I regret marrying the 2nd X but the 3rd wife is the bomb!!

Best investment I ever made!! All 3 boys 17,16, 11 months here

As for my current truck, No regrets except I should have bought a 6 spd!

Rick

 

I wish I would have bought that 02 with the tire smokin' bully dog set up auto with 70k miles instead of my 00 GMC 1/2 ton that I broke in half!

But then I wouldn't have bought this 12v I have now, and might have bought a vp44 or two- life is good.

 

I had too much fuel for a hybrid, but I thought I could get by with one. From the looks of your sig you will be OK with a hybrid. Just don't waste your money on a 14 cm wastegated housing.

 

I wish I had changed the oil sooner for the first change and bought the flatbed with the trough.

 

Remember the Billionaire, Howard Hughs? After his death reporters asked, "How much money did he leave?"

His accountant replied, "He left it all!".

Learn from the mistakes of others: don't leave any, keep the ecomony flowing. Buy truck parts!

 

haha,

I've been called highway demon.
a rapist of the environment
a pestlence brought forth by the devil himself
a hipocritic heathen,
and at my age I should be driving somewthing more common. ( I replied ...what ..something like a wheel chair??) haha

all by the same person.

I've yet to be smothered by girls but I know they really like me from all the one finger salutes I get.

The only woman who will peacefully ride with me is my mom (85+) who wouldn't set foot in my street rod.

I'm about ready to go to the doctor as all my buddies say I should have my head examined.

I'm gained almost 20 pounds.

I'm happy.

I'm told I need to get a life.

I got a diesel......is there another life.

 

You and me both.

My biggest regret: putting in an EGR blocker plate on the Duramax the weekend we were to pull the fiver down to the Outer Banks.

I wanted to get the best gas mileage on that trip, so I decided to disable the EGR system and block it off using an aftermarket blocker plate. Doing so would keep the intake cleaner and let the turbo spool a little faster because it wouldn't have to wait for the EGR valve to close before it started building boost.

The blocker plate was designed to fit in the EGR system between two pipes that were held together with two nuts. The only hard part of this operation was physically getting back there; the plate was to be installed right near the passenger-side firewall, so I had to approach it from the side with long wrenches and an extender bar.

The nuts were very tight. I had a hard time getting them loose the first time, then I had to crank 'em down to get it to seal. It never quite sealed right, so I had to loosen/tighten them up again a few more times.

Daylight was disappearing...

I had my wife helping me for a little while - the setup was such that the wrench needed to be held on with one person while the other person tapped a mallet on an extenter bar. She had to go do other stuff, so I tried it on my own... and stripped the nut.

I stripped the frickin' nut the day before we were supposed to go on vacation with the fifth wheel!

I had 14 hours to get that thing off. I tried extractor sockets, vise grips, dremeling the nut off, basically anything I could think of. I worked about 10 hours on that nut. Horrifying. Meanwhile, with each turn of the wrench, the firewall insulation came apart even worse, and sharp fiberglass strands were everywhere. I was covered head to toe in fiberglass. The nut was getting worse and worse.

Finally, I gave up. It wouldn't budge no matter what I did. I was in agony; I couldn't believe I was so stupid as to mod the truck the day before we were to go on vacation. I tightened up the other side, and did my 600-mile pull. It leaked a little at first, and I had to really crank down the other side to get it to seal. It held.

But on the way back, the same fueling problems that had been plaguing my 2005 Duramax since it rolled off the showroom floor, hit again. The injectors started sticking, and I smoked out the whole freeway, knocking and pinging my way to a truck stop. I had it at the dealer 3 times before to get it fixed, but they couldn't even replicate the problem much less fix it. It only manifested when I was ALONE in the truck.

When I got home, I brought it to a shop to have the bolt removed. The guy who owned the shop couldn't get the nut off either - he even welded a socket to the nut. He had to pull the whole EGR system, which cost me $400. Then I had to have the firewall liner replaced, which cost about $250.

