Buyer Beware

Kdog

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A buddy recently bought a new for him 2009 3/4 ton 4wd truck. Nice looking but does not run the best so he asked if I could troubleshoot. Little test drive and yep its got some issues. No check engine light so I figured cleaning injectors would be a nice cure all and not too expensive.

Cleaned the injectors and throttle body drove it around a bit and much better but still not quite right, Got back to the shop and hooked up the laptop and started running diagnostics. Got an error message tha Ive never seen so dug out the manual and found out that there were uncleared codes.

Hmmm no check engine light, but onboard computer has uncleared codes. Not a good sign and I was thinking bad computer so I called a friend that knows everything about Ford Trucks and told him what was going on. No idea, bring it out and he would take a look. Hooked up his computer and was able to bypass the codes and do a full diagnostic. He found all the error codes faulty components almost every sensor had failed or was failing.

Crawled under dash with a flashlight and discovered that someone had neatly bypassed the check engine light. I had my list and called the owners with the bad news. After a few choice words, How Bad is it. All the parts thru Rockauto were ~$450. He ordered the parts and we spent about 6 hours replacing everything including re attaching the check engine light. Hooked engine analyser up, cleared all codes, ran dianostic and everything is clear. Started truck everything seems OK. Took a test drive and major difference. It runs and runs great!

Got back rehooked my PC and ran diagnostics all checks normal. While I was fiddling around, the truck owner called his mechanic and said he needed prices to do all the repairs. Good thing he was sitting down. Everything we had done totaled $3600 from his trusted mechanic who by the way could not get the truck in for 3-4 weeks.

So buyer beware. Snip, Snip, strip, strip, twist and no check engine light. I've run across several similar situations; missing air bags, bypassed sensors, taped over CE light.

Although he was happy with the 25,000+ purchase price, I choke at the thought. Please make sure you trust the seller or have a good mechanic that can check things out because as the old saying goes. "Not all things are as they seem".

In this case guy was lucky, we were able to diagnose and fix before anything major happened.

Several years ago a buddy bought a well used car for his daughter. Had to have air bags because "shes a girl and does not always pay attention"

Unfortunately, about 6 months later she rear ended a stopped Dump Truck on her way to school broke her face badly and after about a dozen surgeries you cannot tell anything had ever happened other than she does not look like she did before the accident.

In her case, the car had been wrecked previously, nicely repaired but no airbag was installed. A new pad was in place so it looked legit and no one thought to question it.

Many things we take for granted even though we have no proof. "Yep, I bought my daughter a nice little car and it has airbags and I hope she does not need them but it makes me feel better about turning her loose".

I have no idea how many years are going to pass before my friend comes to accept the fact that he did everything right. He still feels guilty over the damage to his daughter.
 

Hawnjigs

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Ogallala, NE
Wow man, you're a good friend to have. Unfortunately, there are cheaters who just don't give a shirt about consequences on others.

What make was the truck? 2009 seems a bit young for so many failures. If you'd rather not say thats OK.
 

AtticaFish

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Wife's vehicle is a Ford Explorer V8 ('08 i think) and does some quirky little things now and then. We bought it from our local Ford dealership ( i know a guy :rolleyes: ) My work commute vehicle is a little Chevy Cobalt (bought at a Honda dealer, ha!) and so far have had very few issues with it, knock on wood.

- At first we got a display saying the fuel cap was not secure, even though it was. It would go on and off and that lasted for about a month. I assumed there was an O2 sensor (or whatever it is called) going bad. The check engine light finally did come on. Took it in to my mechanic and he said he could not fix it and that it had to be taken to the dealer to repair. Also gave me the advice that the biggest adverse effect on the vehicle was a slight loss of GPM. He estimated the fix from the dealer might run $500...... a piece of electrical tape over the engine light is free. Of course there is the loss of GPM. It has been about a month and still on the fence of what i want to do with it.

- When it first starts and is cold, the engine ticks and thumps like a SOB. But only for about 30 seconds then the sound slowly fades. Not sure if that is related to the previous problem or not.

- Liftgate and door sensors have a mind of their own at times saying things are open when they are not.

- You can have the seatbelt on for an hour driving down the road and then all of the sudden you will hear a little 'click' and it will just slide right off of you.


I do not like automobiles in general. One of those evil necessities in my eyes.
 

Kdog

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Hawnjigs
Ford F250 with the V-10. most of the problems were the result of the truck setting for 3 years without being started or driven. Prior to that a long trip was 3 miles to the barbershop.

Russ, I deal with clunkers all the time and rarely cme across anything that is a dealer only repair. More often than not, small shops cannot spend the dollars to keep their diagnostics up to date. Take it to autozone and see if they can read the code and tell you what is wrong. Those door sensors can be adjusted. As far as seatbelt, check for a recall notice. Thats not a good thing
 
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