Help: Buying '00 Excursion

[JTAustin86]

I'm new to Ford, being a toyota owner, and need some advice on this purchase. It's a diesel Exc. w/ 180,000 miles on it. It runs on veg. oil & diesel. The 1st owner towed bigtime, tranny replaced last year. Possible troubled injectors. Highly Oxidized Hood. Is it worth buying, or a money pit? My main concern. What type of common maintenance costs will I be looking at, as a 1st time Ford & Diesel owner?



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[nccatfan]

Injectors are expensive... get them tested first ("buzz test", cylinder contribution test). I'd let that be the deciding factor. If they pass and you see no leaks I'd go for it (be sure to check eng. valley). Oil and filter every 5-6000 miles (15 qts!), fuel filter every 15,000 miles (Ford spec). A few little oddball quirks may come up since the truck has been used heavily (but they're built for that), but for most, someone here should be able to give answers.

Welcome to the world of Ford diesels (if you go thru with this)!!

[JTAustin86]

Hey Thanks nccatfan, I'm kinda backing down from this one. The owner did however bring the price down to $5,000 because he knew it might need new injectors, and the cold start idling may be due to cavitation in the cylinders, which would not be good. If I didn't do any towing and maintained it well, how much price diff. would overall costs be for this over say, an '00 toytota 4-runner? I'm still young and not up for buying someone else' headaches.

[01excursion7.3]

I dunno, 5 g's, I'd grab it from the description. Injectors are about 1500, and then if you have the ability to do them yourself, even better cause you save the labor. I'd be all over it if it were closer and I still only had my ex. The hard cold start is probably the glow plug relay and glow plugs. Yeah, it's money, but nothing major. If he has paperwork to support the new tranny, I wouldn't hesitate. Just my .02.