Very Low Miles Used Car

I had offered some bad words early in this post on the Ford 5.4L engine. At that time I was in the middle of the rebuild and not happy about how complicated Ford made it compared to the GM LS engines.   It is big for its size, no doubt. Complicated to repair compared to others, no doubt.   Now that it is totally repaired and running like new I have to say I am gaining respect for it.   The 5.4L 3V when in good condition is a great running engine and feels larger than its 5.4L size.   It is tuned to have lots of low end grunt, good for towing duty.
It runs out of steam at 5,000 or 5,200 RPM but that is fine you don't want to spend time up there anyways.   I still prefer the LS design but wanted to offer a backtrack from my bad words on the Ford.   It was expensive to repair but it is a sweet running engine now and I can see guys having a fondness for them.   Good truck all around for sure.   Many of the 5.4L problems revolve around oil supply so keep good oil in them and don't let it get dirty. I upgraded this one to the High Volume Melling oil pump. Long term it should make this a better engine.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the advice.

Tom, that should be the 3.7 V6. Very reliable engine, modest power and not very good mileage, but you should be fine. I would have said timing chain based on age but then re-read and saw that there's only 28k miles on it, no need.

Based on the low miles for a 14 year old vehicle, I'm guessing it hasn't had many oil changes. If you go for it I'd do an oil change, put 1000 or so miles on it, and do another one.

The AFM delete for the 5.3L improves the engine for the owner. When the AFM acts up and needs repair you are looking at $3,000+ to fix it because all the lifters in that engine are under the heads. When an AFM lifter goes out you need to pull the heads for repair. Many shops tell the owner they need an entire new engine when it has AFM issues.
Due to all the labor involved it may be decent advice to the owner.
If your AFM acts up and you are over 100,000 miles I would just delete it and not have to deal with it again.

This thread brought back some great memories, so indulge me ;-)

My grandfather was a propulsion engineer on Project Mercury beginning in the 50's and worked in that capacity following that project for 25 years or so before he retired. He was a pretty smart guy...

He was also a gear-head...always lots of cars, planes and such kicking around when we were kids. and when my mom was growing up...For example, SHE drove a Porsche Speedster, among others, when she was in high school. Would love to have that car today....

Anyway...one summer, during the 70's, grandpa had this massive Ford station wagon, think Clark Griswald. So, just for grins, and during the gas crunch, he converted that damn thing to run on 4 cylinders, full time. Don't know how he did it, and it would take some digging through his notes...but it worked. I can remember him telling his buddies that once it got up to speed on the interstate, it was just fine, but don't plan to do alot of passing! This was likely close to 8 years or so before the V8-6-4 was introduced!

Anyway, thanks for the thread! Those were fun times.

Could not have said it better.....

The 5.4L Ford came to me with a timing guide that had broken allowing so much chain slap that it broke the valve cover dumping its oil and causing the cam to jump time. It can be fixed it just seems avoidable, this engine was at 140,000 miles so old but not ancient.

The GM AFM when it works does a good job on MPG, I rented a full size GM 4x4 with 4 doors and the 5.3L with AFM while visiting Seattle and Portland.   About a 200 mile drive between them.   That darn thing gave me nearly 23 MPG for the trip. Flew into Portland, drove around Portland then drove to and from Seattle.   You could tell when it dropped down to 4 cylinders but for the most part it worked well and a truck that size getting that MPG was impressive to me.   Trying to find parking in Seattle with that tuna boat was not fun. They have no full size parking up there.   
The AFM can be deleted completely, I did it in a 2007 Suburban, 5.3L. They do feel better with the AFM deleted but you will give up maybe 1 MPG average.   The Suburban would still pull 18-19 MPG highway with the AFM deleted but no better.

MrMcD wrote:      I did a GM 5.3L overhaul after the Dodge and I really like the GM LS engines also but they too have issues.   The one I fixed had the AFM, which makes the engine run on 4,6 or 8 cylinders and when that goes out most shops tell you to buy a new engine.   .

