jwstewar
Elite Member
Before I just drove it to the junk yard and get $250 for it, I would throw it on Facebook/Craigslist advertise it for $12-1300. Who knows, maybe someone out there has a transmission they can stick it and be good to go.
My father has a 1999 F-350 7.3L that has 185,000 miles on it.
In 2016 we put a 2015 F350 8' bed and step tailgate on it, that was $3500.
In 2017 spent:
$2500 on a 4R100.
$400 rear driveshaft
$1,300 on complete strip down and then re-assemble of front axle for carrier bearings, seals, U-Joints, ball joints, unit bearings. Gears were fine.
2018 was $3200 for new (not reman) diesel injectors, glow plugs, glow plug relays, under valve cover wire harness.
$11,000 in repairs in the last 4 years. I keep telling him to throw up the white flag. The door bottoms are going bad again and the cab corners are starting to blister. So in the next year he will be spending a few more grand on body work since he will not drive a vehicle with any exposed rust.
But that same money could have made payments on a much newer, slightly used truck that has nicer features. But, the guy loves his old Steelers truck!
My wifes son had an older Expedition that had similar miles and it was becoming an issue for them. Junk yard offered them $400 for it, they cannot afford to go to a dealer and try to trade it in, so they put an add on Craigslist asking $1,000 and they took the first $800 cash that showed up at the door. They guy brought a tow rope because he was told it might not make it home.
To me, 200,000 miles on a vehicle is like 10,000 hours on a tractor. You can keep them running, but you have to be willing to work on them all the time, and not have to rely on it to work every day. If you put the money into fixing the transmission, you still have a vehicle with 200,000 miles on it and a long list of things are real close to failing. What do you do when your wife, or child cannot get it to start, an hour away, late at night? How many times do you want to deal with this happening?
I’d have to disagree. A 10k hour tractor is pretty much guaranteed to be a piece of junk. My 200k vehicle is still reliable and might not have been the best idea ever but was taken on a 3k mile trip last year. It’s never failed to start with a cause other than a dead battery and had never left anyone stranded. I see pickup trucks all the time with over 300k miles and 400k is not uncommon.
And I see tractors with 20,000 hours on them that are still on the job. But just because you can site a few cases where a vehicle is still running reliably after 200,000 miles does not change the simple fact that it's well worn out by then. Most rental yards sell off their equipment at 2,000 hours because after that, it's hard to make a profit on them. Car rental companies get rid of everything before it has 20,000 miles on it for the same reason.
The question remains, are you comfortable having your wife or daughter relying on a vehicle with 200,000 miles on it, out late, by themselves, an hour away from home? What if the vehicle has already broke down on them once? Now you know it will happen again, the question is when will it happen again, and how much will it cost you the next time?