My truck is fine...but then again I knew the maintainence history before I bought it, and keep up with it to this day. You may have gotten a lemon, or buddy before you didn't do chit to it. If you were a certified mech, you could easily do most of the repairs yourself. The reason for the 30K plug replacement is because they are coppers and that's what our trucks like.

Like hammer said, getting that truck for under 10K should have raised some flags. Usually if it's too good to be true, it isn't true. Well, lesson learned. The next truck you buy, I would suggest taking it in for an inspection...or you can do it, you were a mechanic, right?

 

My truck in "good" condition for private party sale is about $12.9k. the guy was asking $11.9k, and I finally haggled him down over a period of weeks, and after I convinced him it needed new tires (about $900) which it did.

I dont believe there is any reason to think he had any previous knowledge about anything being wrong with the truck. He was an older family guy, and he had all the service receipts, including a new alternator and ERG valve.

I guess I just got myself a Friday afternoon built truck, that wasnt engineered/designed the best that it could have.

 

Used to be, yes. But as stated before, I now lack the proper shop tools to do it. I did have it done, and everything checked out.

Even with thorough inspections, you cant catch everything. Unless there was some seepage from the pump, or the heater was less than adequate, there was no way to tell these were going to fail.

Same with the air bag light.

Besides, it is a well know issue that these heater cores clog up...there are tons of posts here on the matter.

 

Not sure what ur lookin for with this post? Ok you got some trouble and ur goin sell it???? So what. I had an 07 gmc that had a few issues and was the reason i never bought it after the lease was up but i never went on a big rant about what a POS it was. All trucks are prone to problems and unfortunatly urs is having some....suck it up and sell it or fix it

 

Oh, how much for the brush guard?

 

i understand what you mean Gas. im a big dodge person and im on my 3rd ram right now, when i bought it. it started having problems afterwards, but like everyone says if its a pre owed vehicle you dont know what the previos owner has done it it that you dont know about. but i fixed my problem on my ram, and i am still workin on it(minor to intermediate stuff) of course, im not try to talk dont on you here so i applogize in advance. but anyhow i would not go to the dealership. the probs you are having on ur ram, is pretty simple stuff to do, just time consuming. first thing first, see what trouble codes you ram is poping up and take it from there

 

It's possible, but the "monday & friday" stuff usually rears it's ugly head fairly early in a vehicles life.
I was a Furd guy originally, but had a LEMON in a 1997 F150 4x4 that dropped a piston at 14k miles on the odometer. It wasn't the truck itself that made me trade it on a new '98 Ram, but rather the way the dealer and Furd tried to squeek out of the warranty repair. One of those "deny it and see if the customer is going to fight" deals, even when they knew it was 100% warranty. They first tried to tell me my cat back exhaust was a "modification" that voided my engine warranty and when that didn't wash they tried to tell me that by using the truck to tow a bass boat to tournaments 3 out of every 4 weekends that I was "abusing" the truck. I'll never own another Furd after those games!

I've had them all in the last 27 years since I began to drive. A full size Jeep pickup, three Furds, two Chebys and two Rams. They all have their common issues that NONE of them seem willing to remedy and then you get the oddball one with issues that are not common to that model like I did with the Furd. Everybody else with the Triton 5.4 has plugs shoot through the hood or heads go, I had the piston drop.

You either decide to fix it yourself, have it fixed or sell/trade it and move on to the next potential headache...

 

ive got a quote unquote plagued 4.7l, with no problems, look at all the trash talk about those, bad radiators, heatercores, cracked heads, nutless, all that and then some, nobody in there right mind would own a ram let alone a problematic 4.7l....well guess what the only repairs done to this are common worn out parts, and a carrier bearing that went bad, so i fixed it all with better parts, make every repair a mod for the better, and yeah i love my 4.7l i can play all day and have no problems, cause its taken care of ritually, my neighbor just got rid of his gen1 had it for over 300k miles on the same trans, only did preventative maintenance, he sold it to a guy who wants to rebuild it, and bought a 200k mile gen 2 for dirt cheap, hope he has the same luck with this one, never had a trans rebuild has 2 gas tanks, 4x4 and a winch, solid as a rock, literally i looked it over the plenum is even good...needs a radiator and thats it...sounds like you just got the **** end bud.....btw i paid 10k for a 50k mile truck in nov 08 way under blue....so not always too good to be true....ram 4 life ftw.....ford= ford owners recommend dodge....chevy dont get me started....

 

I think if you're worried anything major is going to break, sell it. But you'll never make out on something used like that if you take it to the dealership for everything though. That water pump is like $75 and (from memory) requires a ratchet, 10mm, 13mm, pliers to take the hoses off and a couple hours of your time.

I would at least try to flush the heater core yourself before spending a fortune on it. Most will tell you a garden hose...didn't work for me. Get some really hot water and mix it with the some radiator flush and let it soak for a bit, rinse & repeat. Then take the hose to it and clumps of $hit will probably come out.

The clockspring and airbag are both easy changes you can do yourself. Only thing special needed is a torx bit screwdriver and a steering wheel puller. Junkyard/ebay airbag is ~$100. Clockspring is about the same new.

I wouldn't sweat the tranny just because of the tech, but if you going to keep the truck, do the prev maintenance and get a tranny flush since it's about that time.

If you decide to sell it and take care of these things yourself, I wouldn't think you'd lose out. If you keep it, you still have a good deal. Sorry you have all of these problems...hope your next one is better.

 

dont flush the tranny cause youll be askin for it then, just drop the pan change the filters and fill with atf 4 nothing else...everyone that flushes seems to have an issue after...