In the somewhat near future im planning on buying a truck to replace my colorado, itll be a DD as well as a vacation/tow rig to pull my camper with, so reliabilty is an issue.

I originally was lookign at 92-96 PSD/IDI trucks but after seeing to get a nice one your looking at as much as you could get a nicer Superduty with a 5.4L/6.8L....

Ive had a lil experinace with the 5.4L, my grandpa has one in a 2000 superduty but it only has 120K, I had one in a 97 Expedition, and a few others, My buddy has over 200K on his and it still runs good....

Ive just heard of the Spark plug problems and timing chain problems and it makes me nervous. The year range im talking here is 99-2002-3.....

Also, what kind of mileage could i expect to see out of one? Im leaning more toward a V10 just for extra power....

Also, do the V10's suffer from the problems the 5.4L's suffer from? Im guessing so seeing as how they are pretty much the same engine.

Im kinda shying away from the diesels because between matinience and extra fuel cost, and higher buy in the savings just isnt really there.

Input?

They seem to do quite well, a friend of mine just picked up a SD with the v10 and a manual that has around 230k IIRC and its still going strong, my employer also has a v10 SD and its just shy of 220k with nothing major, both are '99-'00 trucks.

The 5.4 is the same as the 4.6 sans the bore/stroke. They'll go for quite a while with proper maintenance. The plug issues were with the P.I (performance improved) heads if memory serves along with the plug design.

If you're going to do any heavy hauling I'd go with the 6.8, mom's Expy has the 5.4 and the best she's been able to average is 16.5mpg and our work truck seems to pull about the same with the 6.8.

my 5.4 in my 2000 F250 has over 218K on it,, I have had the spark plug issues and fixed them, it still runs strong. does have some issues, but still a DD and with over 200K I cannot complain !

So if i pick up one with 140 or 150K on it i shouldnt worry to much?

Maybe im paranoid....but if it isnt a 300 or a 351 i dont expect much.

Lower mileage is a bit irrelevant, if something is going to break its going to break. I've seen rigs with under 100k have a catastrophic failure that were taken care of religiously. But in general I don't see an issue with a rig that has mid 100k on the clock, just look it over thoroughly...

How does the V10 compare to a PSD in mileage and grunt?

Depends on the era PSD, the 94.5-97 PSD is better than the v10 but not a huge difference IMHO, the newer PSD's do pull better than the v10 but I really can't see a huge cost benefit when you add in fuel costs and the added maintenance... I believe the v10 is a comperable substitute for a PSD for the average person..

Only if it's a later 3-valve design. I'll be honest- I can count the V10's I've seen, in total, up here on both hands with a finger or two left over. At least for retail- fleets that needed power and didn't want to spring for a PSD (or were afraid of the 6.0) were about the only buyers for those trucks. To this day, I'm not sure where the market is for a used one. At $4.00/gal for fuel, there's a very limited market for a truck that might get 11 mpg on a good day.

Must be the area, they're still popular here. Granted they're not as popular as the diesel.

I still don't see the real benefit to a diesel for the average consumer, 4.00/gal for unleaded vs 4.30+ for diesel plus the 15qts of Delo vs 6.5qts of 5w20/30 and I've never seen an older PSD pull better than 13mpg average. there's a reason I have a 460 and not an IDI or early PSD...