Well said Racer18J, I have Dodge 1ton Daully, 55k miles on it and not a bit of trouble. I averaged around 20 mpg with the 5 spd, at 13k miles I took the muffler and converter off and changed it to strait pipe from turbo back. I love the semi truck sound and the 3-4mpg increase.
Truck has never had any other oil in it other than Shell Rotella 15-40, Fleetguard oil and fuel filters, seviced every 4500 miles. Take care, Bryan

 

I read your other post and replied to it. Hope that helped some. A gas engine will tow quads fine. I tow our two arctic cats behind my dakota r/t with the 5.9L v-8 and my dad's dakota quad cab with a 4.7 V-8. Easy for them at 2000 lbs including trailer, quads, gas, tools, and stuff. My friends 4000lb boat is about as far as we'll push them before we option for my 86 dodge d250 with a custom built 360 v-8, torquflight 727, 9 1/4 3.92 rearend. He also has a 5900 lb trailer that my d250 tows fine. He has a 98 F250 with powerstroke deisel that is a dream on the road with anything we tow. Cost was a concern for you so I'll give you the bad news first. My girlfriends younger brother has a 95 4x4 chevy turbo deisel that just ate $2500 for a new injector pump, fuel pump, and a few other deisel only items at 150,000 miles. Even here in texas a "good" deisel mechanic is hard to find except at the dealer which means more $. Most people look at you funny. I worked at Jiffy Lube thru college: oil changes suck on Powerstrokes 14-15 qts and a filter the size of a 3 litre coke bottle. Chevy(pre duramax) 5-7 qts filter is easy except on 4x4's. Dodge not to bad but still tuff. Turbos are not cheap either. I saw a ton of dirty engine compartments with nice new shiny turbos! Change that oil frequently. Not good on short trips. Deisels don't burn off oil contaminents like gas motors do. They hold it in suspension till you change the oil. They take a while to warm up. Pros: If you ever fell like moving your house you are set! My prefrence is the new duramax(very hi tech with a great new 5 speed auto tranny) but the cummins ho is proven and available. If you only tow a couple times a year(less than 10) get a big gas 3/4 ton. More than that you should look into a deisel. I've done both and I like the deisel but I prefer the everyday convenice of the gas. Good luck and keep me posted!

 

Sorry, you don't know what you're talking about. Ford SuperDuty's have both manual hubs with transfer case shifter, or ESOF (Electronic Shift On the Fly). Works great, never been stuck.

Oil changes, 3000-5000 miles, depending on use and driving conditions. $70 cost is because an oil change is 15 quarts. The Powerstroke has hydraulic injectors, and uses the oil to inject the fuel into the cylinders. Nice feature, you'll never sieze the motor, because the injectors will run out of oil first, and stop the motor, long before the engine would sieze.

As for the new Chevy/Isuzu diesels, they are experiencing typical first year problems. Plus, aluminum heads in an diesel is a bad idea. Also, the Duramax makes a lot of it's power at higher RPM's than most diesels. And the Allison's aren't as bulletproof as their reputation suggests.

 

I wouldnt overlook the new GM 8100 V-8. It is rated at 340 HP at 4200 RPM and 455 FT LBS of torque at 3200 RPM. Higher than both Ford and Dodge V-10 motors! It really boils down to what the majority of your usage will be. If you pull a heavy trailer only a couple times a year a 5.7 is probably fine. If you were doing it several times a year I would think about the bigger motor and a heavier chassis. (3/4 or 1 Ton) The way I see it is that there is no sense driving around 100 percent of the time in a vehicle that you use only 10 percent of the time for towing and 90 percent for everything else.
The type of hitch you use is very important too. If you are buying a tag trailer as opposed to a 5th wheel, installing a (swing type) weight distribution hitch will greatly improve the handling of your rig.
Where are you buying the trailer? If you want to E-mail me I can give you a referal for a local dealer that I have a connection with.
Trailboss450

 

