My frined is looking for a ram...

We found a 2001 1500 black sport. It has a 5.2 and a 5spd manual. 91,700 miles.
It gave me a kinda goofy feeling.

First off, on the back it had the "4x4 offroad" sticker... First thought into my head was SWEET! then I looked at the rims... not offroad rims, doesnt have the offroad lift, and had a open differntial. so obviouly this dude put that sticker on there.
2nd thing that made me think was it had non sport ram emblems, not the outline style sticker kind. But the truck did have the quad, clear headlights, sport grill and bumper.

I poped the hood, exhaust manifolds were really rustty, lots of corrosion on the intake manifold... not THAT big of a deal it is a michigan truck... but mine isnt half that rusty.

I had the guy start it up, with me watching the tailpipe and listening to it with the hood open. It started really hard... took 3 times to fire, dident even fire the first time. 2nd time it fired and stalled. 3rd time it grabbed but still dident run smooth for a few seconds. There was alittle bit of blue and black smoke from the tailpipe. I know that the truck was started 3 days before this, because my frined had the guy start it then too... I know that my truck has never ever started hard... so thats kinda goofy.

We took it down the street, it felt really loose for a truck with 90k... a little more so than my truck (which is very loose at the moment because of bad trackbar and **** shocks) this truck basically felt like it needed shocks and trackbar... not too big of a deal.

The tranny and clutch felt really good, except for when i was driving it I really sunk my foot into it, grabbing gears really fast and it dident want to go into 3rd gear as smoothly as the other gears. my frined was watching my clutch foot and he said I only had it about 1/2 way down so that might be my fault.

The engine dident feel as peppy as my 5.2, It felt like it might be able to be a little faster in a straight line than mine but not as much as I would expect for having a 5spd.

They were asking $6700 for it. Good thing for us is the guy who owns this dealership is pretty good friends with my frined, the one who is looking into buying it... so hopefully he could bring it down a bit.

What do yall think? I dont think its that bad of a truck, but im not sure its worth that kind of money.

 

black and blue smoke does not sound good, and every tie rod in the front end could be shoot for all you know. 6,700 is a little much, 5000 sounds good though

 

6700 does sound a bit high... the only thing that i don't like is the starting problem. it could be something as simple as a tune up, but the fact that it stalled once it started doesn't sound too good. the smoke is not a huge deal. most cars will blow some smoke at start up, remember blue smoke is oil, black is gas. the point is it may not be a bad truck, but it could empty your wallet if you have to replace a bunch of steering and suspension parts, plus work out kinks in the engine

 

Buying a vehicle that already has problems is almost always a bad idea.
There's plenty of second gen rams out there. He'll be much happier to get one that doesn't have problems.

 

True that.

Hes going to go there tomarow if they are open (doubt it) so probably monday, have them start it again and see how she starts then.

Mine has always started good, with the exception of when I had a bad plennum gasket, they everyonce and a while it would take an extra turn of the engine before it will fire.
One thing that could of casued the problem was when the dude was starting it, he obviously noticed it dident start well and he was giving it throttle to maybe to try to cancel it out so we might not hear the hard starting. I could hear the butterflys opening, and when it stalled I herd it go GULP when it allof a sudden gasped for air.

I hate used car salesmen though... This guy was like "it hasent started in a few days, all of these trucks do this..." he must of forgot what we drove in... a ram. lol I said "really? I was just out of town for 2 weeks, my truck never got touched... when i started it next it was a whopping 10 degrees and it started just as it would if was started 10 minutes before" he shut his mouth real fast.

Another thing that scared me was if you look at the gap between the cab and the bed, the pasenger side of the bed sticks out farther than the cab... compared it to mine and mine is perfectly inline. also, the finish of the pasengerside airbag cover thingy was slightly different than the rest of the dash, giving me the impression that its not origonal.

Like I said, I dont think hes going to rule it out 100% becasue it is 5spd and that is a major plus for him... the price just has to come way down.

 

My honest opinion: run away from that truck far and fast, period.

 

I agree. $5,000.00 spent on a slightly older truck with half those problems would be $5,000.00 well spent. If you take on that truck you're going to get a ton of frustration and irksome flaws to go with it.

Might I suggest Autotrader.com?

 

I would PASS on it and used lots alltogether, if you or a friend have mechinicalknow how thenbuy from a private seller

I found a ton of deals on my local PHX. CRAIGSLIST site

 

Most definitely. I say he holds out until he finds one in really great shape. IMO it would suck to buy something and HAVE to get a bunch of things done to it. On the other hand, buying a truck and spending money to upgrade something to your liking is all good. I say he holds out till he finds a better one, for a better deal.

 

no way id keep looking thats not a good deal at all to many things gone bad u can do better than that ....my0.02...j