200K miles is certainly where things will start to fail from age. If you put back enough money you could cover those repairs, but the next question is what kind of downtime can you deal with if the truck fails on one of those long trips?
There's a dealership near me that specializes in diesel trucks. They get all their inventory from auctions, clean them, slap on bumpers and a couple of extras, then sell them for a premium. They don't keep trucks in inventory for very long so folks are still buying them as fast as they show up. A truck like your '07 will sell for anywhere between $15,000 to $18,000 on their lot.
So, let's assume you sell your truck outright for $15,000 which should be pretty easy to get if the body is in pretty good shape. You can start shopping on AutoTrader, Craigslist, or other places and find a pretty good truck for well under the price of new. I did a quick search for Chevy 2500HD, Duramax, 4X4 and found several that were 2012 and newer for under 100,000 miles priced at $33K or less.
So, if you shop in the $35,000 price range or less you should be able to find a good truck at least 5 years newer than yours with 1/2 the mileage or less. And......you'd only have to finance $20,000. That should help with your fixed income.
KJ
