Where to start? I need a truck!

Most of the people that think diesels are expensive to maintain have never owned one.

My 2002 Ford is going up in value. At 160,000 miles it has a lot of life left in it. Gas trucks by this time are not worth much. Spending the money up front, makes them worth a lot more later. I would not trade my used diesel for a new gas truck.

All the diesel pickups are basically great trucks and all have their weak areas that are well documented and can be fixed.
My own truck is an older Dodge low-mile cream puff with a Cummins and I love it, but I'll tell you up front that it took an expensive ($5500) "built" transmission and a few little other pieces to make it into the reliable powerful truck it is.
The mid-2000s Ford diesels are well known to be a lot of trouble. Even those can be fixed, and they're very nice trucks. In my opinion the biggest "con" with the Ford is the engine is set back so far that the whole truck cab has to be removed from the chassis for most service work. For that reason, the Ford was off my list even though I like them.
My experience with the 2000+ model Chevys is all with gas trucks, but it's all good. They drive great and seem to be extremely reliable. And among the older diesels they probably have the best transmission (Allison). I almost bought one myself (a 25,000 mile '03 dually with a 6.0 gas motor) when I bought the Dodge.

It's too bad the 12-valve Cummins/Dodges are getting so old now (made until 1998) because that IS the best diesel pickup ever made, considering reliability, economy, and power (they're slow if dead-stock but it's super easy to turn them up and they're plenty stout enough to handle that).

Old Wiz,
That's funny; I had exactly the same except opposite experience with MOPAR. My 165K mile RAM 24valve Cummins is the best, most trouble free vehicle I've ever owned. And I've own over 40 vehicles. No wire. No catalytic converter; no DEF pee canister; nothing but a muffler. Jeanie's 2011 Jeep Grand Chero Limited just turned 100K miles with virtually no woes. Oh, the spare tire was low on air after 5 years, so the flat tire warning kept blinking. Our 1999 Chrysler 300 M, which has been sitting outside for 20 years has 160K miles with only a few woes, like the P.S. hose. Our 1999 Jeep XJ, not-so-grand Chero with 122K miles has been bulletproof and with the L.S. diffs front and rear is the best snow car we've ever owned. Just lucky, I guess.
jefe

My own, unscientific observations : High mileage/age (>50K/5y) Dodge/RAM/Jeep vehicles have a much higher than average number of repairs, especially on hard to diagnose electrical issues.

I just traded in a 9 year old, 85K Ford Fusion. Besides tires, oil and coolant changes, I replaced the brake pads, once in the front and twice in the rear, and the right side ball joints/control arms.

My 19yo, 130K, E150 burned me this year. $1,000 for new cats and an exhaust manifold.

AF990 = DRW

Adamis wrote:
"That being said, if you don't have any brand loyalty then you are in good shape to maximize your dollar to vehicle ratio more than the rest of us that are stuck in our ways."
Wow, you are an observant prophet! About a month ago my next-door neighbor, Rob, traveled to ID to visit family and stopped in at a mom-and-pop truck sales room with a historically low overhead. They sold the big 3. Rob was set on buying a new RAM 2 series with expressed desire to fit it with a truck camper. He had a TC before, but that was 20 years ago. He dickered with the staff and while he could not bring himself to pay the excruciating RAM diesel penalty, he got such a low price on a new GM D-MAX diesel/Allison, 2 series, 4WD SB Crew cab that he drove it home and is now looking at a used Lance 815. He is very happy he had no brand loyalty and just looked for the best buy. You can't get him out of he thing.
My neighbor, Ken, two doors down (and 6 acres away) bought a great running 1995 RAM V-10, 4WD, 2 series, single cab, LB, Deluxe camper shell, 60K miles for $3500 a few months ago and plans to put a light weight camper on it. Plenty of power here if you can keep up with the gas tank. The key is he doesn't drive it much so it doesn't cost him a lot to operate but when he pulls his 4 horse trailer: no problem. What he pays in a low fuel economy is offset by the very low initial price.
I'll be the first to raise my hand to admit that most of us are stuck in our little cocoon of bias. I can also see the age of everyone who responded to this thread by how they tried to protect their turf. However, I do think this is a worthy discussion as the major part of Truck Camping is the truck itself. You can tinker a bit with your camper if you have the chops, but everyone wants to tinker with the truck, at least a little bit. I especially like the folks on here who took the time to offer actual numbers, years and characteristics of rigs in THEIR actual experience, not 2nd hand, or hearsay.
jefe. Here's the latest iteration of 'flat fender': The tail end looks pretty high until the camper is loaded on and the rig becomes more or less level.

Jefe...I think that is the first time we have seen your truck sans camper...I was starting to think they were welded together!

Jefe 4x4 comment about skipping brand loyalty is a solid point though I might guess that most of us here have many of our opinions formed out of brand loyalty more than we would like to admit. I'm a Ford guy and the only reason why I'm a Ford guy is because my Dad owns a 72 Ford Custom 4x4 with a Big Block 400 in her. I grew up going into the mountains with a camper on the back and a lot of great memories of fishing with my dad. She still has just 72k original miles on her and I hope one day to make her my own classic vehicle.

