[tom406]

My wife's uncle has a diesel Excursion 4x4 he uses to tow his boat. He's been happy with it for the most part. It had a bad tie rod end or ball joint or something in the front end when he got it. It took all your concentration to keep it on the road, since this joint was tight and wouldn't let the steering center itself. That's been fixed, but it took a sharp tech to figure it out.

He was really underwhelmed by the performance (and mpg) at first, and several other farmers told him to "put a chip in it". So he bought the programmer (SuperChips, I think) and reprogrammed the computer, and has been super pleased since. His mileage went up 3 or 4 mpg and he must have found 50hp (Went from a pig to having a guy in a new Duramax corner him to find out how his Ford pulled away from him on a hill). Obviously the tune on them is overly conservative, but rumour has it that its to protect the tranny. Check the boards to see if this rings true. Good luck.