New truck vs new motor

[DieselPower]

I get $65 per hour for labor in my home shop. I never have a shortage of customers because I am way cheaper than most commercial shops.

Sounds like me back when I had my own mobile service business. I came to you and fixed your truck/tractor at your place for less than a regular shop charged. The nice thing about being a one man show, I only had to make enough to keep me happy and had no overhead in a shop, only my service box truck.

 

[deerefan]

I shopped around on just head repalcement. Every mechanic suggested a new motor b/c of the mileage(150k). The only problem since the new motor was the throttle position sensor went out, which was the original. I replaced it in about 20 minutes and it cost $30. Other than that, no problems. I service the tranny at recommended intervals and it has a cooler also. We do not tow very often, maybe 5 times ayear, very rarely heavy loads. Of course being in louisiana mountains and hills are not a problem!!

 

[MarkV]

"Louisiana mountains and hills", I like that, good come back.

MarkV

 

[deerefan]

yea, they are huge here...i think they call em ant nests!! Granted, I have some hilly terrain where i live north of baton rouge, close to mississippi, but nothing drastic.

 

[WantedWolf]

Id shoot for a new motor if you like the truck and as said if it still suits your needs. Your family purchased the truck new right? It sounds well worked but you likely know of any other weak areas of that truck
If you just bought it used and it had a shot head, id say sell the truck, but would hesitate to say buy new.
They are "giving" them away now but I wonder how much the quailty has declined in new vehicals with all the financial troubles in the industry. How are they trying to cut costs?
and if you like to do any work on your vehicals do you already own the supercomputer required to work on the new ones.

Ive heard about independant mech shops having trouble getting access to diagnostics information, making it almost impossible to service away from the dealer

 

[deerefan]

I bought a scanner from advanced auto for about $70 and retrieved the code to fix my throttle position sensor. I got the code from my chilton manual. Great tool to have (both the scanner and book). After seeing how involved it was to do a motor swap, I decided to send the truck off.