Sooner than later I'm going to get a "free" truck. I say "free" because it needs a lot of work. Was supposed to be mine yesterday but on the way delivering it to me he backed into his neighbors car with it and now they need to deal with that first.
Anybody that knows me knows that I do not think highly of CJDR products or anything related to them, nor would I ever have seen myself in ownership of one or behind the wheel of one, but I'm not going to turn down a free crew cab truck with a clean title. It's either an 03 or 05, I don't remember. A bit over 200K miles. It's got the 4.7L V8.
Known/suspected issues:
1. It's dirty. First thing I'm going to do even before fixing anything is try to clean it up. Interior is nasty so that's gonna be first, outside looks to be in good condition with no real body damage nor any big dents or scratches - impressive for a 200k mi work truck used for the construction business.
2. Supposedly it has a bad head gasket. That said it's been running and driving like that for months so I'm not sure if that's really true. I'll do a wet/dry compression test and do an oil change and look at the used oil and maybe send it in for analysis. Apparently coolant loss is minimal.
3. Transmission issue, just like every other Dodge. Apparently if you try to drive it first thing when it's cold in the morning it slips but if you wait a few mins it drives fine.
4. Rear differential makes noise at highway speeds. I looked at carcomplaints.com and it seems very common. Couple hundred $ at the junkyard is the easy solution here.
5. Bad heater core. Currently bypassed because the guy bought the heater core and started taking apart the dash then realized he was in over his head and just decided to bypass it for the time being.
Anyway, I know nothing about Dodge Rams, have only owned GM and Ford SUVs, trucks, and cargo vans so this should be interesting. Any thoughts on this thing? I'm going to do most of the work myself over time, which will be an adventure since the most complicated thing I've ever done is valve cover gasket on a GMC Envoy 4.2 (which is not exactly a quick fix, if you're familiar with the job)... a 200k mile Dodge with a bunch of junkyard parts and cheapest possible auto parts store employee discount parts, that will be reliable
But hey, since it's completely driveable at the moment at the very least I have a back up vehicle because I just sold my ultra-reliable Chevy truck and now my Escape's transmission is acting up, I'll be glad to have a free truck.
Anybody that knows me knows that I do not think highly of CJDR products or anything related to them, nor would I ever have seen myself in ownership of one or behind the wheel of one, but I'm not going to turn down a free crew cab truck with a clean title. It's either an 03 or 05, I don't remember. A bit over 200K miles. It's got the 4.7L V8.
Known/suspected issues:
1. It's dirty. First thing I'm going to do even before fixing anything is try to clean it up. Interior is nasty so that's gonna be first, outside looks to be in good condition with no real body damage nor any big dents or scratches - impressive for a 200k mi work truck used for the construction business.
2. Supposedly it has a bad head gasket. That said it's been running and driving like that for months so I'm not sure if that's really true. I'll do a wet/dry compression test and do an oil change and look at the used oil and maybe send it in for analysis. Apparently coolant loss is minimal.
3. Transmission issue, just like every other Dodge. Apparently if you try to drive it first thing when it's cold in the morning it slips but if you wait a few mins it drives fine.
4. Rear differential makes noise at highway speeds. I looked at carcomplaints.com and it seems very common. Couple hundred $ at the junkyard is the easy solution here.
5. Bad heater core. Currently bypassed because the guy bought the heater core and started taking apart the dash then realized he was in over his head and just decided to bypass it for the time being.
Anyway, I know nothing about Dodge Rams, have only owned GM and Ford SUVs, trucks, and cargo vans so this should be interesting. Any thoughts on this thing? I'm going to do most of the work myself over time, which will be an adventure since the most complicated thing I've ever done is valve cover gasket on a GMC Envoy 4.2 (which is not exactly a quick fix, if you're familiar with the job)... a 200k mile Dodge with a bunch of junkyard parts and cheapest possible auto parts store employee discount parts, that will be reliable
But hey, since it's completely driveable at the moment at the very least I have a back up vehicle because I just sold my ultra-reliable Chevy truck and now my Escape's transmission is acting up, I'll be glad to have a free truck.
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