dougger222
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Joined 22 years ago
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Re: Dealing with Insurance Companies..
An insurance agents job is to provide you with insurance coverage and collect on average 10% of the premiums you pay. Your agent is there for premiums not for claims. Claims would be the claims department with a dedicated claims adjuster. A good agent will help facilitate your needs when you file a claim such as recommend a glass company or repair shop or call into the claims department on your behalf. A couple years ago had a wreck in the 00 Excursion diesel. The vehicle was still drivable but sustained frame damage to the rear driver side (hit a concrete divider on a bridge at 50mph on black ice). Long story short my insurance company totaled it out. After providing them KBB and NADA for my vehicle they sent me 3 for sale comparable. I called all 3 and they had either more miles needed repairs or slightly lower miles but also needed quite a bit of repairs. They then deducted $1,500 from the sale price stating that is what they would sell for. Turns out 2 of the 3 had sold for within $200 of the asking price! They offered me $8K after buy back ($1,200) but I insisted on $10K. Kept driving it for 2 months. My agent emailed me how things were with the claims adjuster told him a stalemate as they are about $2K short. 30 minutes later the adjuster emailed me and said they'd pay an additional $2K. When asked how they came to the final value she said they called a local dealership and asked IF they had my vehicle what they think they could sell it for, YA RIGHT!!! My argument was my vehicle functioned 100% everything worked as new as when something failed or broke on it, it was repaired with OEM parts.477Views0likes0CommentsRe: used Truck Rant
Several years ago a Ford dealer had a 7.3 F250 (when you could still buy new ones)I was interested in. They were asking $2,000 over retail. I pointed out about $2K in repairs the truck needed after the test drive. When we sat in the salesman office told him I'd pay $2K under retail and buy as is. After talking to his manager he said it's called supply and demand price is firm. At that point I demanded my keys back and left. Looking back glad I passed as it was just an extended cab. The truck had a broken mirror, brakes were warped and the Ford dealership still wanted $22K.394Views0likes0CommentsRe: What does your mechanics in your area charge per hour?
My normal mechanic charges about $40-45 an hour. He does it out of his shop, my old neighbor real good friend of mine. He has my charge card so he just buys what he needs and bills me labor. If he can't or won't work on something he brings it to his diesel mechanic up the road, $90 an hour. He brings parts to him I pay with his discounts at Ford or the auto part stores. Most repair facilities upcharge quite a bit on parts.509Views0likes0CommentsRe: Truck Tires - I Want Good Ones
Michelins are on 3 of my 4 trucks and #4 will have them soon. Went through a lot of tires on the dually until switching to Michelins. Had good luck with 2 pairs of BFG's on the F250 one set got 70K miles the other set got 80K miles. Tires I'd never buy again, Bridgestone Ravo's load E (on the Excursion absolute junk) Nitto Terra Grappler (decent mileage but when wore were like slicks) Goodyear Wrangler357Views0likes0CommentsRe: Boat trailer comes loose - tragic.
What a tragedy. I have a couple of the same hitches that are 2 5/16 ball for pulling my dump trailers and flat bed. Spent a lot of time looking at hitches and found these have some of the highest weight ratings on the market. My dump trailers are 14K rated so can't use a normal off the shelf hitch with them. A couple years ago spun out on an icy bridge and "totaled" out the 00 Excursion while pulling the 20ft flat bed. The left side of the trailer hit the center median and also hit a car in the other lane before the rear driver side of the X hit the center median. The trailer never came off the hitch but after a close inspection found the shaft on the hitch got really bent from the accident.485Views0likes0CommentsRe: Looking at an X...thoughts?
Not sure if anybody answered the XLT/Limited questions but XLT's are mainly cloth interior and Limited's are leather interior. Have seen some factory installed leather interiors in XLT Excursions though. Believe the one you are looking at is not 4 wheel drive as the add states RWD. As far as towing can't comment on the gas Excursions as both of mine are diesel powered. What I can tell you about the vehicle towing as a whole is it does a fine job doing it. We have 3 kids 3 and under and with a fourth expected within a month the Excursion's work well for us. In 02 Ford starting optioning the middle row bucket seat option which our 02 has. To be honest prefer the middle row bench over the middle row buckets. Most likely when the kids get to the point they don't need mom and dad to buckle them in they'll prefer the mid buckets for more room.451Views0likes0CommentsRe: Looking at Excursions...
Both of our Excursions are running original tranny's. The 00X has 270K miles and the 02X has 307K miles. As far as throwing money at a 7.3 diesel? Any vehicle/motor 15 years old will take a little money here and there to keep on the road. I had an injector fail the 02X this year so decided to replace all 8 with 175cc injectors as they were less than half the cost of Ford injectors. The 00 X has all the original injectors as does the 340K mile F250. A friend of mine just bought a 06 F350 with the 6.0 with 185K miles. The previous owner let a lot of stuff go on it so he just dumped $5,500 into it and only a few hundred of that was for the motor.552Views0likes0CommentsRe: DRW disadvantages
I bought the 99 drw in 06 and the 99 srw in 01. Having owned both for quite a while have found ups and downs for both. For towing heavy the drw hands down wins. The stability in the driver seat with the drw is night and day better compared to the srw. In snow would have to say the drw does better than the srw. We had 17 inches of snow a few year ago and I got through it without 4wd but had to lock in it of course to get the srw unstuck in my driveway. The drw did have new Michelins at that time though. As far as drive thru's never had an issue with the drw. The drive thru's at banks are the toughest as they only leave a couple inches on each tire in most cases. Used to park the drw in the garage got about an inch on each side. In terms of mpg the srw is better. For tire cost and rotating of course the srw. Another draw back for my drw is because it's used for work it's commercial so there are some roads we can't go down. Last Winter in Boston it was as little tricky at times with the drw but it worked out just fine. One road we thought about backing up but made it through as we scraped snow on the banks on both fenders.410Views0likes0Comments
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Prefer to camp in a travel trailer? You're not alone.Feb 06, 202544,025 Posts
