Advice Buying First Powerstroke? Need Opinions

[NickTBarr]

I went and looked at a 97 Powerstroke today.

Its a 4X4 white super cab, bare on options and some old work truck dings and scars. It has 188K on it, 5 speed and they just replaced the injectors and glowplugs last month.

The truck started fine, throttle response and power was good, the tranny and clutch seemed good. Steering is a little loose but not bad. Bare bones old truck that I'd need to put new tires on and clean up.

2 BIG THINGS that stood out to me that were negatives:
-Tons of oil leaks, rear and front main seals were pretty gummy and bad.
Then there was some oil in the intake valley (Maybe from recently done injectors and glow plugs?) and some oil film around the turbo (didnt get to look inside the turbo intake, forgot a flathead screwdriver)

-It spit out some white/blue smoke while driving, not a lot if any black smoke. Slowly went away as the truck warmed up to reg. temp. But then I open the hood and there was some decent blowby coming through the oil dipstick and oil fill cap.

The guy is asking $5000 I was thinking more like $4k max for this truck since I'm having a feeling that I'm going to have to pay someone to do the seals, and possibly rebuild the turbo seals.

What do you guys think?

I'm really looking to spend $5-7K on a reliable truck I can pull my boat around the west coast with (I do bass fishing tournaments) for the next 100K miles. I dont want to get into a truck with blown seals and turbo leaks, I did that with a mid 90's chevy diesel and that was a horrible mistake.

Thanks! -Nick

[351fifty]

I would keep looking, not enough option IMHO to drop that kind of coin, and with all the leaks, I would pass unless you can get it for $2500-3k

[madpogue]

Would be worth $3500-4000 if you had the time/patience to make it road-ready, which it obviously isn't. ^^^^^^ +1; if you're looking for something turn-key, keep looking. Hopefullly someone willing to do some TLC will get this truck for a song, and be very happy with it several months from now.

Plus, it sounds like an XL. For as much as you're gonna be driving the truck, you'll want the XLT goodies.