After a l-o-n-g patient wait, I finally found the right truck at the right price! It will be delivered Friday and I feel like a 5 year old waiting for Christmas day.

DC has been slowly releasing the trucks that were "quarantined" for the bad paint issue. They've been selling them through the auto auction houses and I bought one. It's a 2003 that 's been sitting around (somewhere) since it was built 3/19/2003. Although it's 1 year old it is still technically new truck; it has never been registered and only has 24 miles on it.

My buddy is a wholesaler and is the one who found it and bought it at one of the Dallas area auto auctions. At my request, he gave the paint a throrough once over, BEFORE bidding, and says it looks and runs great.

I know there is the possibility of paint issues down the road, but it comes with the full factory warranty and the 10 year/100k mile paint warranty and paying $3k below dealer invoice helped too

Since it won't go through a dealer PDI, I'll have to do that myself. I plan on taking it down to the dealership and making sure it's had all the TSBs taken care of. Thanks to this forum I know about the "normal" stuff (alternator bracket, blinking dash lights, low diff fluid, etc.) but....

Is there anything special, besides old/bad fuel, I need to look for on a truck that's been sitting for a year?

Thanks!!

Tim (a VERY happy camper) Way
Albuquerque, NM

 

Tim,
Glad you finally found the one you were looking for . I bet that you will find the alternator bracket is already the cast one. As far as what to do, I think I would drain the fuel, change the fuel filter and maybe even flush the tank. The ship board guys always talk about algae growing in the layer between water and diesel.

The Boss Hog
(Welcome aboard . . . . . )

 

The old saying-that good things come to those who wait! Way to go, I think once you get the bugs ( moths ) out of her , you'll fall in love deeply. The 6-speed is the thing to have, not to good for hot rodding. But 5th and 6th will fly. Nice price too. I don't think that you'll have a problem with rusting down there. In upstate NY, I think the car dealers are in cohoots with the road crews. They love to salt the roads even when they're not to bad. I like going through Albuquerque I-40 at night , next closest beautiful sight other than heading west on I-70 to Las Vegas. In 1991 we drove straight, only stopping for fuel,food and potty breaks ( all in 1), from here to Gallop. Got a motel for 5 Hrs, hopped back in and went on to L.A. The speed limit was 55 then. Now we can get a motel every night and still make it in the same amount of time. 2-16hr. days and 1-12 hr day. Yee-haw

 

I have a 2003 and the dash and head lights started blinking a few days ago. I'm thinking it is a lose connection, but found your post and thought I would ask for more info.

My truck has 230k miles on her and this is the first time I have run across this. Hmmm.