ok so i am on the hunt for a new truck and have found one. i already own an 88 dakota and a 96 5.2 ram. i found an 02 ram 1500 quad cab with the 5.9 for 4000. mileage i couldnt tell you cause it was early and i had a major brain malfunction for some reason. its a nice truck but there are a couple problems i am worried about before buying this thing so any help would be appreciated.

1. there is a tapping noise coming from the engine bay at start up and then goes away after about 45 seconds.
2. there is a whining sound coming from im guessing the radio but only when its running. resistor somewhere maybe?
3. i could not get the hood to open to save my life so i couldnt give a birds eye view of the engine bay but looking from underneath it seemed to be pretty clean aside from the 10 years of dirt and grime.

so any ideas or tips will be greatly appreciated. just trying to make sure i dont get screwed or if there is something to at least get the guy to knock the price down some. thank you

 

Too be honest this sounds a little sketchy to me. If it's $4000 there's probably something wrong with it because that's way too low of a price unless it's got tons of miles. check the car fox! (carFax) It may have been in a wreck or something. Even if you had a brain malfunction, if the guy doesn't tell you how many miles are on it that probably means that there are a lot.

 

Did they put the 5.7L in the '02's?

 

you either dont know what year or what motor it has.... the 03's were the first year to have hemis.

 

Agreed, the 02 should have a 5.9 or 4.7

Ask more questions.

 

it is the 5.9. i was having major brain malfuntions that morning. but i found out that it was a really shady deal because when i went back to talk to the guy and bring my certified mechanic who i always ask for help if i get stumped and he looked it over and showed me quite a few things that would need to be fixed. after telling the salesman this he proceeded to say "oh this is a good truck though for the money, you wont find another like it" and that just pissed me off so i told him to shove the truck up his a$$

 

What needed to be fixed?

 

yea, I hate salesman bull****... they would probably sell alot more vehicles if they were just honest.

 

I wouldve told him you could go find a million dodge rams in crappy condition

 

it needs new head gaskets, intake gaskets, three injectors are completely shot, ball joints need to be replaced, transmission is slipping like crazy, and the water pump is going out. some wouldnt be too hard to fix but with what we found i wouldnt give him anymore than 2300 for the truck.