duramax question

[jkh]

First I want to ask that only informative answers be posted. I am not starting a flame war here, just want some honest answers from people who really know.

I know the duramax didn't turn out to be as bad an engine as us cummins guys were thinking. that being said, how good is a 2008 in a 3500? Did they have the urea injection yet in 08?

I have a shot at a pretty good deal on a 3500 with 50,000 miles. he has all the service records from the dealer, oil every 5000, fuel every 10,000, all the

scheduled maintenance records. It is in perfect shape.

I reaaly would love to keep the old 12 valve but the body is starting to go real fast. Every Dodge in the 08-09 era I see has the short bed and I can't live with that.

Any one with first hand knowledge let me know about known problems or short comings of the 08 duramax.

Again, please no flaming just for the sake of "its not a cummins", everyone here knows what reigns supreme, but like I said before,I don't think the duramax was too far behind by 2008.

 

[jgillott]

Is the one you are looking at in Seneca PA at Northpoint Automotive?

 

[jkh]

No, it is in Quakertown, between Allentown and Philadelphia

 

[Wingate]

The 2008 engine did NOT have UREA. ITs a pretty good engine, the LB7 series which was thru late 2004 ( i think) had most of the problems. The engines after that had all the revisions that corrected most of the short-comings of the earlier design. We have ran about 50-75 d-max engines of various versions... . except for the LB7s, the newer ones (LBZ and LLY) were pretty reliable engines... .

Speaking LBZ and LLY ONLY, common issues we had were H2O pumps, alternators, turbos, and coolant leaks at the rear housing/transmission housing area which required the dealership to pull the trans. to fix, and coolant leaks at the turbo.

We typically ran them 175-200K with literally a billion hours of idle time... Ran them 5k miles on regular 15W40 DEO... nothing special.

Just stay far away from ANY LB7 equipped truck.

 

[jgillott]

The one you were describing sounds exactly like one that is advertised by Northland Auto on our local craigslist.

 

[John K]

I had a 2007. 5 Chevy with a Duramax which I traded in on a 2009 Dodge. The major problems I had over the life of the truck were a recurring electrical problem that was finally tracked down to a broken ground off one of the batteries and the throttle position sensor failed. In the four years that I owned it I put about 60,000 miles on it, mostly highway. The biggest difference I noted between the two engines is the Cummins is more responsive. The Chevy felt a lot heavier and had a larger turning radius (Chevy CC vs. Dodge QC). Other things that I noticed where hee Chevy had less head room then the Dodge and I never could used to having to unlock the doors in order for the door handles to work from inside the truck.



John K

 

[CBlack]

I was looking into an LMM model (07. 5-10 MY) and from I gathered they were/are pretty trouble free. The only issue I found during my research was the DPF/EGR just like on our Rams. But with EFI Live... that is no issue at all.