2WD Diesel Ponderings

I've really been eyeballing the late 90's Ford PSDs lately. I like the looks of an extended cab, 2wd that could tow the mustang, or a larger camper....or a house. I really want it with a mid-rise bed cap so I can put a roadbike in the back without pulling the saddle off, and the side panels that hinge open instead of windows.

It still seems like more truck than I really need, though.

Front knuckles are known to break on dodges..........oh wait, that was a 4wd one. The wheel took the whole brake assembly with it as it went rolling away. Poor bugger also blew his turbo when that happened.

From what I've seen, I'll stay away from anything built under the name beginning with D and ending with E......I'll buy Ford or GM in the truck business. I always thought it was amusing to see 90% of Dodge and Chevy pulling trucks hauled to truck pulls on flatbeds towed by Fords. Most of those guys think they're too nice to use for pulls.

In reply to ultraclyde:

Never hurts to have more than you'll ever need.

the other thing to remember (that everyone forgets) is that once you get past 2003, the factory hp and torque ratings were given pretty much for longevity's sake. I can make an extra 50 hp with my 6.0 with a tuner/intake/exhaust, but the 6.0 overheats and lifts the headstuds with the extra boost. And with my stock one I still have somewhere around 550 ft lbs which is significantly more than the international medium duty trucks with the same engines and larger radiators have... just food for though as far as the tuner idea goes. Now with the 7.3 and especially with the older 5.9's they are just way undertuned from the factory and literally handtools and an hour or two has them making significantly more reliable HP.. but still less than the new ones have stock.

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/cto/3462916992.html

I'll just leave this here.

Wow being beige on beige that truck would be nearly invisible.

Gah, this thread makes me want a truck

Most of what i want to say has been said so here are my remaining brief comments..

As mentioned, manuals are not that fun to drive in diesels. However, they are still more fun than automatics imo and if you are keeping it fairly close to stock, they are a LOT cheaper because they break less and are less expensive to fix when they break.

IF you are going auto, i would avoid all the old dodge 4spds UNLESS you are ok with one rebuild and keeping the power stockish. A dodge 4spd with a good rebuild and stockish power will last.

IF i were buying right now, id be buying a 1st gen cummins ram, or a super duty powerstroke ford. The ford is a much better truck (it being so much newer has a lot to do with it) but powerstrokes are still not easy or fun to work on, and the mechanic in me prefers the dodge for this reason.

In reply to xflowgolf:

I am thinking more like this:

OR:

andrave wrote: I was thinking they changed the rear fenders with the 08 front end... maybe that wasn't until the 2010 or whatever when they went to the new body style. I can't see any damn pictures at work they have all the photo hosting sites blocked.

I don't think they changed the bedsides until the newest model. We have all three versions at work and my '11 is the oddball where the bedsides are concerned.

Couple of thoughts...

• Manuals are rare. They are inexpensive, but rare. I'll bet 99 out of 100 trucks on the road have autos.

• Manuals in cars are fun. Manuals in trucks are not. The clutch pedal is typically very stiff (as is, wear your leg out stiff), and the throw distance is so far that you have to lean to grab gears.

• Manuals do not lend themselves to being cruisers. They are good farm haulers.

• "Buddy hauler"... Full sized adults don't fit well in the back of extended cabs for anything more than short trips. Crew cabs have adult hauling space, but the wheelbase gets WAAY too long to maneuver easily if you keep the 8' bed with a crew cab (think: driving a freight train). Short beds have limited hauling capability, and limited cap availability. Don't worry about buddies for your daily. Drive what you like, and take one of their wives' mini-vans if you all need to go somewhere together.

• Diesels come in heavy duty trucks. Heavy duty trucks don't lower real well, while maintaining their towing capability.

UNLESS, we are talking Isuzu (then you can get your diesel, manual, space cab, AND slammed suspension).

Wow. Lots of good information on this thread. Lots!

Interesting information on all the transmission stuff. I thought they would be much stronger across the board. Also the auto vs manual thing is interesting.

One thing that is echoed a lot is how less then fun this truck thing is. Big, heavy, not too responsive etc. Thats interesting that you all bring that up. I have driven trucks on and off in my life, but have owned none and have not driven on for more then a week even. In those situations i enjoyed it but thats hardly long term. I wonder how that would play out.

There are only full size trucks with diesels really so that does not give you much options.

Lastly, someone mentioned that i could get the same results with a gas truck...AND i dont buy it haha. Ya wont get the mpg (however mathematically gas prices vs mpg might wash out) Power levels will be different between the two. Working at a dealership i routinely check the MPG logs on the dash computers....11-13 seems normal on 5.3L silverados.... That sucks.

