Some help 2007 EL questions

[mbed]

HI all,

Have a few questions...as I have posted on here in the past I have been searching for a EXPO EL price range is about 10K and trying to stay close to 100K mi...not many for sale period, no less fewer in western NY...sooooo I may have found one locally...2007 with 125K miles... went to look today..decent vehicle...clean underbody,


1. upon cold startup ( I checked it was cold) there seemed to be a exhaust noise for maybe 20 seconds...I would have attributed it to a manifold leak...but it went away so fast I could not crawl under the car fast enough to hear it...did not hear it on subsequent startups... any ideas?

2. NO BACKUP CAMERA??? has nav system...with no backup camera?? could that have been an option? could the camera be retrofitted and interfaced with the nav screen?


My 2008 has the backup camera appear in a small box on left side of rear view mirror so it may not interact with Nav...

3. undercarriage as I said is clean...free of rust...however the dealer did tell me up front he had a local car restorer custom make and install rocker panels...the originals were rusted...they are in fact steel rockers, and the bottoms of the doors are nice and clean..no rust... I did not know rockers were something to go on these EXPOs...there is NO rust anywhere else...surprising... anyway anything special to look for? I think he is being honest here as he did not even try to hide the hood and deck paint issues....and I would think they would be more detrimental to value being obvious in your face cosmetic issues.

this is my third EXPO EL I have driven...boy these things feel so much more solid then a Suburban...but they also feel under powered.... question is can they really tow successfully? We have a 5K # camper and were thinking with the bigger truck we might go bigger...I have towed tons of boats (was my business for years) with many trucks (F150 diesel, chevy van, dodge 100, 4 burbans...)...this just feels like it works hard to move itself...no less another 5-7K # behind it. Does anyone have any advise here...I love the truck so much I have to have to default to another burban!

Thanks for the feedback

has some paint flaking on the hood and rear deck...but otherwise clean.

The flaking is supposedly due to dissimilar metals causing an electrolytic circuit to cause the bubbling.

2. NO BACKUP CAMERA??? has nav system...with no backup camera?? could that have been an option? could the camera be retrofitted and interfaced with the nav screen?


My 2008 has the backup camera appear in a small box on left side of rear view mirror so it may not interact with Nav...

 

[mbed]

ONLY thing they did not have was the 5 digit code for the door keypad...anyone know if there is a way to override that?

urban legend suggests it is on one of the rear window pillars under the molding (from the inside)...don't know for sure but it may be a start for a google search

 

[mbed]

Run the engine and listen for a tick tick tick sound at idle coming from the front of the engines that will be to sound of the cam phasers. It isn't necessarily an immediate requirement to fix them but in about 50,000 -60,000 miles you will need to have them and the timing chain replaced.

After you buy it change all of the fluids and the spark plugs. Have them put in new cam phaser solenoids even if you don't need them. It will keep the problems at bay.

Mechanic friend said to increase the viscosity of the oil once above 100k on truck...likes 10w-30 instead of the listed 5w-20 specified. It supposedly keeps phasers from ticking, etc

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

pennyanguy, congratulations on your purchase! It sounds like a fine truck. If you look in the passenger footwell above and to the left of the fusebox you should see a module with a sticker on it that has a 5 digit code. That is your master code. for the key pad from there you can set a personal code.

If you want Sirius there is a guy on eBay that sells the factory module that you can install so that you can get Sirius. It is a plug and play deal.

This is the guy that I dealt with at United Radio in Mass (if I remember correctly) Ron Bourdon <[email protected]>