Some people just seem to have bad experiences, and I think it comes from a combination of factors, some of which may be their fault, and some of which may be the fault of previous owners. A lot of folks downgrade the integrity of their trucks by using substandard repair parts. Sometimes they misdiagnose a problem, and fix the symptom instead of the cause. Sometimes there is neglect, and sometimes there is poor decisions in areas such as frequency of oil and filter changes, fuel quality, etc. When this happens in a lot of areas at once, people sometimes come to the conclusion that the truck isn't any good, and so they go find something else. By happenstance, what they replace it with may have a better history, but if the fault is in the owners practices, eventually they may end up in the same boat. If you get a truck that has been abused, you have to fix everything, the first time all at once. Otherwise, you end up working on it all the time. I have 3 IDI's, one of which will be 25 years old. None of them have kept me from getting anywhere, and I probably spend 20 hours a year on them, most of it preventative. Generally speaking, I only encounter a major repair of some kind once a decade. Some used to attribute this to the "garage queen" status of my trucks, but that doesn't hold true for 1 of them, which is my most worn out, most questionable origin machine. When I put it together, I started with an engine with unknown miles that I didn't do anything with but paint it. I rebuilt the trans, and put it in a truck, adding new shocks and U-joints. Made up my own electrical system, and cleaned up the dents and to a lesser extent, the rust. It burns 2 quarts of oil between changes, belches smoke out of the road draft tube, and turns 2800 RPM back and forth to work most days. Right now it needs a valve cover gasket, and some leaks fixed, but all that stuff is optional for now. If it breaks, it will probably be my fault.
