Advice needed following crazy accident
10-11-2015, 10:50 AM
#31
Tommy J -- Man, your accident sounds like a close call!! Would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of those 2x10s!! Will look into that Duplicolor paint, thank you. The auto body shop wants $300 to paint the cap (which is more than I paid for it used) and I assume that it would be an exact match to the rig but this does not matter $300 to me. Rattle-can sounds great!
Re. what to expect for repairs, this was really the point of my long update post. I suspect that we all accept maintenance costs and we more or less have to trust the manufacturer of whatever we drive to be straight with us about what needs to be changed out when. But, Ford has definitely had some expensive stumbles with the F150: e.g., the spark plugs were a poor design and ended up costing some of us a lot of extra $ and time, and Ford also admitted to the injector problem (mine failed within the 11 years but not before 120K miles).
However, out of the 13 vehicles I've owned over the past 45 years (not counting tractors or motorcycles), I have never lost a tranny or a rear end, let alone both of these in the same vehicle. Clutches, yes, expected from heavy-footed second drivers; ring and valve jobs on high mileage engines, sure; but a tranny and rear end are to me outside of the typical range of anticipated repairs -- and I still own some of these 13 rigs and two are over 60 years old. I understand that some owners are ok with these sorts of repairs, and I guess one person's low miles is another person's high miles. But again, the point of my post was see what other owners are experiencing. jkenprice1 offered a positive story for his rig at 265K miles and that is great to hear.
My recent repairs (not maintenance issues) at +/- 150K miles totaled nearly $9000 (1/3 the purchase price) -- if I had had any idea that this was the order of magnitude of repair costs, I would have sold the rig and used the $9K as a down payment on a new vehicle. My rig is now running nicely, not spitting any codes, all systems go, so it is testable to see how long until I have to start repairing major parts a second time. But when it is time to look at a new rig, I am going to dig deep to see what I can find from other owners about failure rates and repair costs. This sort of information will help me to make a better-informed buying decision.
Re. what to expect for repairs, this was really the point of my long update post. I suspect that we all accept maintenance costs and we more or less have to trust the manufacturer of whatever we drive to be straight with us about what needs to be changed out when. But, Ford has definitely had some expensive stumbles with the F150: e.g., the spark plugs were a poor design and ended up costing some of us a lot of extra $ and time, and Ford also admitted to the injector problem (mine failed within the 11 years but not before 120K miles).
However, out of the 13 vehicles I've owned over the past 45 years (not counting tractors or motorcycles), I have never lost a tranny or a rear end, let alone both of these in the same vehicle. Clutches, yes, expected from heavy-footed second drivers; ring and valve jobs on high mileage engines, sure; but a tranny and rear end are to me outside of the typical range of anticipated repairs -- and I still own some of these 13 rigs and two are over 60 years old. I understand that some owners are ok with these sorts of repairs, and I guess one person's low miles is another person's high miles. But again, the point of my post was see what other owners are experiencing. jkenprice1 offered a positive story for his rig at 265K miles and that is great to hear.
My recent repairs (not maintenance issues) at +/- 150K miles totaled nearly $9000 (1/3 the purchase price) -- if I had had any idea that this was the order of magnitude of repair costs, I would have sold the rig and used the $9K as a down payment on a new vehicle. My rig is now running nicely, not spitting any codes, all systems go, so it is testable to see how long until I have to start repairing major parts a second time. But when it is time to look at a new rig, I am going to dig deep to see what I can find from other owners about failure rates and repair costs. This sort of information will help me to make a better-informed buying decision.
10-07-2018, 11:52 AM
#32
Just a quick close to this thread: second tranny went out at 216k miles and this with almost no towing on the replacement and almost all highway miles. I made the decision to not drop in a third one (cost would have been $3200) and so folded on this rig. I rebuilt the front end last year and had just done a complete brake job but the total major repairs were adding up, equalling half the price of what I paid for the rig (not counting regular maintenance item like brakes, etc.). I hope I have better luck with the new Tundra.