When it came to truck buying I did't even consider a GM or Dodge even though for all intents and purposes they will get the job done just as equally. I ended up with a 1998 7.3 Dually 2x4. One of the first ones off the assembly line as it started life as a dealer show truck in Texas before being bought by the guy I bought it from. This guy happened to own a drag race car and used the truck to pull a 32 foot gooseneck carrying his car and tools. Needless to say, he liked tinkering on the truck as much as he liked tinkering on his race car. I still need to go back and have him write down all the mods he actually did...

That being said, if you don't have any brand loyalty then you are in good shape to maximize your dollar to vehicle ratio more than the rest of us that are stuck in our ways. The one thing that really swayed me towards the 7.3 was the lack of the modern emissions equipment that seems to cause more reliability issues than any other component. I looked at the expense of repairing or replacing a modern truck's emissions equipment and quickly realized I would leave saving planet earth to those with deeper pockets.

Now if money isn't an issue, the 2017 F350/450 Platinum looks awfully dang nice!

Buy the looks of the O.P's lack of any truck or camper at all in his particulars, I'll stay clear of the brand loyalty bandwagon drumbeating and simply ask the obvious question of the O.P.
Why not choose a camper first and then find THE truck that has the load rating with the power and stopping power to comfortably haul it? This may take a while. Write down all the features you can do with, and do without. Find the specimen that fits the features you REALLY need. It just takes one. It's out there. This takes a lot of leg work on your account, especially when chasing after a used TC. No amount of friendly advice is worth the price you paid for it, because they are using their bias not yours.
I for one just got lucky with little knowledge of the interaction between truck payload and camper weight and fit. Many others failed to change their paradigm from tow to haul mode and way under rated the load rating of the truck and wound up with way too much camper for said conveyance.
The other not so obvious starting place is: How and under what conditions are you going to use the truck camper? Always on pavement and plying organized campgrounds? 19.5 tires sound like a good bet to me. High, wide and handsome sounds good also. Going on poor dirt roads or worse? This becomes a whole 'nother animal. Lighter; narrower; not so tall; maybe pop up; 4WD; good ramp approach/breakover/and departure. How much are you going to use said rig? Lots of miles or full time= as many creature comforts as you can carry. There is so much to know you just need to jump in, make your mistakes and move on. When I was a hard core jeeper we used to say," Jeeps are built not bought". I use a lot of that same 'ongoing project' attitude on my XTC, to the eternal consternation of my wife.
jefe
this is my 15 year project truck with new steel Stockton wheels and 35" tires sans camper:

and a pic of my 8 leaf, 3 phase rear suspension

Reddog1 wrote:
I have never owned a Ford or GM diesel. But, I have become an expert on both of them through the internet.

I an just jesting with the BS in my first paragraph. When you read several of the post, they too are just BS. I would ask anyone reading this thread to ask someone that makes a post about a given brand of truck if they have ever owned one, especially if they are posting negatives. It has been my experience that most people will be very defensive with what they have. Some people are so biased, they have only owned one brand of truck.

About a week ago, I realized from experience that ride and load capacity wise there are so many factors to consider.

I have two trucks:

A 1996 2500 2WD SRW Extended Cab long bed diesel. I added one lief to the spring pack, it has no overloads other than the bottom, but does have airbags and 19.5 tires.


My second truck is a 2004 3500 4WD DRW Dodge diesel Quad Cab. The '04 has stock suspension which includes upper and lower overload springs, and stock tires.

Empty, the '96 rides like a covered wagon, and the '04 rides like one of my previous Cadillacs. This is not an exaggeration. In reading the posts through the years, I would have thought the 3500 would have given the rough ride.

Last week, I rode in a 2016 Ram 3500 SRW 4WD short bed Mega Cab. It had only the lower overloads and stock tires. The main leaf pack looked the same as my '04, with the exception the lower leaf appeared engaged with no load in the bed. The ride was as bad as my '96, maybe even rougher. I have rode in a 2004 3500 4WD DRW quad(?) cab GMC completely stock. It rode about the same as my '04.

I am making this post to point out that you can only say how smooth a truck of any size or manufacture rides if you have ridden in it. You can speak in very general terms, but ... There are simply too many factors to consider to generalize.

Wayne

^^^
You're not biased enough to be worth reading....lol.

Always get a kick out of these threads. Someone looking for the 'perfect' truck and everyone jumping in with the answers based on....limited experience.

Until this past year, we've ran Chev, Dodge and Fords, both gas and oil runners. I of course have opinions,thoughts,experiences; dare I say more than most. More miles driven, more repairs performed and paid for, more attention paid to the bottom line and reality and not being "defensive" about a choice.

They all work. Even the "oh my God, stay away from..." seem to get down the road ok. Buying used is a **** shoot more to do with the previous owner than the actual rig.

I think the advice mkirsch gives is great; don't get mired in details. Find something you like and see if it has the quality's that are important to you. They are not all the same, but the details will suffocate you.

We're down to 5 light/med duty trucks (under 35k). I'd tell you all the truth, but it wouldn't mean anything. It's the internet after all.....