hamilton71801

I'm kind of kicking around the idea of selling my truck and getting the little wife a low mileage 7.3 X. How do these things hold up? I know the 7.3 is a good motor but how about the tranny? What kind of mileage can you expect? I sure would miss my truck but my wife needs something bigger than a Beetle and maybe this would be big enough????? This way I would still have something with enough ***** to drag my camper through the mountains and not wear me out in the process and I could keep the Beetle to commute in and then get a beater truck to haul trash off, etc.

Any input?

BlueOx1

I just bought my 02 excursion 7.3 back in may and it's seems to be a pretty good truck .Just know that the springs are a little soft and it definitely doesn't have the power 0f my 03 Dodge, but tows decently I've taken a few trips with it ,around town I get around 14 and highway around 19 towing highway is around 10 with my 7500 camper .

MikeyB

My sister has either a 2000 or 2001 model. Has about 150k miles and the engine is holding up fine. Did have to replace the CPS and a couple of oil seals on the HEUI. Transmission is original.

The leather is getting sad and couple of the door locks doesn't work, but that's about it.

MikeyB

92'1stGen

My mom has an 01' Excursion with the 7.3 with about 88k on it and it has been great. It's a 2wd so she does about 15-16 in mixed driving and 20 on the highway at 70 or so. The transmission is pretty nice in that vehicle, personally I think it acts much better in terms of knowing what it wants to do, which gear to be in at which speed, and how it puts power to the ground better then the Dodge quivalent of that model year and the 48re in my 06. But as said above, 1 door lock on it is manual and sometimes the rear windows don't want to close but thats more rare. All in all its been a good trouble free vehicle and the only 2 things I have replaced in it are the glow plug relay and camshaft sensor.

Hvytrkmech

99 and up have the 4R100 tranny, it is an updated E4OD,and is a reasonably stout tranny. If it is pre 99 then it had a E4OD tranny, I would shy away from this tranny, (unless it has been overhauled). I had a 2001 excursion that we put 98k on it before trading it, this is what I had to do to it.

1 set of 4 ball joints
1 steering box
1 cam postition sensor, (very common failure)
1 set brakes, rotors and pads all the way around

I also put a Banks Stinger+ set up on it, (don't waist you money).

We towed a 33' Prowler camper all over the eastern seaboard with it.
I would still have it if we did not make the move to a 5th wheel.



Tim

Danderson

My friend had one. Motor was dependable,but tranny had to replaced @ 88K w/no towing whatsoever. They go through front brakes like crazy. Power windows went out on numerous doors. Leather cracked on the seats. Huge turning radius which changed with the control arm/coil setup. Very comfortable seats and roomy cab. It's your call. His wife totalled the thing and they bought a Honda van.

Diesel Doc

The early models did kill brakes bad. The later models got it fixed. I am looking for a 02 model myself.

SIXSLUG

Best friend's got one, he loves it. He would know. Kurt

BLKCTD01

My wife has a 03 7.3 Eddie we love this thing,it like anything else with a few mods it'll run with a normally modded diesel on the street. (Can't keep my bugger hooks out of anything)
Good Chip- DP tuner 5pos stock(waist) 40hp(waist) 80hp(econ) 120(were I drive it) Hi idle(summer cooling-winter warm-ups)
Trans- I built my own SunCoast spects (Transgo shift kit(tugger) .427valve,bypass delete tube,tripple lock conv(overkill Ford has a billet conv out now thats good to 400hp)
Top end fuel kit (gets away from deadended fuel systems,reg return)
Over boost reg (keeps SES and defueling off)
Intake and exhaust (normal mods)
I have add a ballbearing turbo (had surge with the boat on about 4000lbs)
These trucks are pretty dependable. Theres only a few thing that keep things from going. Cam sensor is the most common (have extra one)

Dartmouth 12V

The actual engine is pretty good. HEUI is a scary system to work on if you are not familiar with it but most people don't need to. The manual trannies are decent but the clutches and dual mass flywheels tend to need to be replaced around 100k. The autos 99 and prior were weak and the ones after that were okay but don't stand up to heavy towing particularly well. If you tow heavy, I would count on putting some money into the tranny setup.

92'1stGen

As far as brakes, so far we have 88k on the originals and there doing good with mostly mixed driving.

SOhappy

Don't know if it still holds true, but awhile back you could find a V-10 Excursion for $12-$15k cheaper than the diesel (all other things being equal), making it far more economical to do a Cummins transplant on a V-10. Just some food for thought.

hamilton71801

Thanks for the input guys. I've been reading up on the X's some and while they have their plus's, looks like they also have some downfalls...including price. Now I'm looking at 3/4 ton Suburbans (2 whl dr) with the 8.1 but those seem pretty hard to come by, atleast around here. I'm not in any hurry so hopefully the right truck will just fall out of the sky and right into the driveway. I guess I'll clean up the Dodge and put it for sale and if it sales, it sales.

On edit: What are real world mileage #'s on the 6.0 and 8.1???? This could be a major factor.

92'1stGen

I'd say you would be lucky if you could get 12 mpg with either of those engines, especially the 8.1.

hamilton71801

Yeah, after futher research it looks like I would be lucky to get 14 on the highway and 12 mixed. My cousin has a HD with a 6.0 and he is lucky to get 16 hwy and 10 towing...don't know if I could stomach it.