Concerns on towing vehicle over 100,000 miles?

[cadunkle]

Cadunkle, we have two trucks with manuals and both reallly suck at the ramps and for hooking up the trailers. Clutches are fine but for minor adjustments of the vehicles, and auto trans is much easier.

I have no trouble on ramps or hooking up, that's driver issues not vehicle issues. I'd attribute your 291k mile auto trans life to frequent oil changes (20k miles or less) and that it probably has a large cooler.

[rludtke]

My 1995 Chevrolet K1500 extended cab 4x4 has 185,000 miles on it now, with original 350 cid engine and automatic four speed over-drive transmission. I purchased it used at 65,000 miles. It consumes a little oil, but does not leak anything. The only maintentance it has recieved besided oil changes has been occasional tune ups (but not very often), tires and brakes, water pump, belts, and hoses. I also had to overhaul the rear differential early on in my ownership. That was a $1500 bill, but had I overhauled as soon as I heard it making noise, it probably would have been more like $500 in cost (live and learn). I've never had a more affordable vehicle than this when considering costs over the long-haul. This truck has provided pretty cheap driving over the ten years that I have owned it.

I would like to step up to a newer Chevrolet 4 door crew cab because my kids and dogs are bigger, but the prices on used truck are high right now, and my availible cash is low. I will probably need to keep my truck for several more years, and perhaps 50,000 more miles or so. Fortunately, my truck continues to give me dependable daily service, and I have confidence that it will continue to for a long time to come.

The challenge with having an older truck like mine, is deciding what to do with it when a big ticket item like the transmission or engine fails. While broken, it has zero re-sale value, and even when repaired, it's re-sale is pretty low. However, after investing iin the repair, it could continue to offer years of great service, or something else could fail. Factor in another $4000 into its operating costs for a new engine or trans, and I think it would still be a very cheap driver when factored over ten years of ownership.

[joel210]

I have a 2003 dodge 2500 HD,quadcab, with 120,000 miles on it, lifted with 37" tires. It's doing just fine, I just had the tranny serviced and flushed with amsoil. The shop said everything look perfect. I don't see anything giving up soon on it.

[cadunkle]

The challenge with having an older truck like mine, is deciding what to do with it when a big ticket item like the transmission or engine fails. While broken, it has zero re-sale value, and even when repaired, it's re-sale is pretty low. However, after investing iin the repair, it could continue to offer years of great service, or something else could fail. Factor in another $4000 into its operating costs for a new engine or trans, and I think it would still be a very cheap driver when factored over ten years of ownership.

You make an excellent point with this. In my case, when I buy vehicles I buy then fully intending to keep them for the rest of my life. My '86 Supercab does everything I need it to, so there are only two reason why I would ever get rid of it... If someone made an offer that's a fair amount more than I have into it, so I could build another one and be at a profit... Or if I found the right (for me) '76 or '77 Ford Supercab long bed. I'd love a '67-'72 Ford pickup but they don't make Supercab 4x4 trucks earlier than '76 and I don't think I could go back to a regular cab.

If you can do mechanical repairs yourself, old vehicles are obscenely cost effective. Your $4000 engine costs drops to $500-2500 for a freshening up to a full performance rebuild. Transmission rebuild can run $250-$750. Axles $200-$300. There's not really any other high dollar items to fix, and if you do the engine trans, and axles you have a whole new driveline and no more big ticket items to fix for another 10-20 years. I spent about $2500 doing a performance build on my 460, but $400 of that was buying the 460, since my truck had a 351w originally and I hated towing with the small block. A fair amount of that budget also went into performance parts that can be reused whenever the motor needs freshening up and on a normal rebuild wouldn't be necessary. My trans case cracked and ripped the trans mount off when a motor mount failed. Of course the warranty on the mounts didn't cover the trans. I found a good used trans with a newer (stronger) style tailhousing for $300 and swapped it in an afternoon.

Heck, even rust issues on older vehicles aren't too expensive. My cab had rot on the bottoms of the extended cab part, typical on '80-97 Fords, and over the wheel wells on the bed. The hood had issues from a previous owner and fenders some minor rust. $20/each for the panels to repair the cab, $30/each for the bed sides over the wheel wells, $70/ea for fenders and $100 for the hood. So that's $340 in metal, a little bit in beer, and a couple weekends to weld in new metal and such. Not sure if I'm gonna paint it myself but if I do, I'd expect around $300-$500 in supplies and a full weekend for the bed, full weekend for the cab/front clip.

I've never done stringers on a boat, but I'm sure if you can do that you can handle metal work and driveline rebuilds. Just like anything, if you do it yourself you save a fortune, and making an older truck like new again costs a small fraction of waht a new truck costs... and personally I think you get a much more capable truck that isn't ugly and sin and has less to break.