Chinook RV

I'm a Toyota kind of guy, mainly because of their reliability and minimum required maintenance. I haven't owned a Ford product in decades. That said, I'm impressed with the Ford V-10 engine in my 1999 Chinook Concourse with 54,000 miles of which I put about 13,000 on in the last 16 months of ownership. Overall I'm very happy with my Concourse and V-10 but it's not a Toyota engine. Make me feel good about the Chinook engine.
How many miles do you have your Chinook, which engine and what is your overall opinion of that engine?

I'm at 115kish. The V10 has reports of somewhere in the neighborhood of 300k for some people. That said, some have been unlucky with catastrophic failure at 100k.

I was very lucky in finding a 2002 Premier with only 22K miles, so I can't attest personally to the reliability of the V-10 but I did research that engine with my mechanic of 25 years and he said that they are very reliable but that the transmission on some models allows the engine to rev too high for too long so he's advised me to keep it at 4,000 rpms or less except for passing. For long uphill grades that means going a bit slower. As far as overall performance I am amazed at how fast my rig is and the gas mileage is about what I get from my 2004 Navigator, usually around 10 mpg. I also have a friend who has the V-10 in a Ford pickup and he loves it. Hope that helps!

Paul

Our 2004 Premier came from my cousin. They were taking it to a consignment lot as they just didn't use it. They said they'd be happy to get $22,500 out of it. I wrote a check. It had 15K miles on it (just broke in). We now have about 24K on it. I have to say it took some getting used the V10 sound. To me it sounds more like a 6 cylinder. Runs great, good power, and the lowest mileage was 10 mpg but have managed just over 12 mpg in good conditions.

Picked ours up a couple months back with 96k. She now has 104k on her and sounds and runs great! Many people claim to get 300k out of these motors.

I have a 460ci V8 in my 1994 premier with about 130k on the clock.

I have the V10 with 64K on it. Just drove her over the Cascades without a hitch.

Welcome, Ross! Anything you'd like to share about your Chinook, travels, etc. - we're all ears

I hadn't posted in this thread yet because mine's kind of boring. But while I'm here, I bought my Concourse - which has the V10 - a few years ago when it had 49,000 miles on it. Now it has around 70,000 miles.

Mostly typical maintenance, engine-wise. I did have a "let's get it to my baseline" bunch of things done just after I bought it. Belts, fluids, etc. I also had some (all? I forget) of the coil boots replaced, and had the spark plugs changed (due to time, not miles - if you are only going by miles it'd be 100k, IIRC). A bit later on, I added a new start battery (Group 65 AGM). I think that's all that's directly connected to the engine.

Hey Blue~Go,

I'm a new Chinook owner and in the process of renovating. I'm better at tearing things out than putting them back, but so far so good. I should start a new thread on my process. I could use some feedback.

Well, tearing out is the perfect first step. So satisfying

Please do start a thread. We'd all love to see your Chinook and what you're doing with it. And I can't imagine you wouldn't get some good feedback (plus we're always open to new ideas!).