how long does duramax last ? miles?

crewcabxlt

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not too familiar w/dmax. finally convinced my friend he neeeds a diesel. he,s a chevy guy so its gotta be a duramax and thats ok i think they are impressive. he found cheap truck with 400+ k miles. i suggested that might be too many miles. how many miles do these motors go before they need rebuilt? thanks.
 
All depends on how they were treated and maintained. My truck was a bone stock LLy with 232,000 when I got it. I got all the maintence records with mine so made me feel better. Also depends on year and what is considered cheap. The lb7 have injector issues. My truck has all options except 4x4 and leather and I payed 8K for it. I've found a few with miles like that in the 4K range.
 
thanks for reply. he found an 01 4x4 x-cab long bed. for $5000 or offer. ive tore alot of cummin down. one w/180k and poor maintence had more wear than another w/340k.
 
Its all about how they are taken care of. If its a decent truck I would offer $4K or so for it. Look for excesive blowby out of the vent cap, or wierd smoke out the tail pipes. Also it you take a white paper towel and drop a little of the oil on it you can see if its getting fuel in crankcase. Oil and fuel will seperate/leave different circles. Thats something I pick up from smokeshow. I would buy it if it ran decent and the body was in good shape.
 
We have two customers with over 700,000 on there trucks.
One is a LB7 the other LBZ, They run hot shot so it is pretty easy for the to rack up milage.
The LB7 we had to put heads on at 660000, The area around the injector cup rotted out. The bottom end looked great.
 
We have two customers with over 700,000 on there trucks.
One is a LB7 the other LBZ, They run hot shot so it is pretty easy for the to rack up milage.
The LB7 we had to put heads on at 660000, The area around the injector cup rotted out. The bottom end looked great.

Wow great info. I'm glad to know that those two particular engines are running that long since I have both lol. I'm more than happy with my two trucks. I got my 2002 about a year ago gave 10 for it had 191,000 on the clock and now has 197,000 but its fully loaded for what gm put out in 2002 has all the bells and whistles. It even has onstar which is rare to find in the 2002 model giving that onstar was just starting to be put in all the vehicles.
 
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I have a few customers with LB7s over 300k and they are running strong.
 
had 336K on mine before the keyway in the cam let loose..bent some valves, etc. Of course the 600 hp tune probably didn't help any.
 
my wife's truck has between 200-250K on it and runs like a freaking top! Both of ours are 02 ec sb 4wd trucks and when I put mine on stock tune, hers can beat mine all day. It has been well cared for and just runs dang good! Mine has about 100K fewer miles but more than half of them have been tuned with a race tune and beat on pretty hard on the street. I really think the injection pump is just tired and it'd run much better again. It used to run like a raped ape too.

They just need good routine maintenance and they should last a good while. Don't be naive though. Prolly want to start setting aside $ for bigger issues at those miles. Things are more likely to happen.


C-ya
 
im looking into getting an 03.. when i drove it the other day, the first thing i did was start it up and walk around to the tailpipe. it had a slight haze coming from it. the salesman told us that it was previously owned by an older gentleman, and was hardly run over 55mph.. we took it out and i ran it kindof hard to see if the smoke would clear a little, but it still hazed.. the smoke didnt smell like unburned fuel tho.. should i be leary about this vehicle? i asked the salesman if they had gone through it and checked everything out, and he said no they hadnt.. so if things work out, i will have them run through everything with a fine toothed comb, and make sure this thing isnt going to cost me big money a couple of months down the road, just after we buy it lol! oh the truck has 129000 miles on it.. but other than the haze, it ran great! what do you guys think it may be??
 
im looking into getting an 03.. when i drove it the other day, the first thing i did was start it up and walk around to the tailpipe. it had a slight haze coming from it. the salesman told us that it was previously owned by an older gentleman, and was hardly run over 55mph.. we took it out and i ran it kindof hard to see if the smoke would clear a little, but it still hazed.. the smoke didnt smell like unburned fuel tho.. should i be leary about this vehicle? i asked the salesman if they had gone through it and checked everything out, and he said no they hadnt.. so if things work out, i will have them run through everything with a fine toothed comb, and make sure this thing isnt going to cost me big money a couple of months down the road, just after we buy it lol! oh the truck has 129000 miles on it.. but other than the haze, it ran great! what do you guys think it may be??

I've seen quite a few stock trucks (never programmed) haze with no apparent issues or ill effects associated with the haze. I wouldn't be too concerned if you/they go over with a fine tooth comb and everything appears to be in order. Injectors would be my only concern on an 03 so I would be sure to check the oil for diesel and possibly get a balance test on the injectors to make sure they are in spec.
 
im looking into getting an 03.. when i drove it the other day, the first thing i did was start it up and walk around to the tailpipe. it had a slight haze coming from it. the salesman told us that it was previously owned by an older gentleman, and was hardly run over 55mph.. we took it out and i ran it kindof hard to see if the smoke would clear a little, but it still hazed.. the smoke didnt smell like unburned fuel tho.. should i be leary about this vehicle? i asked the salesman if they had gone through it and checked everything out, and he said no they hadnt.. so if things work out, i will have them run through everything with a fine toothed comb, and make sure this thing isnt going to cost me big money a couple of months down the road, just after we buy it lol! oh the truck has 129000 miles on it.. but other than the haze, it ran great! what do you guys think it may be??

have the dealership check the balance rates just to be safe
 
If its hazing...its either dribbling fuel from injectors leaking...or the spray pattern is messed up from carbon contamination. GM has a bulletin on cleaning dirty injectors. You dillute their upper engine cleaner stuff with diesel and basically make a stand along tank hooked to the inlet/outlet hoses and run that for a few minutes.

My GM dealership fills the fuel filter with Seafoam or Marvel and runs it like that. Claims it will clear up the tips...assuming the injectors are good otherwise.

Its definately NOT supposed to haze...so its not normal. This was a clean burning Common Rail engine design.
 
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