Thinking of buying a 2003 Eddie Bauer, anything I should watch out for?

[Prince_Polaris]

Mine doesn't but from what I understand some do.

Well, on the ones that do, where is it? Oh, and I'm curious about how the engine air filter works, it seems to be quite a large contraption and it also says something about not changing it until X amount of miles, I can't remember what it was...

 

[Boostedbus]

Man I wish, there's no pick-a-part places anywhere near maryland

They sound so cool! And my brother's 2005 caravan needs a whole new rear hatch, and even though 2000s minivans are all the same and super common, we can't find one anywhere around here.



Also, does the 03 Expy have a cabin air filter? My old explorer didn't... If it does, I wanna check it to see how dirty it is, I hear replacing one of those really gives your ac/heat a boost.

Crazy Rays Pick-n-Pull in Jessup Md,Baltimore Md, and Mount Airy MD. They won’t tell you inventory over phone so you gotta go look and they charge a dollar to look. Prices are pretty good and they have a price sheet on parts so you know what it will cost before you the pull part.

 

[Prince_Polaris]

Crazy Rays Pick-n-Pull in Jessup Md,Baltimore Md, and Mount Airy MD. They won’t tell you inventory over phone so you gotta go look and they charge a dollar to look. Prices are pretty good and they have a price sheet on parts so you know what it will cost before you the pull part.

Oof, the closest one is 100 miles away and the other two are 150 miles away... doesn't seem too bad but I'd need to plan for a trip that long

 

[1955moose]

2003 didn't have a factory cabin filter, those weren't Ford installed till I think 2007. That being said your original owner may have had the dealership install a aftermarket one. Location is behind instrument panel, by the HVAC unit. Not a easy one to get to. Again your going to have to get someone smallish and flexible to poke around and see if its there. My guess would be no, but you'll have to see.

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[autoarcheologist]

Man I wish, there's no pick-a-part places anywhere near maryland

They sound so cool! And my brother's 2005 caravan needs a whole new rear hatch, and even though 2000s minivans are all the same and super common, we can't find one anywhere around here.



Also, does the 03 Expy have a cabin air filter? My old explorer didn't... If it does, I wanna check it to see how dirty it is, I hear replacing one of those really gives your ac/heat a boost.

What's your zip code? There is an app or website called row52.com where you can look for specific cars at Pick n Pull near you and set up a search. You can also request a part and have someone pull and ship it to you. For now I would just glue it back on, one of the great things about pulling your own parts is that you get to learn how they work and if you screw something up you just go find another. But try not to of course!

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[Adieu]

Aight, so I used to hang out on the explorer forum, because I currently have a 1998 explorer sport. However, I'm super fat, its exhaust isn't even attached anymore, and the timing chain is barely holding on.

So, I wanna get something new. There's a 2003 Eddie bauer explorer for $6450.00 right now near me. It's currently $600 off as a promotion! And if I turn in my loud trash heap, I can get another $600 off. I currently have $2000 saved up, and my family was going to loan me the rest (I'm 20 and I'm talking to what I hope becomes my second job, so I plan to pay that all back)

Now, in 2016, I found my 1998 explorer sport for sale, I overpaid for it, got slammed by the inspection and registry, and not only that, the engine needs $3,000 in repairs because of how (supposedly) labor intensive the repairs are on it. Add in that my 500 pound self doesn't exactly fit in it very well... I might be working on my weight but I'm also too damn tall for it.

Obviously, I wanna avoid this with the expedition. is there anything I need to watch out for? The mirror adjustment joystick, the seat adjustment switch, the rear wiper, (washer fluid works though) and one other minor thing are all broken, but everything else is in amazing condition, and the AC system is glorious compared to the broken one on mine (AC only works on Max, every other mode is heat, dumb explorers and their blend doors) however the salesman says he's gonna get them all checked on.

Searching up problems online brings up a few reports on the engine throwing its spark plugs out, is that as common or expensive to fix as my own car's timing chain? Also, what should I be looking for when I check it out? I'm going out tomorrow for another look, and I think I'll be test driving it...

