I'm new to the forum and I've been looking at a 1999 F-250 7.3 diesel w/ 165K possibly to purchase. I have several questions:

First, How can you tell if a vehicle has been chipped? The guy who owns mine says he gets 20 mpg on road trips, but has only owned it 2 years and it pulled horse trailers before that. It has no guages to indicate exhaust temps or whatever people install when they mess with the factory settings.

Second, In our recent hurricane evacuation, after 12 hr of stop and go traffic, the transmission overheated and boiled the fluid out. Apparently the vehicle was towed back to town, the fluid was drained, 17 qts of new fluid and filter installed and they said it would be ok. Is this bs or should I expect to buy a new tranny in the near future? The transmission guy indicated he would put on a diifferent transmission cooler...anyone had problems with their factory cooler?

The vehicle is a work truck so it's not prestine. On a scale of one to 10 it's a 6. It seems to run and drive ok, but I haven't had it looked at by a shop yet. (They didn't know how to tell if it had been chipped either). Any suggestions or help as to what I should look at / expect to replace in the near term and how much a 99 W/ 165K miles should cost?

Thanks for your comments,
Texas Redtag