Thinking of buying

[johnny gw]

I'm thinking of buying a cube van.
Some one is offering a 2004 e450 ford diesel 258000 km 6 Liters.
A friend say that they have a lot of problems with the coo-lent going to the last 2 pistons is that true? And with the new hwy regulations for e-test is not a good idea to buy diesel. What do you guys recommend? i appreciate any advice.

[jesilvas]

What kind of maintenance was done on it? The issues isn't coolant going into the last two cylinders, but the oil cooler being plugged up for two reasons: one due to it's terrible 'p trap' design and two, using Ford Gold coolant. If the gold coolant is maintained very, very religiously, you should be ok. But there is more of a chance of the oil cooler clogging up because of poor cooling system maintenance. Once that clogs up, the coolant will overheat, take out the EGR cooler, which then introduces coolant into the intake system, then into cylinders, which can possibly stretch head bolts, lift heads, blow gaskets, and you're done.
So I'd find out what kind of maintenance was done. And if you go to look at it, try to bring along a monitoring system that can check the difference in oil and coolant temps. That will tell you if it's in danger or not.
As far as regulations, what's "e-test?"
How much are they asking for it?

[johnny gw]

they want $7000
the e-test is a fume emission test that they do in canada to see how much go to the air and if is too much they take it out circulation i think.

[jesilvas]

So you wouldn't be able to do a lot of mod work on it as far as exhaust goes.
For the price, that doesn't sound too bad.