Quote:
Originally Posted by Nutsy_squirrel
Hey All,
I have a 1994 Pleasure Way STW van with the Dodge chassis and 318 small block. I will be hitting 100k miles soon and want to get it ready for camping season.
I got it last year and drove it almost 8k miles, got a lot of use of out of it. My question to all...
What kind of service/maintenance items should I have done on it for the 100k mark?
The only real issue I had with it last year towards the end of the season is with intermittent stalling. I had it in and they replaced the ignition coil and some sensors, but couldn't really find any smoking gun. Also the oil pressure runs slightly high and levels out after I drive it for a while.
What do you all suggest?
- Nutsy
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IMO, by the time a vehicle gets to be 25 years old the total mileage gets to be pretty much a mute point because age and how it has been used and cared for are much bigger determiners of condition and future durability. My "semi daily driver" is a 1996 Buick Roadmaster with 130K that I got 6 years ago, so in a similar situation with it.
Your manual, or even better is if you can find a factory service manual, will have a list of recommended services and intervals for most things that need periodic attention. At 4000 miles a year the mileage interval used in the past gets to be irrelevant so it is very likely on many low mile vehicles that the services have not been often enough by time.
If you haven't already done them, it is a good idea to do or at least carefully check all of the things on the list and maybe a few other things. That would be all fluids, engine oil, trans fluid and filter, antifreeze, rear axle oil, front wheel bearings, brake fluid flush, power steering fluid. It is most likely that the brake fluid, rear axle oil, power steering fluid would be the ones that had been missed on a lot of older vehicles.
The Dodges seem to be prone to handling issues so all the front end parts and especially the steering gear should be checked, especially is you have looseness or wander. Shocks for sure should be checked.
The toughest one to decide what to do is often based on the condition of the rubber parts in the suspension. At 25 years most are in relatively poor condition with visible cracking and they will be hardened up and/or loose. My Buick was in Texas for most of it's life, so the rubber was quite bad from the heat, and since I do my own repairs, I opted to replace all of it. There are not a lot of pieces but hiring it done gets quite expensive. Upper and lower control arms, strut rod if it has one, rear spring eyes and shackles. Old rubber parts will give a harsher ride, more noise, and maybe some looseness if the bonds or rubber have failed. Improvements are there but many would consider the cost too high for the benefit and chose to just watch and wait for a failure before fixing.
Once you get caught up on what is needed there really won't be anything much different from a newer vehicle in preventative maintenance but all of the other parts are also 25 years old and have a bunch of miles on them so there will be some things that will happen like water pumps, alternators, power steering pumps, AC stuff, and even engines or transmissions. It is not a matter of if a vehicle will break down, it is just a question of when and what breaks.
At 100K, you should have a lot of reliable miles left in the van with good care.
100k Mile Service/Maintenance on my van?
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