Hello everyone,
I have been lurking around the forum for sometime now looking to buy a duramax. I finally found a pretty good one around my area, and I went and looked at it lastnight. Its a 2005 2500HD with the duramax and pretty much all of the options, its got 170k on it, crew cab, leather power everything, heated front seats, soft tonue cover, trailer brake system, and other goodies. But there was 2 things that I found wrong, one. The gauge cluster seemed to be acting goofy, at idle or lightly driving around the oil pressure gauge looked like it was off, but when I gave it some gas it would read normal, and randomly the tach would stop working and then start again. Then second thing is that the right front tire had some cupping on the inside so I know there is something out in the supension in the front. But the manager said that he will have one of his techs look at the cluster tomorrow and they will get back to me(its at a ford dealer), when they figure out whats wrong with that im going to be taking it home for the day to see how I like it and such. While I have it home im going to look at the front end and see whats up with it, ball joints, control arms, idler arm, pitmen arm and such, and then the brakes. I was wondering though, what else should I check over when I have the truck at my house? If you could let me know it would be much appreciated. Thanks

Jeff

tire problem = you need a alignment the camber is not adjusted properly on that side so a simple alignment should fix that.

the oil pressure guage= explain it better what is normal??
it will should around 20 at idle then go up higher as you accelerate, from the passanger seat it will look like the oil pressure gage is in the red, this is normal

I was the one who was driving the truck so I was in the driver seat looking straight on, but you know how it looks when the truck is off and all of the gauges are below the red just chilling? Well thats what the gauge would look like all the time until I would really step on it and then it would read just past 60ish if I remember correctly.

But with tire wear like that wouldnt there be something bad in the front end besides just needing an alignment? Thanks for your help

yea the guage has a problem i dont know what. but there was a ford expedition in my auto shop class last week that needed an alignment the front passanger side tire was almost like new on the outer side and the inner side tread was...well the tire was almost bald

do a search in the LLY section for " oil pressure " there is a few posts for the oil pressure guage having problems

bad cluster sounds to me im on my 3rd one for my truck

Gauge cluster stepping motor failures are seen on DP often.
A friend of mine had a gauge cluster repaired recently at dealer. $400. This is a common problem. There is a vendor on DP that does cluster repairs for much less.

Taste the oil and make sure its not sweet..













:D:D:D

:thumb:Taste the oil and make sure its not sweet..
:D:D:D:exactly:

^^^ giving away all the secrets.

Ya I have heard that the clusters go out on these.

But umm im not going to taste the oil haha

Is there anything else I should look out for when I have it?

thanks everyone

The cluster is a known problem and GM put out a letter to owners to get it repaired, but with the mileage on your truck it will no longer be covered. Have the Manager replace it and get them to align the front end.