I bought this truck from my brother in 2007 with 80,000 miles on it. It now has 138,500

 

It seems like lately every time I turn around I'm putting money into this truck. I use it mainly during hunting season and a handful of times throughout the year after that.

 

I've flushed the radiator and changed the coolant twice while I've owned it. I haven't had it checked out yet but I have a coolant smell coming from it. I'm guessing it's the heater core so I called the dealer, OEM parts $950 and a local radiator shop unknown parts $750

 

It's got rust from living here in Michigan and I was thinking about getting rid of it 2 years ago but I was told the steering wheel had some play and was off center a little. I didn't think it was bad but took it to the dealer and had it checked out and fixed. new steering box, steering damper, and track bar.

 

That cost me almost $1000 I went from the service area to the sales area and they offered me $9500 for it and I didn't even need to buy from them

 

Now a coolant smell and probably another $1000 and I'm gonna need it for hunting soon.

 

I'm bummed. Damn I wish I would have sold it when I had the chance......

 

 

2 hours ago, dripley said:

Well I am going to have to say that your wife knows how to drive in the winter weather. Mine don't. Last snow we had here last winter I took the wife's Saturn for a drive before I let her go. drove up to the main road no problem and u turned back to the house. Told her all was fine and she left. 30 minute later she comes walking home and the car is off the side of the road. Sounds like your wife needs to show my wife how its done. 

 A touch off subject but any years ago when I lived in Atlanta the clutch went out on my 65 Dodge van. Had to put in the shop and I drove the wife's Toyota Corolla for 2 or 3 days out on 285. We are going about 75 or 80 and all I can see is a bumper out the windshield, a bumper out the rear mirror and door handles out both windows. Hated that crap.

 Kudos to the wife.

Much like Mikes 2nd gens I too have a Unicorn for a wife lol, I taught her everything i could but she grew up in the middle of nowhere on a small dairy farm and was dirt road poor and self sufficient and did with what they had. I taught her how to back long trailers and spent time coaching her and she now makes most guys look bad especially at the boat ramps, i think she backs in more boats than anyone else and has saved many from divorce lol.

10 hours ago, Wild and Free said:

I too have a Unicorn for a wife

 

Don't I wish... 

Edited October 25, 20177 yr by Mopar1973Man

I've been studying crashes that come up on the news with pictures and I would say almost always the littler vehicle ends up being the badly damaged with life threatening injuries, often dead on scene or later died. Larger vehicle, the occupants often walk away with minor injuries. They almost always lived with non life threatening injuries

16 minutes ago, JAG1 said:

I've been studying crashes that come up on the news with pictures and I would say almost always the littler vehicle ends up being the badly damaged with life threatening injuries, often dead on scene or later died. Larger vehicle, the occupants often walk away with minor injuries. They almost always lived with non life threatening injuries

Our illustrious government did a study on this very thing many years ago. They determined that in an accident that the people in the heavier vehicle always seemed to come out on top. This study cost several hundreds of thousands of $$$. That always irked me because it seemed obvious to me. On top of that several years later they did it again with the same results and several more hundreds of thousands of $$$. That one irked because they already knew the obvious.

Some times it doesn't matter what kind of driver you are.  Last year I had a friend miss a few days of work because they couldn't get her car to move from all the snow, even tried pulling it out with her brothers 3/4 ton chevy, he just couldn't get enough traction to get it free.  My co-worker went to visit his parents who don't drive, parked in their driveway and had to call a tow truck to get out and he was in a lifted duramax.  He had a neighbor try pulling him first with no luck.  My wife and I had to get running starts to get out of our driveway.   I shovel the driveway, but we don't get much plow service in town so the street was still pretty deep.  That reminds me, I need to get a new tow strap, I have a feeling I will be pulling more people out of ditches this winter. 

I also agree with both above statements. I can prove that without a doubt with all the vehicle accident I've been to and where full size cars and truck tend to be the winners. Small compact vehicles tend to lose. 

 

So still in all I'm crossing 320k miles. I've got a few minor repairs to do... big deal. I'm still safe and still travelling the roads where most gasser would be nearing the wore out stag now.

