Top High Mileage Issues 2002-08 Dodge Ram Truck

We're gonna talk about what to look for with a high mileage '02 to '08 Dodge Ram 1500.

So, first thing I'd like to do is on high mileage vehicles, I'm gonna do basically a check over, just like a purchase check. If I'd already bought it, which I've done, I'm gonna go through it from one side to the other, and work my way around, maybe take a few notes. So, over here is where our battery's located on this Ram. And I'm checking for cables. I wanna check for grounds that are corroded, frayed, see if a mouse has eaten them. Our particular vehicle has almost 200k on it, so, you know, this is what we gotta look for. We could have had three, four owners, and we wanna know what kind of condition, what kind of care this vehicle has taken.

And we see our brake master, and we have the levels located on the side. We wanna look at that fluid. That tells us something, too. When you see that rubber damper pushed down, that means that suction has pulled that fluid down, and check the condition out on that. You don't ever want to put dirt inside a master, but I can tell pretty much from looking at this, it's pretty dark. So I'm gonna take a clean rag and dip it down in there, and see if I can get a sample on my rag. See it's got a golden tinge to it. If I was to have new brake fluid, it would almost be a clear on that rag. So, a brake flush at this point, something I'm gonna put on my list to do, because when it turns a different color, it has moisture in it. And what that does is contaminate the rubber in the brake system, caliper seals, wheel cylinders if you have them, flex hoses, and it breaks them down. And I don't know about you, but I don't wanna be out on the road when I lose my brake pedal.

So, I'm gonna take a quick visual, look at my hoses, see if they're cracked. This one's new. Check my drive belt, check for cracks. That looks good, good shape. And then I'm gonna check my coolant, because I'm coming right around here. Now, the vehicle has not been running. If it has been running, obviously, don't open the radiator cap. You can check it also in by the overflow. But, my vehicle's been shut down, so I'm gonna open it up. And I'm gonna look at the coolant condition. Check the cap out, too. Look for cracks, seals. And the level is right up here, and it looks good. Looks like orange, which this vehicle is. It's an orange, vanilla-like color, and it looks good. Radiator looks in good shape.

Bring it right around, and I'm just gonna look at my airbox, make sure it's not broken. Oil. Now, you know that if you've been driving it, hopefully, you've checked the oil out, or you had an oil change done. Vehicle is sitting, that's the best time, that's been sitting for several hours, to get the true oil reading, because it's all drained back into the oil pan. Make sure it's all the way down. Let's pull it out, and let's look at this condition of this oil. So, it is full, but it is dirty. It needs an oil change. I don't see any material floating in there, and that's good. I would hear a knock, obviously, if I had a bearing problem. But high mileage cars, you know, you don't pay a lot for them, and there's a reason for that. So, if you don't hear any engine noise, that's good. But do an oil change. I personally would use full synthetic on this because it's an investment I made. It might not be $40 grand, but it's my investment.

Let's check the tranny fluid next. On this '08 Ram, the tranny dipstick is to the left of the oil. Pull that right out. Now, that's a good sign. See that fluid's nice and clean. It's pink. Doesn't have a brown tinge to it, doesn't have a black tinge to it. I'm not checking the level so much right now as I'm checking the condition. That looks really good. I'm gonna keep that in mind, too, when I raise it up and look up underneath. I wanna check and see if it has a transmission repair done to it.

Power steering, back over here. Power steering doesn't seem to be that important to people, but it is to me, because it's something that gets really hot. And if it's discolored... So, this particular vehicle, you can put power steering fluid in, or ATF on this Dodge Ram. And see, it's kind of like a brownish-gold tinge. I think I'm not gonna put my money into that right now. I'm gonna drive it, but I'm gonna check for leaks when I raise it up. One more thing I'm gonna do before I go on underneath it is I'm gonna check for leaks, like gasket leaks. I'm gonna expect minor seepage, like, from valve covers and stuff like that. I hope not to find water pump or intake leaks. So, with a flashlight, you can really take a good look at the valve cover up here. And remember, anything that has to do with fluid, no matter what anyone tells you, Newton was correct. Gravity will always bring it down. So if you see oil on the top, don't think it's a oil pan. If it's a gasket on the bottom, really bad, it's not going up, it's top going down. It's the way it always is.

