A farmer I'm working harvest for has a Dodge Ram 3500, Cummins turbo diesel. He thinks it lost a piston while working really hard fighting a fire (climbing steep hills and such). It blows a LOT of oil out the breather system. It has the 5 speed tranny, Quad cab, 4X4.

I'm assuming this truck has the 5.9l 12V Cummins engine. The body is straight, but the undercarriage has a lot of miles on it. Knowing the engine has significant problems, should I keep my offer down to a couple thousand dollars? I'm not really familiar with the value on Dodge trucks, especially sick ones.

 

Regarding the truck, it is what it is. Things wear out like any other truck. engines can get expensive, or maybe you can find a good used one. Hard to say without seeing it but 2 grand dosent sound bad at all. You didnt mention year but if its 5 spd it would be I think pre 98.5ish which would be a 12v. How many miles??

 

It's a 1995, 5 speed stick, 4X4. Laramie SLT package. I'm not sure of the miles, forgot to check when I was looking at it yesterday.

There's oil all over the left fender and in the fender well, but it didn't throw a rod or anything and still runs, just super low on power and burns oil like crazy. I figured the oil was from serious blowby with a toasted piston or something.

If they'll take an offer on it, I'll dig into the problems closer first.

 

A couple grand seems WAY high for that truck with a sick engine. I bought my '96 for $500 with a bad interior (work truck and the prev. owner had a dog that must have liked the taste of Dodge), 2 broken windows, and it needed brakes. I have about $1200 into it right now including purchase price, and have put around 5,000+ miles on it since I put it on the road (it has a hair over 230K on it right now). I see complete, running '94+ Ram diesels for $3000-$4000 all the time. Take $4000 for a good running truck, subtract a few grand for possible repairs and any unknown problems, and fugure a grand for the truck tops.

Jim