2013 Ram 5.7 with nearly 300,000 miles

[Harry Paratestes]

So there is a single owner 2013 Ram with almost 300,000 miles that is for sale. The guy used it to drive a ton for business obviously so it's almost all highway miles. Its an express model i believe and doesnt have any rust except a ding on the tailgate. What would you expect to fail with these miles and beyond? What do you think its worth? Has gray cloth and 8 speed. Club cab model with 20"wheels.
Anyone with 250k plus miles on the original engine and trans on here?
I sold my 03 Ram 4x4 with the 5.7 at 260k still running great with the only major repair being a rear end rebuild at 211k. Attached was one of the last pictures I took of her.
Tell us about your high mileage ram

 

[jws123]

My truck has 210k drives awesome however Unless its Pre cheap don't bother you can probably find a better deal at 300k all sorts of things will need to be done in near future. I love when people say all HIGHWAY miles tho il never understand that miles are miles lmfaoo.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Highway miles are easier on engines.... though there's no way to verify they were actually highway miles.

I put over 300k on a Chevy Colorado in 3 years doing truck recovery for a trucking company, picking up abandoned trucks, or trucks where driver got fired, etc.

Changed the oil every 5000 miles (roughly every other weekend).... that truck is still running strong to this day, now likely over 500k, I haven't been in it myself in a couple of years but I still talk to one of the recovery guys once in a while.

No vehicle will go that kind of miles with city driving...

I get that it is impossible to try to base a vehicle value on something you can't verify... but miles ain't always miles, when it comes to wearing out vehicles.

Also.... before that truck....I never would have believed any standard production gas engine could do that and still run strong, if even run at all.

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[Harry Paratestes]

My truck has 210k drives awesome however Unless its Pre cheap don't bother you can probably find a better deal at 300k all sorts of things will need to be done in near future. I love when people say all HIGHWAY miles tho il never understand that miles are miles lmfaoo.

I think there's quite a bit of difference in highway vs in town miles though dont you think?

 

[Dodge 1500 4X4]

Yes its called Thruway, Turnpike, or Interstate for open road, and Expressway, Route numbers or street numbers for City driving, Here in NYS, others States are called different.

 

[kurek]

Also.... before that truck....I never would have believed any standard production gas engine could do that and still run strong, if even run at all.

it's funny how different everyone's experiences are, I fully expect an engine to perform like new with a third of a million miles on it and I've never driven my personal vehicles commercially or had a long rural or highway commute.

 

[BWL]

Highway miles are easier on engines.... though there's no way to verify they were actually highway miles.

I put over 300k on a Chevy Colorado in 3 years doing truck recovery for a trucking company, picking up abandoned trucks, or trucks where driver got fired, etc.

Changed the oil every 5000 miles (roughly every other weekend).... that truck is still running strong to this day, now likely over 500k, I haven't been in it myself in a couple of years but I still talk to one of the recovery guys once in a while.

No vehicle will go that kind of miles with city driving...

I get that it is impossible to try to base a vehicle value on something you can't verify... but miles ain't always miles, when it comes to wearing out vehicles.

Also.... before that truck....I never would have believed any standard production gas engine could do that and still run strong, if even run at all.

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If you want to know if it's mostly highway miles you check the engine hours and do the math. If it has say 200,000 miles and 5000 hours on the engine then it went 40 miles for every engine hour so likely not a lot of stop and go or sitting and idling. If it has 10,000 for the same miles it was either sitting running a lot or a city commuter. Also seems the cam and lifter problems are more common in vehicles that idle more so engine hours is a bigger factor than mileage IMHO as far as the engine condition in general.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

If you want to know if it's mostly highway miles you check the engine hours and do the math. If it has say 200,000 miles and 5000 hours on the engine then it went 40 miles for every engine hour so likely not a lot of stop and go or sitting and idling. If it has 10,000 for the same miles it was either sitting running a lot or a city commuter.

I guess that's true these days....I forget these new vehicles do record and show that data.