I was so sick with myself and the poor performance of that vehicle I didn't even want to touch that truck again. I was in shell shock from the 10 hours of aborted nut removal attempts, and was willing to pay anything to not have to do it myself.

When I was having the firewall liner replaced at the dealer, I went down the street to the Dodge dealer and test drove the Megacab. I picked my truck up from the Chevy dealer after $650 of work for a stripped nut and drove it right to the Dodge showroom for a trade-in.

Sometimes I miss the nice shift management of the Allison, or the dual zone ice-cold A/C, but the CTD excels in every other way. No regrets.

 

LCH - I'm pretty much the same way, which is why I started this thread. So, besides a lift (which I see no point in, for me anyway), and a few various things under the hood, there's really not much regret for the truck besides some personall issues. That EGR nut story sounds like something that I would do ... what a nightmare.

Well, here's the deal. I told myself when I bought this truck (in late '99) that I'd have it a minimum of 10 years. At 10 years if it was still a solid truck, I'd try to keep it another 5 but then it would have to be sold.

It's been just over 7 years now. The only things I've done to it are RV275's, EZ with elbow, MEK, REK, a 5th wheel hitch and a bed mat. I don't regret any of those things. My truck has 112k miles and its only broke 1 LP. I guess I'm due for another one at any time!

The list of things I think I'd like to do over the next few years, in order to have them done. FASS, clutch, EDM injectors, and a HRVP if/when my original ever gives up the ghost.

I've replaced one set of brake pads (still using orginal rotors), am on the 2nd set of tires, replaced the fog light bulbs and one rear taillight. This truck has been paid for since 2003, and has been CHEAP. EXTREMELY reliable. The one LP was replaced under warranty, and the 2nd one is still going strong.

If the truck keeps going like it is, it WILL NOT get decomissioned at 10 years. Then at 15 years, I may cry if I must sell it.

 

What you do on year 15 is buy you a new one and keep this one. Just try to get your finances adjusted accordingly.

 

Holy cow ... what was I thinking! Sometimes I really think I've got dain bramage. Of course The Warden may have something to say about that plan. But I've never let sleeping on the couch stop me before!

 

I regret passing up the 90 crew cab conversion I saw for sale-- same as my truck, price, color, everything, but with 5spd an lsd. Now its owned by another of our 1st genners, so it's alright, I guess. I do love my truck, even if its an auto.

 

I mean what you could do, since a 15 year old truck won't bring a lot of money you could set up a savings account now and just throw a little bit of money in at a time. (pocket change will work) When it gets high enough you could throw it in something like a CD (not the music kind), if you do it often enough you should be able to have as much as your truck will be worth on year 15.

 

Yeah, I follow you.

 

My biggest regret is buying the pickup in the first place. I was not patient enough to wait for a Dodge in reasonable shape and with a manual transmission, and I also was not patient enough to walk out of the dealership, since I payed a little much for it. I figured that the automatic was OK (wish I would have towed something on a test drive), and the price was reasonable (since it was a nice pickup), and they gave me a fair price on my trade (since I recieved about what I could sell it for).

Moving along, it would have maybe been a good idea to just drive the pickup for a year before doing any bombing. Its addictive! Ya get one thing, and ya need another thing!! The probelm is that I have put $2000 + into my pickup, and I could MAYBE get the price that I payed for it if I sold it. This wouldn't be such a big deal, but I would be happier with a newer gen 2 12 valve Dodge, or at least a manual transmission.

Oh well, hindsight is always 20-20. At least it has taught me to be a little more patient about my spending habits. Anyway, this old pickup will work fine for a few more years, considering that I will probably drive a car most of the time to save fuel.

 

I wish I knew these truck could do this years ago....I would have started saving money then.....and now I'd have twins under the hood and probably twins in the front seat!!! Don't tell my wife I said that. She'll laugh and then punch me!... again!..