Diesel vs gas......................

Tom Holsinger wrote:
RFOneWatt,

Your video just convinced me to take Yellowstone off the list of vacations until I have a diesel dually, and Mesa Verde is unlikely. Given that both my wife and I really want to visit Mesa Verde, we'll consider a diesel when we start looking in December 2011.

RFOneWatt wrote:
Just for fun, here are a few short videos of 7000LB behind my 5.4L Expedition in the mountains of Wyoming and Utah. We had to pull over several times due to overheating.

Hahah.. This video by chance?

Going down....

You'll notice in the other videos the wife trying to talk to me. I was so occupied with driving I didn't even answer her most of time.

The thing that sucked about the Expedition was when it started getting too hot EVERY idiot light on the dash would light up, all the gauges would slam to the red and the computer would tell you to pull over immediately. I found this out the first time I went to climb a grade. I was watching the engine temp gauge like a hawk and it barely moved at all..until the truck would "overheat." I thought I could at least watch the temperature gauge climb and pull over when it got to a certain point - so I could gauge where I needed to stop. Nope. Either yay or nay. I'm sure I had more time than I thought to try and find a safe place to pull over and I know the Expedition has a feature where if it overheats too much it will shut down cylinders, etc. and go into what Ford calls "Limp-Mode." - But I wasn't exactly in a position to test it.

And the bottom line is - I OWNED this vehicle. I planned on using it for a tow vehicle for years to come. Every fluid in the thing was synthetic. On paper, I had plenty of towing capacity. I just didn't feel comfortable with how hard it had to work to do what I needed it to do. Yeah, I know it it's capable of it, and it's designed to do it but as I've said before - I like my wiggle room. Something would have went on that truck after a few summers of hard towing.

Things are MUCH better now. :) Our last trip was awesome. We were in the mountains of West Virgina going up a steep, unpaved mountain road trying to get to a peak. (Highest is 4800, we made it to 4400 with the trailer!) and all of a sudden a huge logging truck came barreling down at us. I had to pull so far over to the right to let him get past that I sunk the whole right side of the trailer in deep mud on a STEEEEEEP grade. So from a dead stop, I had to get moving. (don't forget the wife freaking out next to me) - In the F250 I was able to simply pop it in 1st and off we went. (I was already in 4WD - good rule of thumb: if you're in a situation where you think you MAY need 4WD, just put it in 4WD ahead of time because sometimes by the time you need it, you may not be able to get into it!) I'm not going to lie, that truck had to work to get out of the mud - but it did it just fine. I bet I would have had to be towed out if we were in the Expedition. You can't beat the torque of the diesel. We ended up getting stuck on top of that mountain for three days waiting for a huge nasty line of storms to pass. (This was the same line of storms that took out that campground in Arkansas in June.) We had no idea what kind of condition the road was going to be in when we went to go down. I felt much better knowing I had the F250 and would be able to cope with much more on the way down if I needed to. Fortunately aside from a few deep puddles the road was in pretty good shape. Put it in second gear and let the truck do all the work going down - I doubt I touched the brake peddle three times.

I rarely drive my truck but I do find myself needing it for one thing or another a couple of times a month.. A bit more in the winter, to take advantage of the 4WD. I also use it to haul stuff back and forth from the summer place once every month or two.

So it's not like it really SITS 8 months out of the year...