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[GRN69CHV]

I was in a pipe supply business for 30 years. We serviced all delivery vehicles engines based on hours, old rule of thumb was 30 miles (as an average speed) for every hour.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

I have a work truck, 1998 Dodge 2500 with the 5.9 gas engine. We bought it brand new and I put every mile on it. I drove it for 20 years and put 489,000 miles on it. It is used in a mixture of city and highway miles, mostly city miles. The first engine went 450,000 before a head cracked on it and we decided to replace the engine because it started using oil at 360,000 miles anyway. It had nothing but 15W40 Phillip 66 diesel oil in it from day one because that's the only oil the company bought and every thing we own gets that oil. I don't get into the synthetic vs conventional oil argument because of that but I use nothing but synthetic oil in my personal vehicles. The truck had the transmission rebuilt at 188,000 miles and then again at 480,000 miles. I can't argue that Dodge has never seemed to have gotten their transmission issues totally fixed, for the life of me I don't understand why. I got another company truck (2012 Dodge Ram 2500) in 2018 that has 210,000 as of now. The 1998 Dodge has sit for the past 3 years as a back up if needed. No reason to sell, what could we possibly get out of a vehicle with 489,000 miles on it. Mopar man from day one and will remain one till death do us part. Everybody has their own stories but the only ones I have proof of is my own. As for Highway miles vs city miles, that's common sense. If you have a vehicle that drives 200,000 miles without stopping the brakes will look brand new after 200,000 miles vs a vehicle that goes 200,000 miles and stops once every 100 miles it'll go through numerous sets of brakes. So be it with any other parts that are used in different ways in the same miles.

 

[GsRAM]

I have a work truck, 1998 Dodge 2500 with the 5.9 gas engine. We bought it brand new and I put every mile on it. I drove it for 20 years and put 489,000 miles on it. It is used in a mixture of city and highway miles, mostly city miles. The first engine went 450,000 before a head cracked on it and we decided to replace the engine because it started using oil at 360,000 miles anyway. It had nothing but 15W40 Phillip 66 diesel oil in it from day one because that's the only oil the company bought and every thing we own gets that oil. I don't get into the synthetic vs conventional oil argument because of that but I use nothing but synthetic oil in my personal vehicles. The truck had the transmission rebuilt at 188,000 miles and then again at 480,000 miles. I can't argue that Dodge has never seemed to have gotten their transmission issues totally fixed, for the life of me I don't understand why. I got another company truck (2012 Dodge Ram 2500) in 2018 that has 210,000 as of now. The 1998 Dodge has sit for the past 3 years as a back up if needed. No reason to sell, what could we possibly get out of a vehicle with 489,000 miles on it. Mopar man from day one and will remain one till death do us part. Everybody has their own stories but the only ones I have proof of is my own. As for Highway miles vs city miles, that's common sense. If you have a vehicle that drives 200,000 miles without stopping the brakes will look brand new after 200,000 miles vs a vehicle that goes 200,000 miles and stops once every 100 miles it'll go through numerous sets of brakes. So be it with any other parts that are used in different ways in the same miles.

That's excellent. It truly is more about how you take care of stuff than anything else. Regular maintenance, addressing things as they come up vs letting stuff go, not being abusive, allow a minute for warm up before you go, etc all combine and contribute to long service life.

Do you have any pics of the 300k truck? Condition (body and interior) would be very telling at that mileage as to how it's been treated. If you intend to use this as as limited mile spare and it's a great deal, it's in good condition and the owner has maintenance records that show it's been well maintained, it may be worth considering. Good luck.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

That's excellent. It truly is more about how you take care of stuff than anything else. Regular maintenance, addressing things as they come up vs letting stuff go, not being abusive, allow a minute for warm up before you go, etc all combine and contribute to long service life.

Do you have any pics of the 300k truck? Condition (body and interior) would be very telling at that mileage as to how it's been treated. If you intend to use this as as limited mile spare and it's a great deal, it's in good condition and the owner has maintenance records that show it's been well maintained, it may be worth considering. Good luck.

I have pictures, it doesn't look great now. It's unbelievable but sitting the past 3 years the clear coat is literally falling off of it. I painted it the company color the day we bought it and the paint still looked great when we parked it, I can almost see a difference in it daily it seems like. It has 489,000 miles but we have no intention of selling it.

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

Not pretty after 23 years, been sitting last 3 years because of newer truck, but would clean it up and wouldn't be afraid to drive it anywhere.

