15mpg on the expressway? How fast are you driving? What grade of gas are you using?

 

How many miles on your 2003? If you are over 75K I wouldn't be concerned about the oil pump failing as most of them fail between 50K and 75K.

 

Spike I said 15 averaged out with 75% being on the expressway. I drove for 4 hours in the snow going about 20 mph and drove around downtown atlanta and columbia as well in that figure. My mileage is fine.

AK my 2003 has about 50K. I've checked the oil pressure and upgraded to Royal Purple oil and a mobil 1 301 filter and everything checked out perfectly. I checked my codes and now that I cleared up the amigos nothing appeared (for now ). Engine is no longer making any noises and runs very smoothly. Do some of the bad vin #'s seem to last?? I'm already preparing an account for the engine fund and can buy it if it goes out. Of course I'd rather use that same money on the bumpers, sliders, lift, tires, etc. Steering noise of course decided it didn't want to show up today when we had it in the shop so I don't know what is going on there.

Do oil pumps last pretty much the life of the vehicle on cars without the block problem? Might go ahead and change out the oil pump to be safe. Any success stories of people with 03's changing out the Oil pump at around 50K and last to 100K? I wouldn't have much of a problem spending 5-600 every 50 thousand miles as I'm not going to put the miles on this fast and I want to do what I have to do to keep this truck for 15-20 years at least. I'd like to build it right and keep it forever.

 

The 03 oil pump issues have been known to affect a few 04's too, so I've heard. You just never know with machines, they can go at anytime especially with old man "murphy" and his universal law.

Heck, you may be fine for the planned length of ownership you want, or your oil light may come on this week. Just be ready for anything.

 

This thought is making me lean more and more towards going ahead and replacing the oil pump. I figure that it will last 20-30K minimum if I replace it and that is 3 years easy with how little I'll drive this in the future (driving it daily now only because it is new and we are working on it everyday). I'll be making over double what I'm making now starting in May so I may replace the block then but for now I'm pretty sure in the next few days I'll be placing an order for an oil pump. I may garage the Rover until the fuel pump comes in.