I went to the auction and bought the 1994 Ford L9000 with the Cummins M11 I was looking at. The check engine light is on but the truck runs great. It could be as simple as the coolant is a little low. I'll take some anti-freeze when I pick it up. Anyway I'm going to take it to a service shop to have it checked out and get a print out of all the engine info and see if any codes come up. I'm going to get them to do a basic inspection to make sure there's no glaring problems. I'm thinking I should get them to do a service on it for piece of mind. They said the service could be $500-$700 depending. The truck won't get used a lot as I'll just use it on my land. According to writing on the filters I think it has a little less than 300 hours since the filters were changed. Do you think it's worth getting a complete service and sending an oil sample out on the old oil? The shop charges $170/hr if you're wondering but I'm thinking while it's there just get them to service it inside their shop and I'll be good for a long time. It would be a pain for me to do it outside since it's pretty wet and muddy at my land right now but I want to use the truck in a couple weeks.
If it was me I'd want to change all the oils, engine, trans, rears, front hubs and power steering. It's cheap insurance. The coolant can be tested with a dip strip and additive added if necessary. I doubt you would get all that done for the money you posted but it's reassuring to know your lubrication is in good shape.
Yes, they can check the coolant. I think on the trans. they can see how the oil looks and go from there. The 5-$700 was just for the service not including hooking up the scanner. They said they usually charge a 1 hour minimum for scanning but sometimes will only charge a 1/2 hour. I'm hoping if I do the service they'll give me a deal on the scanning. I know the speedo has been changed so it would be interesting (or not) to know the actual hours and/or mileage on the truck. It had a sticker for an alignment in 2014 which is a good thing. The other guy bidding on the truck was right in front of me and when he turned around when I gave my bidding number said he would stopped bidding earlier if he knew I wanted the truck (maybe/maybe not). If that's true, I probably would have have got it for under $5000. He said it was a good truck though so that's reassuring someone else thought so. I got it for $500 more than I offered the dealer that had it so not too bad, $8000. My estimate was bang on. I told the dealer it was a $9000 truck on a good day. The dealer lost after you take the commission off. Hopefully it doesn't need anything major as it will take me 5 to 10 years to put 1000kms on it. LoL