If you plan on keeping the truck for a couple of years get the diesel. But if you plan on trading it or selling it after a year or 2 get the gas. The initial cost is high, but the benifits are there. The cold starting problems is mainly from old diesel experiences. Most new diesels start well in cold weather. The only time we plugged ours in, is when it got down to 10 degrees or less. My parents made the mistake of selling there old ford diesel that had a turbo system and striaght pipe added, for a 96 dodge with the v10 at the time. They used the truck to pull a 35' fith wheel camper with a slide out, it wieghed about 8500lbs not loaded. The old ford diesel easly pulled the camper easier then the v10 did. They where both sticks, the ford had a 4 speed while the dodge was the 5 speed, and same rear end gearing on both. MAintance is pretty much the same for both, just make sure you change the oil. Gas mileage though was a huge diff. the v10 got 12-15 mpg while the diesel pulled in 20-25. Here where I live diesel is usually the price of mid grade maybe a little more. And if you really want to show the gas guys off, you can always chip or reprogramm the computer on the new diesels for a good 50-80hp and 100+ lbs of tourqe. Remember these diesel midly tuned from the factory.
matty

ps here a diesel tuner web sight, if you dont beleive about the potential of these bad boys.
Check out the dyno graphs they have for the new
Chev Duramax system there working on its crazy.

http://www.dieseldynamics.com/

 

i have a 1999 f350 super duty 4x2 with a v10. i get approx. 16-18 mpg on the highway but not near as good in the city. i didn't get a diesel because i couldn't justify it with the amount of driving i do. i bought mine on november 21, 1998 and now i have 48,000 miles on it. we drove it back and forth to south texas to our deer lease with about 1000 lbs of corn, gear, and four heavy set guys while doing 90 mph and burning only 3/8 of a tank of fuel. mind you that is a five hour trip from home, one way.

just a thought,

texascat

 

I have a 1994 Dodge Ram 2500 4X4 with a Cummins diesel in it. Mileage pulling a trailer runs from 14 to 18, depending on hills, load, etc. My main use is livestock hauling. I get about 12 to 14 MPG through the hills on dirt roads pulling our bigger trailer. This doesn't sound like a whole lot, but we ran it over a scale loaded and it weighed right at 25,000 pounds with my aunt sitting in it. On paved more open roads, we get 14 to 16. I habitually get 18 MPG pulling our little trailer with hogs (5000 of pork plus whatever the trailer weighs) and go over 20 MPG empty. My all time best, on flat roads, with a tailwind was 26MPG.
If you plan to pull a trailer a lot, or have a heavy trailer, I would strongly recommend the diesel. In my mind, 20,000 miles a year should be far enough to justify it, unless that includes a lot of short run-around trips. Diesels run far more efficicntly once warmed up, and a in a 15 minute drive, it is likely just getting good & warm about the time you get there. Cold starts are not a problem. My Cummins will fire up fine down to zero without plugging in the engine heater. I started it once at 10 below, and it started, but I try to make a habit of plugging it in if it is below about 10 above, just to save wear & tear on the starter, if nothing else. It also warms up much quicker that way.
Another advantage not mentioned with towing with a diesel is you can run them all day, fully loaded, throttle mashed, and not overheat them. We had a gas burner before this, and it seemed to always get hot pulling the big trailer loaded through the hills on a hot day.

Besides, the diesels just sound cool.

I wouldn't worry too much about repair costs. I know a guy who did a LOT of hauling, all over the country with his, and after 750,000 miles (not a typo) it was still running. The only internal thing done to the engine was valve adjustment, and he said he could have gone without it. It had 2 new sets of injectors (6 X about $70 twice) and the injector pump rebuilt once @ 500,000 miles or so (I think for $700 - a new one was over $1000) It was still going last I heard. He won't even go into how many sets of brakes, tires and such he went through, though.

 

One thing no one has mentioned is diesels have very little if any engine braking. They definately wear out brakes quicker unloaded let alone loaded or a trailer without brakes.

98 Scrambler 500
00 Trailblazer 250
See my pic`s at http://www.picturetrail.com/riskracing

 

Again I would like thank everyone for the replies. It truly was very informative and civilized. Not one comment regarding "Ford is better than your Chevy." Blah Blah Blah.

Anyways after much discussion with friends and fellow ATVer's I have made my decision. It was based on two facts. One: diesels must be run and the longer the better and 2: The initial cost of the option to have a diesel. Since my plans for towing is relatively short amount of miles a year, about 3000 to 4000 and the rest of my 20 to 25,000 miles will be short trips. I have decided to get the gas engine. I think this is the best option for me for the short term anyway.

Also, I think I'm going to try and find one with a small block to maintain some efficiency and I'll make some minor modifications to make it a better, stronger tow vehicle.

Again thanks to all for the advise.

 

Cool. There are lots of good choices out there for gas motors. Headers, cat-back exhaust and aftermarket air filter system would be a good start. Enjoy!