jfgardner4

01 King Ranch need advise
I am going to look at a 2001 King Ranch 4x4 this weekend. I have never bought a used truck and need some pointers on what to lok for. Carfax came back clear. It has 89000 miles on it. what should I look for on the 4x4 side of things.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

BlackBeauty

I'd say... check around the boots on the front end (CV - Joints) make sure there not cracked/tore/dry rotted. take it for a good drive, throw it in and out a few times. Make sure you test out the old low range as well. If i recall those have the electronic shift. Moreless listen for bangs and rattles. Check the U-Joints and make sure the transfer case doesn't looked banged around too much. Same goes for the front Diff.

Keep in mind if your new to the 4 wheel drive train she's gunna fight you on any pavement with respect to steering.

I'd imagine thats about it. I had an 2000, 4.6, extended cab. one time. Hope this helps.

whitecrystal1

Tie rods, Ford had issues with them on that body style. They were known to fail, even with low mileage. Ford actually sent me a letter about it. They said they needed to be inspected every 15K miles. They even sent me a description on how to inspect them and ask that I take it to the inspection station if I was not coming to see a dealer for it. Basically you use a butter knife and carefully wedge it between the rubber on the ball joint and carefully pry it up to see if it has any water in it. If so it has to be replaced.

Check for water leaks on the back window, Lots of them leaked from a bad seal, even the 02 I had.

Multi function (wiper) arm, make sure everything works on it. There was issues with that as well. Sometimes my sprayer would stop spraying...funny how the new body's don't have a time delay anymore

Check the AC, it was common for the seals to leak, my 02 included (at 37K) even my 05 (at 30K, I think)

Make sure the 4wd works

Hopefully the owner took good car of those seats. Those need a lot of maintenance compared to leather.

I'm not really thinking of anything else right now, just check out the usual. Those are great trucks and they actually don't have many issues. Probably the only potential for a big issue is that they are known to eject spark plugs, but Timesert has a fix it if that ever happens. Ford fixed this with the newer version heads (3 valve)....they can build up carbon on the ground shield of the plugs (plugs doint look anything like the old type). Then they break when they are being removed