CarKid1989 wrote: Lastly, someone mentioned that i could get the same results with a gas truck...AND i dont buy it haha. Ya wont get the mpg (however mathematically gas prices vs mpg might wash out) Power levels will be different between the two. Working at a dealership i routinely check the MPG logs on the dash computers....11-13 seems normal on 5.3L silverados.... That sucks.

A lot of people don't know how to drive. I checked the wife's Av this morning and it's "lifetime MPG", since the last reset, is 15.3mpg. My wife doesn't drive as sane as she could be for MPG reasons. Worst MPG it has ever got was towing, a 8500-ish pounds on a trailer, 2 adults, 1 kid, 1 dog, and a bunch of other stuff in back, in Drive through the mountains, it was still 11mpg for that tank.

If I was seeing that low of MPG, I would be thinking lots of idling for "no reason".

CarKid1989 wrote: Working at a dealership i routinely check the MPG logs on the dash computers....

When I was delivering parts using a company truck, gas mileage was the last thing on my mind... that truck saw 90+ mph almost daily...

I bought my Cummins with a 5 spd with the thought it would be better than an automatic... another case of me doing poor research... the manual transmission Dodge put behind the Cummins were terrible. The automatics weren't great either, but they were cheaper/easier to upgrade.

I would never buy another Cummins because of the truck the engine is wrapped around is too crappy to make up for the engine.

The simple fact is that the gas engines weigh less. I'm trying to be realistic with you. If you browse some of the forums you would think that everyone with a cummins or a powerstroke is getting 30 mpg and its simply not true. People that drive diesels are proud of them and love to brag on them and one up other people, but like I said, lots of diesels in my family and no on is getting that kind of mileage. I "know how to drive" and I have tried moderate hypermiling techniques in my excursion and I get about 23 mpg. You can ONLY get this mileage on the highway. Because the truck is soooo heavy anything stop and go instantly kills the mileage. And then you want to run intake/exhaust/tuner, which is going to hurt the mileage. I've yet to see anyone with a tuner and an "economy" tune actually gain more than the factory mpg... the real numbers I've seen are in line with statistical/odometer inaccuracies (like 1-2 mpg). The new ecobost ford trucks get about that mileage just driving them regularly, and some guys have hypermiled them to over 30 mpg. and their gas is costing them about $.50-$.60 less a gallon where I live. My truck has a 45 gallon tank, so thats a $20-25 savings every time you fill up even if the mileage was the same.
And there are guys with v10 excursions, 2wd, that hypermile them and get about the same mileage my diesel truck does. Its possible.

I love having a big truck. I love being able to tow 12,000 lbs. I love the sound and smell of my diesel. But I hate a lot of stuff about it too. I'm working a festiva to daily drive because the truck eats up fuel and maintenance and wear items are EXPENSIVE. Every other oil change I change out fuel filters, and every oil change is about $80-90 for motorcraft oil and filter. That averages out to $100 an oil change. I can change oil on a gas motor for $30 using name brand products.

And of course all of this doesn't even take into account that the diesel truck is usually at least $4k more expensive. On the excursions its usually more like $6k. That buys a lot of gas.

I do honestly feel that diesel 3/4 and 1 ton trucks are useful and I love them. Love mine. dont' want to get rid of it. but I'd leap at the chance to daily drive just about anything else right now. They are hard to park, a pain to manuever in parking lots, pain to parallel park, they take forever to warm up in the morning and they get terrible fuel mileage while cold, they all have all sorts of weird issues you have to get familiar with, as well as expensive potential failures that gas trucks don't have (egr coolers, high pressure oil pumps, turbochargers, etc). And as a "do it all" vehicle, I feel compelled to mention the fact that 265/75/16 tires are $200 each. front rotors for an F250 are $80 each. You burn up consumables at an even faster rate than smaller vehicles because of the weight of the truck, and they cost more to replace.

You sound pretty set on your plan, so I doubt it will change your mind, but no one pointed out any of that E36 M3 to me before I bought my truck, and if I was buying a new truck right now to replace my '04, it would either be an old (pre 96) F series or a pre 93 dodge diesel, or a gas engined truck. I had an old F250 as the tow vehicle and a pathfinder as my daily driver and I got rid of both of them and bought the excursion as a good "do it all" vehicle and that strategy hasn't worked out for me and I'm transition back into having a car for a daily driver and keeping the excursion as a dedicated truck. Thats been my experience... ymmv.

I was getting 14.4MPG average on my 5.3L Avalanche. My driving was probably evenly split between highway, towing (5-6k lbs), and city. That was the average over the 30+K miles I owned it.

At current gas/diesel prices I would need to average 16.9 MPG with a diesel to break even.

I also initially considered a manual trans, but figured it would just be a pain to drive with a trailer, and my wife would never be able to drive it (not that she will drive a crew cab dually anyway).

