Truck Totaled: 24 hrs to decide to buy back or not?
 

Hi,

I just found out that my insurance company isn't going to go any further with repair efforts on my truck and have totaled it. I can take a total payoff and they keep the truck, or I can buy back my truck. I've got to let them know before close of business tomorrow.

A little history... I'll keep it as brief as possible.

My truck:
1998.5 24v Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel 2wd auto with about 115,000 miles.
I bought it eight years ago with 80K miles and its been great to this point.
It's only used for towing my RV along with the occasional drive to keep it fit.

What happened:
I'm currently Park Hosting in a campground 50 miles from my home. Two months ago there was a bad thunderstorm at which time I heard a loud bang and saw a white flash. I was in my RV and actually ducked down it was so loud. After the storm I went outside and saw a bowling ball size hole in the window of my trucks camper shell. My first thought was that something had hit the window, but after cranking the truck I decided lighting must have hit it. I didn't see it happen but that's my assumption. My RV antenna booster as well as several outside RV light bulbs were all blown out as well.

The Truck Symptoms:
After the storm I cranked the truck and didn't notice anything strange until my foot hit the accelerator pedal. Just barley touching the pedal made the RPM's jump to 1K or more, it's like I was pushing the pedal all the way to the floor when I'm only lightly pushing it. I tested a few other things: The AC, radio,compass,lights,horn, etc all work fine. I didn't see anything that wasn't working as normal other than the accelerator pedal. To get it in position to be towed I had to move it about 100 feet. It again cranked up normally, shifted into gear, then I oh so lightly touched the accelerator and the truck jumped forward hard like I had put the pedal to the metal, at that point it idled into position to be towed.


The situation:
I had the truck towed 50 miles to a mechanic who has had the truck almost two months now. It took him forever to even get started on it but once he did he told me he got a code saying the ECM could not communicate with the VP44. So he put a new VP44 on the truck and the symptoms remain the same and he is still getting the same error code, the ecm can't communicate with the vp44. He then traced or replaced (not sure) the wires from the ECM to the VP44 and said they were fine. He now wants to put a ECM on the truck saying that has to be the problem since it wasn't the VP44 but as I said earlier my insurance company pulled the plug and wants to total it out.

The insurance company has offered me 11K on the truck and I can buy it back for 3K if I want to.
I've found a couple places on the net where I can buy a ECM for about 800 bucks and as I understand it they are easy to install? If I knew or were pretty confident this would fix it I would not hesitate to buy back the truck. But I also don't want to buy it back and find myself in a never ending rabbit hole trying to find out what's wrong.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much,

Russell

Buy it back... you could always part it out for more...

Low milage Cummins 24valve must go for a load of money...

no matter if you put 800$ in a ECU... you will always get your money back :yeah:

Id buy it back too. ECM and PCM could be both fried. Not sure if anyone else has had their truck hit. Sounds like your mechanic is just replacing things to see if that works and not really putting effort into finding out what is actually wrong. If the truck wasnt running when hit then I would think the damage would be minimal as the lighting would take the path of least resistance. If the truck ahd been running with accesories on then the damage would of been greater since it would of overloaded everything electrical that was on. I might be way though as I have never dealt with this. :c:

I'd say buy it back as well, but be ready to invest a few thousand if you have to. I'd also say run away from the "mechanic" that is looking at it now. Swapping parts for the sake of swapping parts is expensive.

Thanks to everyone for the replies, I just pulled the trigger with the insurance company and decided to keep the truck. Now any advice on how to proceed with the fix will be much appreciated. I'm gonna try the ECM first so if anyone knows a good vendor please let me know.

Thanks!

should of took 11k.thats pretty good for a 98 2wd...

buy the truck back.... check the pedel sencor!!! my was doing that when the pettal sencor went bad. it was 0% or 100% pedal for a while and then it was 0% all the time.... buy buy back the truck for sure

Was the APPS what you replaced to fix your problem. I'm not sure what would happen if I really put my foot into my pedal because just lightly touching it makes things go to 100%.

Thanks

If the rig was struck by lightning then the probability of chasing multiple electrical problems is very high.

your truck will not go any faster if you barly tuck the pedal and it goes to 100% then if you push it 75% it will still only be reading 100% but if you have a short in your pedal secor the it would bridge the current over making your truck show 0 resistance in the peadal (that is equal to 100%).. Stubs is right there is alot of electrical thinks that could cause this... but you could sell your truck for some good money! sell body parts the engine and tranny. your drive line alone is worth more than 3000 very easy and lots of people ready to buy.