100K miles - what maintenance?

Camreal wrote:
To the OP, I have an 05 with 199700 on it. Most items listed have been checked or replaced including alternator that was still working. On a short weekend trip 5 months ago I had what I thought was smoke coming from under the hood. Turned out to be high pressure diesel spraying out from #4 injector fuel supply line. Drove it another 100 miles home. This seems to be a common problem on 05 common rail series. Most auto supplies stock that line . I now carry a spare. Check your injector line fittings with a wrench. They are easy to get to. Sorry for the long post.

Hmm, I have an 2005 with 207k miles. I'd better check that line too.
thanks for the heads up.

"There is the sales tax, the higher cost of insurance and the cost of borrowing (or lost opportunity cost if you pay cash) on the additional out lay of money that must be taken in to account but owning a newer truck isn't a tremendous amount more expensive than owning an older one."

You can honestly write that with a straight face?

Serp belt, yes, but only get an OE or a Continental belt. Idler and tensioner pullies, maybe, hoses maybe, all fluids up to date.

Most importantly, if you are still only running factory fuel filtration, the clock is ticking on your injector life and it's between 9 and 10 pm if they are going to fail at midnight.
Add 2 micron filter. Most important thing you can do.
Except the #4 injector line. If it's original still you're gambling on that. Replace it now or at least have a spare and the right size line wrench with you. And check all the injector hold down bolts as well.

The rest is subjective preventative maint, of which you've been pretty thorough already it appears.

The last thing I can think of is u-joints and carrier bearing. 50/50 shot at 100k and 15 years old, IMO. BUT, they don't fail suddenly. If one start's going, you can still drive for hours or days, depending.

Durb wrote:

4x4ord wrote:
^^^^ I see. I was mistakenly thinking he bought his truck new 7 years ago and it never depreciated in the first 7 years. He bought an eight year old truck 7 years ago. So his idea is that a truck depreciates for the first 8 years then stops depreciating for the next 7. I wonder when it will carry on depreciating again? I'm thinking I'd rather watch my new truck depreciate than my 15 year old one do the same.

According to KBB, my 16 year old truck has depreciated approximately $1,000 since I bought it used 7 years ago. If I were to replace it, which I could, the 8.6% sales tax on a $50,000 truck alone would be $4,300. The fact is, like me, the OP has a unique vehicle, a pre-emission Cummins with low miles. I live in the Northwest so rust is not an issue. Our trucks reliably do the job and I suggest our depreciation rates going forward will outshine those of a new truck.

I'm in the same situation; low mileage, pre-smog truck in great shape and reliable as a truck can be. Not worth trading for a little more bling and a lot more expense.
At least, not yet.

If changing the brake pads I can't emphasize how AWESOME the EBC Orange HD pads are. EXPENSIVE but nothing compares.

^^^^ Good luck with that. My father actually has an 04 Ram diesel that he has owned since new and only used for towing his 5th wheel. I try to convince him to throw it out and get a new Ford but can't seem to talk any sense into him either.:) His is in very nice shape with about 100k miles as well. He spent quite a bit of money on it trying to get a shimmy out of it. They changed some front end components and u-joints and I think it's better.

4x4ord wrote:
^^^^ I see. I was mistakenly thinking he bought his truck new 7 years ago and it never depreciated in the first 7 years. He bought an eight year old truck 7 years ago. So his idea is that a truck depreciates for the first 8 years then stops depreciating for the next 7. I wonder when it will carry on depreciating again? I'm thinking I'd rather watch my new truck depreciate than my 15 year old one do the same.

According to KBB, my 16 year old truck has depreciated approximately $1,000 since I bought it used 7 years ago. If I were to replace it, which I could, the 8.6% sales tax on a $50,000 truck alone would be $4,300. The fact is, like me, the OP has a unique vehicle, a pre-emission Cummins with low miles. I live in the Northwest so rust is not an issue. Our trucks reliably do the job and I suggest our depreciation rates going forward will outshine those of a new truck.

To the OP, I have an 05 with 199700 on it. Most items listed have been checked or replaced including alternator that was still working. On a short weekend trip 5 months ago I had what I thought was smoke coming from under the hood. Turned out to be high pressure diesel spraying out from #4 injector fuel supply line. Drove it another 100 miles home. This seems to be a common problem on 05 common rail series. Most auto supplies stock that line . I now carry a spare. Check your injector line fittings with a wrench. They are easy to get to. Sorry for the long post.

I think you're right in that driving a much older vehicle is cheaper than trading every few years. In Canada my experience has been that a full load diesel 1 ton ($73,000) depreciates about $4k per year for the first 5 years based on 20k miles per year. If after 20 years and 400,000 miles the vehicle is worthless it would depreciate an average of $3650 per year. So keeping my truck new has meant zero dollars on repairs and a few hundred per year above average for depreciation. There is the sales tax, the higher cost of insurance and the cost of borrowing (or lost opportunity cost if you pay cash) on the additional out lay of money that must be taken in to account but owning a newer truck isn't a tremendous amount more expensive than owning an older one.

How much does that new truck depreciate the first couple years compared to depreciation over the next 5 years? And then the next 7? And sales tax on a brand new $40,000 truck ain't chicken feed, around here that amounts to around $3000. Plus personal property taxes will be much higher on a new $40,000 truck.

These are all reasons I'm still driving my 2001 Dodge Cummins. Maintenance and repairs have cost me less than what I would pay in sales tax. Even with replacing the VP44 and a new clutch. And a big plus: it's paid for. I've not had a car/truck/motorcycle payment in over 25 years, and see no reason to have one now.

Granted a new truck would be sweet, and if they gave me one I'd keep it, but since that's unlikely...