Dennis81082;
Good evening to you sir, hopefully this finds you well and congratulations on your low mileage '03

We looked for a bit before we found an 5 year old '03 with low mileage and in good shape and have been pleased with it although we don't put a lot of miles on it either.

So the cumminsforum already mentioned is a great resource and I've been a member there since picking up our truck 7 years ago.

The '03 year was a new body style, with a better auto transmission in it. I wanted to find an '03,04 or 04� because after that they had to comply with more emissions control stuff and while the power was increased, it seems they didn't get quite as good fuel economy.

If yours hasn't been done already, the lift pump on those years was on the side of the engine block and did give trouble. If you still have the Carter pump on the side of the block and it fails a Dodge dealer will only replace it with an in-tank conversion unit.

After market shops will put them elsewhere so there's a heads up on that issue.

I've got 70000 miles on mine - it's a Pennsylvania truck originally so it's miles and not Canuck kilometers - and so far we've replaced 4 shocks with Monroe gas shocks, the steering stabilizer shock and both front u-joints.

My mechanic said when he had the front end apart to do the u-joints that the metallic brake pads are starting to disintegrate - more from time than anything else - so we'll get them done this spring.

There was a bit of an issue with some of them breaking one of the fuel lines - can't recall which one right now, sorry - and if memory serves it was a vibration issue???

We replaced the intake hose between the air cleaner box and the turbo with a cool hose from Diesel Power Products in Spokane and picked up almost 1 MPG - Imperial gallons though....

http://www.dieselpowerproducts.com/c-140-2003-04-59l-dodge-cummins-dpp-cool-hoses-hose-kits.aspx

I think I can hear the turbo spool up a wee bit quicker with it too and there's no lack of power for sure.

We've been running 285 17 tires on ours and haven't needed to reprogram the computer. If one goes much higher than that I understand that you should reprogram for correct shift points, etc.

Anyway here's ours camping somewhere near Florence on the Oregon coast.
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Hopefully that was useful information for you or someone out there tonight sir. If I can be of any help I'll do my best to so please feel free to ask.

Good luck with your new pickup and all the best to you in 2015.

Dwayne

The most important stuff in life isn't "stuff"