So, if you don't have a lift at home, which I'm sure you don't, you can use a, obviously, jack and some jack stands. Before I go crawling under anything, I'm gonna jack it up to a safety spot, where I can feel the front end. So, quickly, just grab your tire, on both sides you're gonna do this, so you can feel both inner and outer tie rod ends and ball joints on both sides. So, I'm gonna go shake it back and forth at 9 and 3, and up and down at 6 and 12. I have no play in that. That's good. And I'm gonna check my control arm bushings. There's a new control arm in here. But I would be looking for rot or splittage, and knowing that that should get replaced, eventually. Make a list, go through it. You're gonna invest in it. Do the most important stuff first, and the minor stuff last. That way, you're not draining the bank.

So, once you're underneath, this is what you want to look for, on both sides, equals, all the way down. So, I'm just gonna do one side for you real quick. I'm at the front tire here. And I see that the tie rod ends, factory, still factory one on the outside, I got new links here. Here is the shock assembly. Looking for bushings, right here. I wanna see if they're split or rotten. That's a key on high mileage vehicles. It also tells you whether the vehicle sat around a lot or, you know, was driven daily. Control arm bushings is another good thing. I see these split all the time, and that gives it bad steering going down the road, which you don't want. You want stability, obviously.

Flex hoses, when we talked about earlier, brake fluid, if it's contaminated with moisture in it, which it gets from the air, it will make these flex hoses swell. You also wanna make sure they're not split or tearing, because you'll see the white canvas. When you see the white thread, that's the inside part of that flex hose, and man, you gotta replace that right away. That's a priority. We're gonna walk down the vehicle and I'm gonna look for fraying. I wanna make sure I don't have any frame cracks. Body mounts, make sure the bushings are still there, and the bolts are. I've seen them rotted and missing, and that's not a good surprise when you buy a used vehicle.

Leakage. So, here we go. I see this oil pan and the transmission bell housing, there's fluid right here. Is that gonna be the oil pan or the rear main? A good way to test that is a rear main will leak after you shut the car off, not always when it's running. And this, to me, is what we call seepage, not leaking or pouring oil. In the industry, that's what we would say. So, this is a seepage. I'm going with more than likely it's gonna be the oil pan, where it meets the back of the crank here, going into the bell housing. Look for manifold exhaust leaks, freeze plugs, do a quick visual all the way down, transmission pan. Good news is that fluid was nice and clean, right? And that pan has not been dropped for a while. I can tell by the bolts not having any shininess on them, and the pan is covered in mud. That's a good find, and that means this transmission's probably been taken care of.

So, before we go back any further, we're gonna go to the front differential. And that is, on this vehicle, located right underneath the engine, because we have four-wheel drive. So, on transfer cases, differentials, most neglected items, I think, on trucks, because people don't realize... If there's no leaks, they don't think about it. If they tow, you need to change them, the intervals are sooner than later. They heat up faster, and the fluid breaks down. On this one, we really have no leaks, as you can see. Little seepage here, but it looks like someone replaced the four-wheel drive switch. So, that could have just been leftover residual fluid, on this '08 Ram. As you can see, here's the plug. Pretty easy to check. So, you can use your thumbnail, or you can use a flathead screwdriver. And we're gonna go in there and pop that boot out and check that fluid.

So, with a nice flathead screwdriver, I'm just gonna lift this up. Be careful, because sometimes it will pour right out, especially if it's tilted at an angle, the way you jack it up, and I can tell already this fluid's gonna come out a little bit. Which is fine by me, because then I don't have to take the plug all the way out. Let's see if we can just get a little reading right here. So, we know now, from the way it's sitting, that I definitely have fluid in there. That's good. It was just residual. So, I'm gonna take my pointer finger and I'm gonna slide it in there, and I'm gonna check the fluid level. Well, that's, looks like new fluid. It's fairly new. See how, the gold color to it? That's nice. If it was black, obviously, that's overheated and bad. You also might find actual white foam in there. And that's a indication that water has got into your differential. So, the cover just pops back on. So, you want to check your vent on this. Just make sure that it's not broken off. Maybe the people went four-wheel driving, submerged it in water. That's not a good thing, because then you have to take this whole cover off, you have to clean all of that moisture, oil out of there and replace it. Check your seals at the same time.

So now we can move on down. And let's look at the frame all the way down, our brake lines, steel lines, fuel lines. Everything looks good. It's always located, on any vehicle, on one particular side. So, here we have all the nice factory-coated brake lines and fuel lines. We have a little evap system. Looks really good. The frame looks good, too, for the year. We get some body rot. That's expected. I knew that when I bought it. Check the U-joints. And we can just keep going down both sides, looking, you're gonna do the same thing on the other side.

