My friend and I took a trip to his local ford dealership to go look at f150's. he needs the versatility of a reliable pickup truck as he performs upgrades to his home. While the f150 is a pretty sweet truck, theyre quite expensive and theyre a bit small and underpowered for what he can afford.

As we came back from the test drive - not really impressed - they were unloading a 2003 dodge 1500 singlecab, shortbed, 4x4, 5.7 hemi truck w/ 17k miles. The dealer stated that this was a new trade that they had just received and that they were planning on asking somehwhere around $22k for it but if he'd take it home today, he can have it for 19k. still unsure, we took the car out for a spin.

the car hauls as expected, and since it was a truck, it drove like one too. i cant imagine this truck w/o the added power of the hemi.

anyways, he spoke to the wife and she wants him to buy the truck. so now he's got to make a decision.

anyone know of any issues he should look out for? the car is in mint condition, no accidents, no rips, no tears. the motor is firing at all 8 cylinders and the 4wd system and tranny are perfect. the previous owner even has all the service receipts from dodge that he has carefully included in a spiral notebook/folder!

since this is a ford dealership selling a dodge, how would warranty work if needed? i've never purchased a used car that was still under manufacturer warranty from an outside dealership before and neither has he.

there was something about dodge's with their front suspension falling apart thus having some wheels fall off.. other than that, i havent heard anything else about this or any other dodge truck.

thanks!

 

Okay, he just got off the phone with the salesman. He talked him down to $17.6k and has decided to purchase the truck.

i just hope he hasnt made a brash decision.

 

With the previous owner being anal enough to assemble a binder with all reciepts, you know it was very well cared for. Sounds like the truck should still be well-within factory Dodge warranty. So he can just take it to any Dodge dealer for repairs until that expires.

Typically, if the Ford dealer offers a warranty beyond the Dodge factory warranty, then they would likely try to address any minor isues themsleves in their own service dept (i.e. maybe something like a dead power window motor ). But if it needed something like a transmission rebuild, they would send it to a Dodge dealer and cover the repairs.

Andrew

 

Girlfriend's parents have an 03 with 28k on it i have put about 3.5lk on it .

Nice truck, it has been problem free so far


After driving that all other 4x4 trucks feel slow.... (except for titan)