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Local 6.0L w/300k 1 owner known history vs far away 7.3L fewer miles & lots of unknowns.
Truth be told I'd rather have a 7.3L. I've known guys that have had decent luck with both. But I've also heard from a sprinkling of owners that had some pretty crummy experiences with their 6.0L. Everything else I've read on ye ole interweb here. Ultimately I'm not really scared of a 6.0L. I just never thought I'd buy one...ever. I've always wanted to pick an Excursion up cheap and then throw a 12 valve cummins in with an NV5600, G56, or ZF6 behind it. And if I had trouble with whatever power plant that comes with our new to us Excursion the plan is to go ahead and make it happen. But I'd obviously rather hold onto that cash if I don't need to spend it.
The one I fancy has had all of its maintenance performed either at the local dealer where he bought it or at a diesel shop in the area. There are a lot of options out there, but almost all of them will require some pretty serious travel or I'll have to buy sight unseen and have it shipped. Not much of a fan of that last option.
I've been looking for one of these for a long long time. The only good enough-ish deals I ever seem to find are for clean V10's. But like I said the whole cummins swap thing is something I'd like to do, but at this point I'd rather not have to. Which yeah I know with used vehicles you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit. But I'd rather start with a diesel. Maybe I'll just get lucky and it'll go like crazy forever. So as I said I've been looking for a long time, but our most recent baby brings us to a family of seven and the crew cab is just shy of seats. Wife approved a 6 door build, but I am nowhere near ready for that kind of undertaking at this point. I can keep looking for an Excursion it does not absolutely need to be this one. Not in the world's biggest hurry, but I've also been waiting for years now for these things to come back down in price and they just don't seem like they're gonna. Was pretty close to jumping on one about 10 years ago but thought they'd come down more. And I just didn't need one then. I guess with inflation they might be about the same price as they were? Hard to say. At the rate we make babies If we get one with bench seats I could get 5 years out of an excursion.
Interior looks really nice. He's asking $13k. I don't want to pay that. Gotta at least go drive it and then we'll see. Man I've seen some pretty roached out ones. I really don't want to drive 250-750 miles one way to find that I was mislead, and then I have to drive on to possibly another state to look at my second choice?! No thanks. This guys only 50 miles from me and I can go give it a good look see and a long test drive.
I'm guessing he is an older guy. Doesn't sound like a gear head. I asked if the EGR was deleted or anything like that. And he said no. I'm kinda wondering if this could be a case where I pop the hood and find that the diesel shop has actually done a few of the things on the list. EGR delete and coolant filter. I was going to bring a scan gauge II, or I also have an extra CTS3. Either one of those see anything better than the other? Anything I should look for on the monitors? And any mechanical things I should check that tend to get overlooked?
Appreciate the help.
Last edited by Compression-Ignition; Yesterday at 10:21 PM.
if you will take a bit of time, and watch Dave's videos on the 6.0L trucks,
he will convince you that buying one from someone that has NOT done the upgrades, is a good reason to avoid them altogether....
Dave is a stickler for "doing it right", he has the tools to do it right, his shop is completely filled with everything needed to do the job, right down to decking the heads and blocks, boring the cylinders,
he has dedicated techs for each model of truck, last I remember, he has over 32 employees.
He is up in Utah around Salt Lake area I think, or north of there?
I've seen a ton of Dave's video's. Haven't specifically looked at any on the 6 liters. I get why he would say that. But I'm also wondering how many of these things are out there with this many miles? And doesn't that say something about this particular rig? If I lose an engine I will be hard pressed to get one from anyone else. I trust those guys will do a good job. My current understanding is all this thing has ever needed was injectors. One set of injectors (if indeed that is true) is pretty decent for 300k. I'm still not stuck on this one, but regular maintenance and use...trumps lower miles and all of the unknowns. Unless we are talking super low miles.
Examples:
#1 1st owner all OEM for maintenance on time. High miles.
#2 1st owner DIY on time but wrote everything down in the maintenance section in the back of his manual. High miles.
#3 1st owner zero records. 2nd owner tons of repair receipts. Middling miles.
#4 1st owner OEM maintenance seemingly on time. 2nd owner who knows. 3rd owner DIY verbal confirmation that he maintained it well (no receipts, no log, round about quiz his knowledge of his own powerplant and find it to be seriously lacking). Lower-ish miles.
#'s 1 and 2 are just fine by me. #3 could maybe be okay depending on who did the work and all that was replaced, but I'm not paying big money because of said repairs. #4 obviously a no-go. But again it's all a crapshoot. Unless there is personal knowledge of the vehicle in question. Whenever I've had those opportunities in the past I've never had the cash at the right time to get something and set it aside.
If I could find a clean unmolested 7.3L with good maintenance. I'd lean heavily that way. But I'm not seeing those. Even when I look at one with an asking price around $25k-$30k, they won't even be close to being 'in great shape'. Decent is about all I can muster for most of them. But I haven't looked much farther than 750 miles.
Here is a 6 door 7.3 manual transfer case shift, 55K.....
Of course I would never spend 55K myself, but then I look back and I have close to that much in mine now.
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