I dunno, I guess I'm just asking for advice and so on!

Edit: If I remember right, it's got 11X,*** miles and it has the "Triton V8 4.5L" engine.

Wth?

I got my '09 for $4.6k (December 2016)

I got my '12 Gator L for $12.5k couple weeks back


$6450 for an '03 in '18 is just bizarre.... even if perfect... with broken shit? Hell no.

You can probably find an '07 Expy King Ranch or '07 Gator for that money

 

[1955moose]

We all tried to tell our young friend, 65 posts I believe. But like a woman, the heart wants what the heart wants. He owns it now, and most of his fix it items are trivial, at least for now!

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[Prince_Polaris]

We all tried to tell our young friend, 65 posts I believe. But like a woman, the heart wants what the heart wants. He owns it now, and most of his fix it items are trivial, at least for now!

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Nothing bad is broken yet! I fixed the mirror switch (the pins just needed some bending to make contact) and aside from the CD player refusing to do anything other than screech "ERROR" and the windsheild washer pumps only working 90% of the time I've been having an awesome time. I've put wipers on it that don't squeak, the AC works fine so I guess the hissing in the back is just nothing to worry about, and though it _sounds_ like it's ticking, it's probably me assuming that any noise other than the Vrrruuumm of the engine is something horrible and catastrophic. Perhaps I could record it while idling and throw it on youtube and you guys could tell me if that's how it's supposed to sound. Oh, I do have one big problem... we still haven't found the door code! I guess I'll be going to a dealer for it... uugghh

I mean, our van sounds like it's saying "grarh-grarh-grarh" when it's idling and it has yet to die on us. The only things I really need to do from now on are basic maintenance, I think! I've got plans to grab an aftermarket sony headunit, I'm gonna mess with the loose blinker cover on my passenger mirror, I'm gonna _maybe_ try to find out why the washer system is acting so strange, and hopefully the MPG climbs back up to 10 sometime soon. I accidentally reset it, and I guess it's trying to average the car's mpg, because it's been sloooowly climbing from 0 and I think I'm at 8 so far. Doesn't help that I only drive around town going slow with the AC on blast... this heat is too much! I filled it with gas today and then dumped a bottle of system cleaner into it (I forgot to put it in before.....) so hopefully that helps too. And unlike my explorer, shutting the gas cap doesn't cause a small shower of mysterious gravel to fall on the ground from somewhere up under the car.

If any of you happen to have this problem and have an easy solution, the wiper washers act like this: They work, most of the time, but sometimes they're intermittent- the switches are not the problem because the wipers themselves always move, it's the sprayers that sometimes "flicker" on and off. Also, the car's computer's self test feature always reports "Low fluid" no matter how much is in it, and though it hasn't done it lately, running a system check used to return both a "low fluid" error yet it would also tell me that the washer system is "Ok". I don't really need them during this part of the year, so I'm okay waiting until winter is approaching to really dig into it, or take it to a shop if need be.

This is unrelated but I'm down to 492 pounds from ~501, so it shouldn't be too long until I fit nice and comfy in the thing!

 

[Prince_Polaris]

2003 didn't have a factory cabin filter, those weren't Ford installed till I think 2007. That being said your original owner may have had the dealership install a aftermarket one. Location is behind instrument panel, by the HVAC unit. Not a easy one to get to. Again your going to have to get someone smallish and flexible to poke around and see if its there. My guess would be no, but you'll have to see.

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Oh dang, okay, so it's like my explorer and it just doesn't have one. On cars without cabin air filters, do I need to worry about random junk like leaves or dust getting into the vents or are they just not designed in a way to let that happen?

 

[1955moose]

On the intermittent washer pump, try pulling plug going into it, disconnect battery scrub the connections then add some dielectric grease to plug connections. As you know from computers, corrosion causes most problems, with intermittent run/don't run situations. Crutchfields is your best place for stereo adapter plugs as well as your stereo itself. Local audio shops usually aren't much help.

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