 

[GsRAM]

That's awesome! Don't look bad for almost a half million miles that's for sure! Good stuff

 

[Narg]

Miles are miles guys. The engine is burning fuel and rotating in all situations. Highway is NOT better, as the engine is under torque full time, where city driving it idles which can be less taxing. But then acceleration... So basically they are equal in the end. Thinking different about this is not thinking.

300K? Wouldn't that make it about $1000 in value? I'd buy it for $1000, but not much more.

 

[kurek]

Throwing a wrench in there, on top of simply miles there's also hours of service (no stoplights on a highway, and on a per-mile basis fewer starts and minutes of warm-up) as well as thermal cycles. 100k miles worth of 30-mile trips is around 3333 thermal cycles, 100k miles worth of 200 mile trips is 500 cycles.


I know this is a different machine entirely and not a Ram, but a few years ago I bought an old Montero sight unseen from a charity auction for $900, not running and 279k miles.



I discovered it only had one prior owner and I got in touch with him because why not? and learned that was all Southern California city and L.A. traffic miles and he had never been inside the engine or transmission (this was also obvious as all the old crusty wire harnesses were obviously unbroken and undisturbed until I necessarily had to move them out of the way)



Without going into laborious detail I did what was necessary to get the vehicle driveable again and did all the catch-up maintenance, didn't get any further into the engine than the timing belt and drove it for ~20k miles until I finally got tired of the smoking exhaust and decided to replace the valve guide seals.

This is what the top of that engine looked like with ~300k miles



Here's what the camshaft looked like; every wear surface both on the fulcrum tubes and on the cams had absolutely zero ridge or texture when scraped laterally with a fingernail.



Even at 300k+ miles after I replaced the hydraulic lifters & the valve guide seals it purred like brand new, pulled hard (well as hard as ~215hp can pull) and burned zero oil at the end of the next couple 5000 mile intervals. I sold that $900 truck with ~320k miles for $5000 a year ago to the very first person who inquired about it, full asking price.

Stuff like that is why I fully expect an engine to last 300k+ miles, if Mitsubishi could do it 20 years ago nobody has any excuse to make a bad engine nowadays.

 

[jack67]

If you want to know if it's mostly highway miles you check the engine hours and do the math. If it has say 200,000 miles and 5000 hours on the engine then it went 40 miles for every engine hour so likely not a lot of stop and go or sitting and idling. If it has 10,000 for the same miles it was either sitting running a lot or a city commuter. Also seems the cam and lifter problems are more common in vehicles that idle more so engine hours is a bigger factor than mileage IMHO as far as the engine condition in general.

This is great info... how do I find the engine hours on my 2014 Ram 1500 with a tad over 60K on it?

 

[2012RAM1500RT]

Miles are miles guys. The engine is burning fuel and rotating in all situations. Highway is NOT better, as the engine is under torque full time, where city driving it idles which can be less taxing. But then acceleration... So basically they are equal in the end. Thinking different about this is not thinking.

300K? Wouldn't that make it about $1000 in value? I'd buy it for $1000, but not much more.

Not in my world. Nascar engines do good to last 500 miles and they have the best of everything. I'm sure they would last near forever if they just ran them at normal speeds all day long. To me there's a lot of difference in highway vs city, steady RPM'S vs up and down, stop and go vs cruising constant most of the time ect.......

 

[BWL]

This is great info... how do I find the engine hours on my 2014 Ram 1500 with a tad over 60K on it?

Just scroll down to vehicle info and then right until engine hours is displayed

 

[Quick_Shifter]

So there is a single owner 2013 Ram with almost 300,000 miles that is for sale. The guy used it to drive a ton for business obviously so it's almost all highway miles. Its an express model i believe and doesnt have any rust except a ding on the tailgate. What would you expect to fail with these miles and beyond? What do you think its worth? Has gray cloth and 8 speed. Club cab model with 20"wheels.
Anyone with 250k plus miles on the original engine and trans on here?
I sold my 03 Ram 4x4 with the 5.7 at 260k still running great with the only major repair being a rear end rebuild at 211k. Attached was one of the last pictures I took of her.
Tell us about your high mileage ram

View attachment 233315

View attachment 233316

that’s not a 2013 in your pictures. I would pass that deal don’t be blinded by how clean it it. It will certainly nickel and dime you. Dude wouldn’t be selling it if it was that great