It all happened so much sooner than I expected it would - but I ended up buying a Durango today! 2001 4.7 Magnum, 45RFE, AWD, fully loaded, 103k miles. It was the first Durango I've driven (I do own a Dakota, however) and it was the first car we actually looked at since deciding to upgrade to a larger car. But it was so clean and so nice and a good price I knew we wouldn't find something comparable for a long time, so we just got it!

Original window sticker included!!!

Might upload some pics to share. But I'll definitely be asking a few questions here in the near future.

Thanks for the insights everyone. I'll definitely be doing the 03 knuckle and brake swap in the future as well.

 

Change the oil. And keep up on oil changes. Best thing you can do for the 4.7. That, and coolant is next in line.

 

Just be sure to keep up on your oil changes. The one 4.7 I've owned hadn't been kept up properly and it lost oil pressure. After tearing the engine down, I found the oil pan sludged up and the oil pickup stopped up. To be fair, once I got it cleaned out, it had good pep and towed a small loaded trailer just fine. The only other problem I had with that truck (2002 Ram 1500) was the radio died on me an dI put an aftermarket in it.

 

Sounds like a good buy. 103K over 21 years works out to be around 5K a year, so it sat quite a bit. I'd run a 5 minute motor flush through it and run full synthetic thereafter. I run 0W-20 Quaker State Full syn in my 4.7. It's now at almost 330K mi and has never been towed. I replaced the lifters back in 2020 and that was the first time the valve covers came off. All I do is make sure the oil, coolant and transmission fluid stays full. It's that basic.

You may also want to drop the transmission pan at some point and change out the 2 filters. Supertech ATF+4 from Wally World works fine. I put an aftermarket drain plug in the pan (they also sell pans with drain plugs) and do a single drain every 25K.