This has been a concern of mine as well, in my case why does an Avalanche need to run on 4 cylinders I spend alot of time running around 45 mph- it turns on and off constantly. I bought a Range Technology module that plugs into the obd2 port. It has helped with the surging hopefully it will help the engine live longer as well

Well, to be more accurate .... I had the common idling problems, easily solved by a new throttle position sensor and cleaning the idle air solenoid. I had to replace the intake manifold gasket. But nothing major. Don't get me wrong, not saying it was a great engine, didn't have much torque, burned too much gas. But not a problem at least in my case.

Orlando76 wrote: Nautiquehunter wrote: In 2014 Fiat bought out Chrysler . Not a good thing for Chrysler. If it has the 3.5L V6 I would walk away. Couldn’t be as much of a disaster as their 4.7 v8 was.

I had a 2001 Durango with 4.7, liked the engine and had no problems. That was before they increased power output, I think mine was 240 HP and later they made I think 300 HP.

In 2014 Fiat bought out Chrysler . Not a good thing for Chrysler. If it has the 3.5L V6 I would walk away.

You guys worry too much about crap that don’t matterJust drive it. Modern day cars don’t need maintenance. keep gas in the tank, fresh sneakers under it, and and the tunes turned up. I don’t do sh1t for maintenance on my work truck and 365k miles and the damn thing still won’t die.

Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, otherwise follow the service intervals in the manual I don’t get all parts changing here.

A few things to think about. 1st, I always look for a low miles car first. So many parts wear with use and with low miles they were not used yet. Everything from your bearings to the seats wear a little with each use of that car. Was this stored inside or outside?   Some parts and your paint wear much faster sitting out in the weather.

If stored inside the seats, dashboard and paint will still be like new in this old but lightly used car.

Belts and Hoses, we used to say if they are 4 years old they need to be replaced, that was back in the 80's.   Today, most belts and hoses are much better materials and can last 15 years.   

Tires, tires are not built as well today as they were 40 years ago. Today tire shops will not work on a tire, fix a flat etc if the tire is more that 6 years old. Age causes tire failure.
If you know guys with classic cars, they sometimes have tires on them that are 20 years old but have very low miles, the tread looks good but close inspection shows cracks in the sidewalls. These can blow out and leave you in trouble.

Other than that, Antifreeze, this product ages so after 5 years or so it needs to be changed in every car, parked or not.
Brake fluid, this product absorbs moisture from the air. It is supposed to be changed every 3 years, very important if you have anti lock brakes.   No body does this but if you have an anti lock brake system failure you are looking at $2,000 to fix it when a $10 brake fluid flush would have avoided the failure.

Engine and Transmission oil, no worries here, your oils should be just fine. Change them when due based on miles driven.   Personally I am not a fan of a tranny flush in any car. When due I will manually drain the tranny and install a new filter. When you do this in an automatic tranny you find a lot a material from normal transmission wear in the tranny oil pan.   If you do a flush they don't drop the pan at all and this material from wear ends up getting blasted into your valves that control tranny shifting and you may have tranny failure.    I had two cars flushed when this service first came out thinking it was going to be great for the transmission. A Yukon Denali with 59,000 miles, tranny went out 1,000 miles later.   Unfortunately I also did our Suburban at the same time, tranny went out 2 months later, it at least had 150,000 miles total on it. My buddy who owned the Transmission shop I used gave me the scoop on the tranny flushes, he sells transmissions and says they are great for business.   So I do it the old manual way, drop the pan, install new filter, clean the pan and re install.   Always works for me.   In my lifetime, those are my only transmission failures, both right after the flush.

I just helped my nephew buy a Toyota Corolla from a lady that can't drive anymore.   It is a 2007 but had only 32,000 miles total. He will have the same things to fix as your car. Nothing major but with some general maintenance you will have a nice car.

I was looking at 2006 jeep with 28k miles on it. It is a family members car so the miles are legit. It is being driven now by another family member. Because of health problems the vehicle was not driven much.

I am concerned about lack of use. My question is if I bought it what should I expect to do to make it an everyday driver? I would anticipate new tires, cooling system hoses, flushing cooling system.   Also if I were to buy it, it is on the west coast, so I would like to prep it and drive it back cross country.

Thanks