Oh and for anyone doubting the durability of a Duramax/Allison, I found numerous examples with over 500, 600, or even 700k miles for sale when I was looking. (There is also a news article about a 2006 with over 1 million miles). I'm not saying that only a Duramax can do that, and I'm sure someone else can tell a story about their cummins or powerstroke with just as many miles. It just goes to show what proper maitenance can do.

The one I bought has 440k, and runs/drives like new. I just had it inspected and the mechanic was questioning whether the odometer was correct. He thought it was in km.

yeah but a lot of diesels are part of commercial fleets or are work vehicles. They may have 300k or more on the odometer but since they had to be kept in service to be profitable, that may have taken 3 turbos, 2 transmissions, and a new engine to see it through. You will find lots of 12 valve cummins with 500k or more on the stock short block, thats true... those things were orignially designed as "run forever" stationary engines to run pumps and generators. And the ford 7.3 idi and 7.3 powerstroke both have legendary reliability, 200k ones still trade hands for tons of cash, especially if they are well looked after. On a lot of the newer stuff its a crapshoot. There are 6.0 powerstroke guys that have 300k on all stock vehicle and some guys that have religiously maintained theirs since new and had major failures not far past the 100k mark. I guess that could happen with just about anything though.

SVreX wrote: - Manuals do not lend themselves to being cruisers. They are good farm haulers.

Actually, the 6sp manual ones are terrible as farm haulers.......they make decent pulling trucks though(4th gear, throttle pinned wide open, and the clutch dropped). Either way, most 6sp diesels will be found on the open roads racking up miles pulling things.

all manual trucks make terrible pulling trucks compared to autos. First off you get the advantage of the torque multiplication allowed by the converter, then the consistent stall allowed by the converter, on top of that the fact that the autos once built are stouter than the manuals, and then finally, the simple fact that most pulling classes don't allow you to shift on a pull (and realistically it kills your momentum) on a manual, but autos are free to wail away and bang gears.

90% of the pulling trucks I see are manual.......as stated, they'll hold revs to built boost or get their monster turbos to start building boost, then drop the clutch in 4th gear.....they will not shift at all.

When pulling with an auto, you're berkeleyed anyway when it kicks down.....you'll actually end up with less distance than if you let it run out to stall.

Auto trucks seem to wheelhop more for some reason.....which leads to more axle/driveshaft issues.

CarKid1989 wrote: There are only full size trucks with diesels really so that does not give you much options.

That's if you don't include Isuzu and VW.

Oh, and a modern Chevy Colorado is the twin to the Isuzu D-Max, so that should mean the 3 turbo-diesel options available in the Isuzu would fit into the Colorado.

Diesel conversions also exist for Toyotas and Jeeps.

Ian F wrote: ...the manual transmission Dodge put behind the Cummins were terrible.

ALL transmissions Dodge put behind the Cummins were terrible. It's kind of like a trademark.

Ford was working on one for the f150, but it appears they're using the ecoboost instead. I think theres been one in the works for either the nissan or toyota half ton through Cummins, but its been delay after delay on it.

Ranger50 wrote: In reply to xflowgolf: I am thinking more like this: fancy chevy pic OR: boxy ford pic

oh I love the new chevy body style, but they are $$$

I like the '99+ Ford's because they have a "newer" look to them, and can be bolt on updated to as new as '06 style front end from an aesthetic standpoint, but still be bought at much more reasonable price points.

Add in the earlier trucks had the 7.3 powerstrokes, and it's a good bit of win. I agree with somebody else who posted here though, that my top choice would actually be a Superduty Ford body style wrapper with Cummins power.

xflowgolf wrote: I like the '99+ Ford's because they have a "newer" look to them, and can be bolt on updated to as new as '06 style front end from an aesthetic standpoint, but still be bought at much more reasonable price points.

See, I have driven a SD and from my seat, they are absolutely HORRIBLE on the inside. I didn't like anything about it But when I bought my 97, I already had YEARS of driving them for the GR Press. So they were just like that old pair of shoes. Don't get me wrong, I like the exterior, but the interior is a big letdown and why I don't like them. Since I am the one that has to sit there for hours, I should damn well like sitting there.

Now after years of driving a C4500 med duty for the same newspaper then the last few years driving my wife's Av, I can tolerate the seating and interiors from GM, which are leaps and bounds better in the full size from 87. But after working on Dodge's for three years, they are a cross between the plastic cheapness of GM and the seating position of my OBS Ford, which I love.

In reply to Ranger50:

I own and daily-drove a '95 Ford and LOVE the interior. Captains chairs are comfy, center console is huge and I love the dash. Just my personal opinion. Every time I look at it in my driveway I think about how difficult putting in a 4bt under the hood would be. I'm guessing it'd be a domino effect (solid front axle swap etc.)

I just love that generation Ford truck.