Then we get to our rear differential. And flex hoses, on the rear calipers. This happens to be caliper stuff. They look in good shape. The main flex hose that goes in to feed the back, rear calipers, that looks good. A lot of times, you'll see the metal up there, very corroded, and it'll be swollen. That's a priority replace. So, midway down, we have what we call a transfer case, on a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and on the truck, checking motor mounts, tranny mounts. I mean, we're checking tranny mounts here. I'm checking for fluid leaks. A lot of time, you'll have severe leaks between where the transfer case meets the transmission. This is nice and dry. But I want to know what's going on in there, because this is one of the most neglected parts of a vehicle that is four-wheel drive. And you can tell by looking at this, these have not been out for a while. There's no leaks, so the fluid should be full, but I'm wondering if it's been overheated.

So, this is a 10-millimeter Allen head. I'm gonna get it, break it in, then break it free. And this is where you would fill it, and check the level. And this is where you would drain it. This is what we call in the industry a drain and fill. So this is really a great DIY job that you can do. I have a little catch pan underneath in case it's overfull. So, the fluid level should be right about here on the inside. So you're gonna put your finger in and just bend it down a little bit, and you should get some on your finger. Yep, there we go. Look at that. Now, that looks pretty good shape. It's very bright and vibrant. So, this would be ATF, is what they put in this. Probably a full synthetic ATF. Like, on this Dodge, it would be Mopar +4, which means it's synthetic. So, you can get anything that's full synthetic ATF, and that'll work perfectly fine. I'm happy with that. That actually is a great find. It's kind of like treasure hunting when you buy a used vehicle of what you're about to find. That makes me happy, because I know that this is very expensive to replace or repair, and I made a pretty good investment on it so far. You can just snug it up. Don't wanna overtighten it. Now, let's move on back to the differential.

So now we're at the back, at the rear differential. I've already looked for leaks. I don't see any leaks on the inside here. These are the axle seals. The backing plates would be covered in, like, an oil substance, and that would need attention right away. Both sides are nice and dry. When I did drive it, I didn't hear any howling, which would mean a bearing inside that differential casing. There's no noises, so that's a pretty good deal. So, here we have the rear diff. This has been taken off before, I can tell, because it's got orange RTV, which is usually aftermarket, all the way around. But they did a good job, by the looks of it. Front pinion seal's dry. Cover's dry. Let's check the fluid level. Once again, flathead screwdriver, just like the front diff. I'm just gonna pull it out slowly. There we go. Wouldn't hurt to check to make sure those aren't torn. Let's check our level. Once again, should be right about here. Let me just put my finger in, dip it down. Oh, yeah. Wow, that's nice. That's beautiful. It's actually brand new. And it's right to the level it needs to be at. Gear fluid is not always the best-smelling thing. It's a very strong, thick oil, and once you smell it, but burnt differential fluid, wow, you know if you can smell that, you'll smell it for a couple hours. And this is a nice shape. Makes me really happy. I think we did a good find here, and hopefully, you did too.

So, last but not least, at the very end of the vehicle, we're gonna check the spare. Make sure we even have one. So, we do have a spare. We have a full-size spare. Tread-wise, it looks good. Seems to be kind of firm, but I'm gonna probably check my tire pressures anyways, because I have been driving it, and it seems to be handling fine, but you always wanna check your tire pressure in your spare because if it's flat, really kind of useless.

Also, if you wanna check out one other video on 1A, I do in depth about age of tires. That's a good thing to check out on your spare, because if it's 20 years old, if your vehicle's a 21-year-old vehicle or a 20-year old vehicle, once you put that on, you get up to 15 miles an hour, it could just shred, so you don't want that happening either. But, neither here or there. It's here. It looks good. I'm gonna check the hitch, because if I decide to tow with this, I wanna make sure this hitch is mounted correctly, and not rotted. We have a great connection here. Typical surface rust that I'm gonna find on this age of vehicle, but it's strong enough, and it's in good shape. I'm gonna ride right over to the electrical. I got two connectors here. I've got just the regular four-prong, which is corroded. I'm not gonna be using this, so that's gonna be way down on my repair list. But the seven-prong, eight-prong round connector, which comes with the factory, it's hooked up, the wires look in great shape. And if I come out here, I can see the connector looks pretty good, and I'll probably just clean that up with a little bit of file or wire brush, and I'll be ready to roll.

So, hopefully, this video about high mileage vehicles helps you out, whether you just bought one, inherited one, or now decided to become a DIYer. If you're not already subscribed, please subscribe. Ring the bell. That turns on all your notifications, and that way, you won't miss a video.