As I posted earlier, I went shopping today at my local dealership. This also opened my eyes as to maybe why I should choose another dealer to deal with.

I have the '03 but was looking at the '06's and wanted to drive one to see just how much difference there was in ride, noise etc. Their policy was that a salesman had to accompany you on the ride.

The first truck the guy unlocked, he told me he would start it and move it out of it's parking spot, then switch with me so that I could drive. Now mind you that this is a brand new truck. He tried to start it and it never would start. The sad thing was that he kept the starter going for about 30 seconds at a time without results, cut it off, then repeat the prolonged starting for another 30 or so seconds, until he finally gave up after about 5 mins of this.

Finally giving up, we went to another one, fired it up and pulled it out. I drove for 4-5 miles and made a comment about how quiet it was and such. He wanted me to pull over so that he could show me some things. He went over the stupid stuff in the cab that I already knew, then he wanted to drive. We took off burning rubber so he could show me what kind of accelleration they had, then proceeded to tell me how they can run at top speed all day with no problem. Pulled to the side of the road, placed it in park and floored the pedal, maxing the engine out to its max and held it there, telling me all about how these diesels were developed to run at full speed all day without problems.

I got back to the dealership, thanked them for their time and pittied the poor soul who buys either one of these units or even another one that who knows what it had been subjected to in the first 8 miles of it's life.

 

they dont know there product, when looking for my truck a dealer told you never wait to start on new diesels.

 

My Ford went into service a couple times. Every time I got to watch a 16 year old punk try to drive it away in 3rd gear instead of LO or 1st. (The pattern on a ZF6 takes a bit of getting used to.) And this was a dealership that specialized in diesels.

Every time it was the same. Start it. Put it in gear. Let out the clutch. Stall. Start the engine. Rev it up. Slip like hell and then realize they were in the wrong gear when it took off at 20 MPH. UGGGHHH... Hmmm.... what is that smell ? MY CLUTCH.

IDIOTS !

Now I always drive my truck myself if it goes for service somewhere. Windshield change or tires.

Last winter I got a tank of gasoline when the attendant filled it up. Normally I ALWAYS start the pump, full service or no. The ONE time I let someone else do it, I get gasoline. That was with the Powerstroke.

IDIOTS.

Nobody touches my truck but me.

Sales guys are the worst. They've never owned a diesel truck in their life. Yet they sell them. There should be a law against that. And all diesel truck sales people should have to hang out for a couple months on these forums to understand the product and the customer before even trying to do something with a buyer.

 

I have to agree, when I went to the dc dealer to look for a dodge when I was sick of my ford I was surprised to find I knew more about the new truck than the salesman knew. And he had been with the dealer for 5 years. I have never owned a dodge before and still knew more than this idiot. It was summer time so I don't know about the startup time it took him but who knows what he did in the winter.

 

Let's face it, Dodge salespeople aren't exactly retired cadilac salespeople. Be glad you didn't buy a viper from them.

 

If you think the salesman are rough on vehicles you should see how they are treated at the assy plant and on PDI. Ever seen a brand new RSX lay 200 feet of rubber right off the car carrier??
Like it or not your new vehicle has probably been rodded before it ever got to you. Is it right? no. Does it happen? Absolutely.

 

My CTD was a special-order truck for me (from Tommeygun), and if I remember, it only had like 3 miles on the odometer when I took delivery, so no worry of salesman hot rodding my truck on test drives. Now who knows what it was subjected to during assembly in Mexico or while being loaded/unloaded from the freight car, but hopefully with only 3 miles on the odometer, it couldn't have been too much!

 

Unless they sat in it at lunch in park and revved it to 3100 rpms for 2 hours....

 

Rear wheels turned 3 miles, front one only went about 400 feet.
Guess nobody here worked as a wash bay attendant preping new vehicles? Who do you think usually fills the fuel tanks?? Vroom vroom......

 

You guys could easily check this sort of abuse with a scan tool. The ECM logs idle time, average speed, average load, etc. Something to think about if one would ever buy a demonstrator vehicle.

They verified running time and distance on my engine before delivery. I think the dyno run takes 45 minutes. Mine had 3 miles on it. It never made it to the dealer.

 

Dyno run? What dyno run?

Another thing to think about is that even if you run around at WOT, you will not really be running on the top of the torque curve. You have to run a load (gvw or gcw) to get on the torque curve and affect the average load.

Obviously there are other clues to abuse using a scan tool as SuperDuty points out, but thought I'd pass that on.

 

I will never buy a "used" truck for the very reasons in the first post. When I order my new trucks (third one) I look at it when it comes in and if it has more than 5 miles I reject it. I rejected a 96 gasser because the salesman wanted to show a potential customer how a Dodge rides and racked up 25 miles on it. I even got a "loaner" for the next 3 months while a new one came in. People & salesman are idiots when it comes to "in stock" vehicles. I will never buy a used vehicle again.

 

Haha! Yeah I had a buddy that worked at the docks unloading Hyundai's from the boats and he said they drove the p*ss outa those little suckers. He said he could get a lot of front-wheel spin when coming out of the car wash, hehe!

 

I got burned on this issue when i bought my 05. I have had major issues with injectors that Dodge will not cover because of high idle time. My first issues with injectors the dealer said I had 46% idle time on the truck at 6000 miles. by 8000 miles it was down to 38% and by 10000 miles its at 32% I have not changed the way I am driving the truck so clearly the truck was idled for hours and hours and days somewhere before I bought it.

I will never ever buy another "new" truck without the dealer showing me the scan tool numbers first.

 

I am one of the lucky ones in this catagory... I was at the dealership when my truck arrived. The driver unloaded it and parked it 20 feet away. I hopped into it and took it to the welding shop to get a hitch put into it and then right back to the dealer. I pulled it into the wash bay and the boys washed it while we were inside signing paperwork. I came back into the wash bay got the walk around and I was on my way! If I remember right I want to say my truck had less than one mile on the ticker but I can't be for sure. I know it wasn't too much more than that!!