[Don Fox]

Check out Craigslist and Autotrader.com. I've found several nice vehicles on both venues. BTW, how far are you willing to travel? If I happen to find a nice one around SW Ohio, are you game to come and drive her home?

Don

 

[Don Fox]

Understood. I thought you might be in a position to either fly out or ride with a buddy. As you can see from my signature, I took my Mom on an 8-9 hour round trip back in March of 2010 to the NE side of Cleveland to bring my current D home. It just turned over 82K recently and, other than a couple of rust bubbles on the rear quarter panels, she looks darned good for age 9 and runs like a top!

Don

 

[Don Fox]

Check out this link.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/cto/3731258282.html

Don

 

[Don Fox]

With the current high fuel prices, now's a good time to get a really nice 03 D for a great price. I can speak from experience though when I say you may have to travel a bit to accomplish this. Witness the example of my Durango search in 2010 when I decided it was a mistake to be without a Durango. I endured having several Gen 2 D's sold out from under me before I could get to see them, but eventually found "my" D 250 miles away near Cleveland OH? at a Nissan dealer of all places. So a 500 mile round trip all in one day to get it and I still have it!

Regarding the comment about AWD being a fuel hog, I beg to differ and offer these examples:<ul>[*]My 2001 4.7L Durango SLT was built with the part time T-case which I swapped out for an AWD unit and the mpg penalty was ~1 mpg.[*]My current 04 Durango Hemi SLT AWD has 100HP more than the 01 did, but gets the same if not better mpg? and that's aside from the traction benefit of having power in all 4 corners 100% of the time in all types of weather![/list]Don

 

[Don Fox]

+2 on bypassing the 04-05 D's if you can. The D gained the MDS cylinder shutdown system in 2006 for the Hemi and that'll give you another mpg or 2 on the highway. The Hemis also suffered some catastrophic failures in the 04 models. If you could stretch a little further and get an 07, they freshened up the front end so it looks better IMO than the 04-06 D's. There's also a few areas that tend to rust on the Gen 2 after they get some age on them, so the newer you can swing the better.

Regarding overall mpg. Remember we're talking about 5000+ pounds of steel and 330 HP. It takes power to move all that weight around and even more to allow it to "get out of its own way" as they say. I've touched 18 mpg on the highway a couple of times, and even saw 19 mpg one time, but 17 mpg was highway norm for my 01 D.

Don