Ok ok you got me, I'll have to agree I had few close calls on hitting a deer or something similar and definitely wished I was driving a truck, and if I got kids I usually do drive a truck for that reason. If I'm by myself going to and from work I drive a  car. Someday I'll have a job 10-20 minutes away then I'll jus have a truck, and maybe a second vehicle as a back up. But you got to remember too I don't leave out in middle of nowhere so getting help is usually not a big deal. Funny thing is I'm the one helping others. 

I too have been through a lot of first responder training and as far as accidents goes if you are only talking head on collisions then yes the cars lose but only if talking apple to apples as far as equal modern crash cage and safety features goes but most of the accidents in our area are roll overs and it is the total opposite. People walk away from car roll overs at a much higher rate than pickup roll overs. The weight off the vehicle plays a huge factor in the force and velocity of the wreck which transfers to the passengers buckled in or not. We still have a high rate of non seatbelt users and that contributes to a lot of the deaths as they are ejected which also goes back to the weight and velocity of the forces at play making pickup wrecks much worse in single vehicle accidents which is more common here. vehicle collisions are usually in town and at a much slower speed and new vehicles pickup or car are pretty much all done for in a bad enough crash and with the safety features and crash cages and surround airbag systems there are rarely the injury seriousness of the older vehicles. In safety demonstrations It is amazing to watch the new plastic / tin can vehicles with the crash cages do high speed head on collision scenarios with the old tank cars and see the damage it causes getting into the cab area. The new cars always win when looking at the potential injuries to occupants, the older cars have the engine axle and everything in front of them pushed up against the back seat almost ensuring death or extreme bodily damage.

Me thinks we all did a good job of derailing this thread lol.

But we did it with style.

Back on point between my friend who owns a farm has two second gen Cummins and one third gen if you include my second gen in the mix we have over 1.5 million miles on the second generation trucks.  The 12 valve he has is a sled puller now and has over 700k on it, he has well over 20k of wanted upgrades but in it's early life 0-700k while hauling farm trailers and so on it remained stock and had the suspension rebuilt twice other than that it was strictly wear items he replaced KDP repair and a welded 5th gear nut... Don't ask

Going off what Mike said the same guy also has a 24 valve, he pushed the power envelope right away big turbo, injectors, stacked programmers, fuel system and a nv5600 with a stock clutch.   Clutch went first then the list goes on at about 300k and 4 lift pumps later he went mechanical lift pump and twin turbos, his kid drives that truck now and last I checked it was over 600k.  I know for a fact he's already had both the turbos rebuilt again and new injectors and injection pump in the last year and a half.  No joke that 2001 being bought new including purchase price of truck has already hit 90k in money invested.

But when they make you 40-over a 100k a year in money and you need a big truck to work can you really argue about a money maker nickel and dimming you that my two cents.  

Thanks for all the replies

 

My daily driver is a 2014 Chevy Cruse. Having a 4wd truck in the winter to drive is a nice option. But I seriously don't remember the weather being that bad that I may only need to drive it a hand full of times each winter.

 

I need it to haul some wood, haul the trailer to deer camp, and a few other times a year. Unfortunately I can't be without one. 

 

I don't mind working on some repairs but, sometimes I just find it easier to drop it off and pick it up fixed.

 

I put new tires on it in Oct 2013 I think I've got 8000 miles on it since then. It's not like I'm driving it every day and wearing it out. So, with me not putting hardly any miles on it makes it somewhat harder to swallow having these trouble issues with it.

 

Anyway, I dropped the truck off at the radiator shop and picked it up Friday $690

 

 

 

 

 

Well, when it rains it pours I guess.

 

After almost a week of still having the same coolant smell that I took the truck to the 1st place for. I took the truck to the dodge dealer.

 

Told them the same thing. I smell coolant inside and outside the truck, and it's not fogging the windows up.

 

Their diagnostics was a leaking freeze plug. They say 4 hours to fix it. Something about having to drop the trans cooler.

 

They couldn't even get a replacement plug until next week. Apparently coming directly from Cummins.

 

The only good thing so far is that I can still drive it hunting.

I guess i missed the part of smelling it inside and out. I know when mine was leaking, only smelled occasionally, it never fogged the windshield. Not saying they are wrong, just saying. My leak was small plus I had to go in there anyway.