembling the cartridge and put it back together

forcing can be done in 5 minutes, disassembly takes 30. ( possibly hours or not at all if you don't know how)

 

if this is going to be a personal vehicle you are ahead of the game by doing your own top end work.

now you can begin to understand how they function and how to maintain and fix it.

a set of factory service books including the emissions powertrain is a valuable resource to gave. ebay for a couple hundred bucks for s used set us money well spent.

 

This is exactly how I buy cars, I dont care for mileage I care for mechanical and the condition the vehicle is in.

 

oh the stories people tell.

it was my grandpas and he kept it in a heated garage, only drive it on sunny days and took it to the dealer every month to have his private chauffeur wax it, change the oil and rotate the tires. I am only selling because my grandma needs life saving surgery but I will only sell it to the right person, i want it to go to a good home. $20k Firm cause they are so rare.

mean while i am looking at bent rims, wasted ball joints and dripping goo from every gasket, give him my card with a written offer of $5000.

calls within a week and says he will sacrifice for $15k cause it didn't start great on Monday when it was 27* overnight.

ya gonna pass,

a month later i have another turd to polish.

* story typical of how my deals go down

 

That's kind of odd that somebody would roll it back a number like that. You'd think they'd knock an even hundred thousand off or something like that. It's possible somebody replaced a broken gauge cluster and just didn't file the paperwork, which I am sure happens often enough.

I've wondered before about my L99 based on the condition being a little rougher than I'd thought it should be at ~140,500 when I bought it and also because they still had the old mechanical odometers on the early Super Duties which are much easier to falsify than the digital/LCD ones on the newer trucks. None of the paperwork threw any obvious red flags like in your case but that doesn't mean one of the owners didn't do something sneaky before selling it. It's impossible to know at the end of the day especially on an older vehicle with a lot of history. Like others have said you just have to evaluate it as it sits. In my case the price was right and it had a somewhat rare and unique configuration that I found appealing for my specific purposes so I wasn't as hung up on the condition anyway knowing it was going to be a long term project when I bought it. The other appealing truck for sale at the time was $5k more expensive and I didn't have it. (Was a much nicer truck though, whoever ended up with that one got a good one.)

 

My thoughts exactly. Also, I am wondering why it doesn't have a digital odometer like the 02-03 pickups, did they not change the E series electrical systems when they changed the F series?

 

At the end of the day I'd still rather deal with a private owner selling their vehicle than a used car lot, who are really just attempting to provide a service nobody needs and charging a mark-up for it. New vehicles that's different and more of a transparent business anyway.

 

I'm not familiar enough with the E series to know but you'd think so. I'm not aware of any (easy) way to falsify one of those and more than likely the whole cluster unit was swapped out with another used (but working) one without any disclosure paperwork being filed. But that is just my W.A.G.

On big trucks I know you can pull the mileage and engine hours directly off the ECM on a printout and verify it matches the display. That might be the case on newer personal vehicles also.

 

The late 90's and up Ford mechanical speedometers had a plastic gear inside that was prone to break. The mileage would stop wherever it happened to be at that time. The gears could be bought online for around $25-$35.00. At the time of replacement, an unscrupulous person could run the mileage back to anything they wanted.

 

1. intent is very difficult to prove in court.

The Federal odometer law 49 U.S.C. Chapter 327 (Public Law 103-272), prohibits the disconnection, resetting, or alteration of a motor vehicle's odometer with the intent to change the number of miles indicated thereon. ... However, vehicles ten years old and older are exempt from the written disclosure requirements.

2. electronic is easier then mechanical, mechanical requires skill to disassemble the cassette and put it back together correctly so it is not noticeable, that is why you see so many with a hanging digit and know tampering has taken place.
digital ones only require plugging in and a keystroke and nobody can tell it has been done.

 

Everything is hackable and once somebody had it hacked the hack itself becomes available to anyone that cares to find it. consider the whole system of tracking a vehicles milage and or time as compromised.

go off observed condition

 

Anyway to the OP it sounds like you got a real nice van, but we will need to see pics!

 

Maybe easier in the sense that there is nothing mechanical to take apart and put back together carefully, but more difficult in the sense that that type of software is generally not something the average dishonest joe or mouse house used car lot has access to. The service centers that do have the ability to do that are by and large honest businesses that know the penalties involved for getting caught doing it. Not saying it has never happened but my hunch is genuine odometer fraud is nowhere near as prevalent as it used to be.