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

[blt2ski]

OK folks, there have been a few to many diesel vs gas threads that have shall we say gone to "Hell and a hand basket"! So if all of you would put in you BEST, no flaming reasons for going gas vs diesel, pro and con, I will either leave your thread, or copy and paste pertinant info to the 4 posts of pro and con of diesel or gas. This can include the GM 8.1 vs Dmax or Ford V-8/10 vs PSD etc too.

Be real and honest in you answers, not hear say, flaming etc PLEASE!

If posts are good ones, I will leave, if inflamatory or trolling in nature, they will be deleted! I will get this stick'd to the top for future parusing for those that need this type of info.

Added 6-23-04

We are getting closer to answers I am looking for etc.

Stuff like Ken's - T-Bone posts are good. There are a few others of you that have not posted, some with a 9 point question and answer type to figure out how you went with one or the other. If you are one of those, PLEASE repost in this thread. I may have to look up whom has done this and PM you, but if you think this is you, you now know what to do.

Also, for those of you with $ per gallon for either fuel right now, I would prefer to see a post with ...."in my area, diesel is typically .10 less than unleaded" then explain your numbers. As currently in the Seattle area, diesel and unleaded are any where from 2.05 -2.30 per gallon, with mid test .10 more and premium about .20 more, with equal high low splits. Two weeks ago those prices were upwards of .30 -.40 per gallon more. people were posting $ per gallon that were for me. "I wish" If someone is reading your post a year from now, they may want to know where your paying 1.65, when the price of fuel is over $3 per gallon. Let's keep prices out of it if possible.

Bert and tin tipi, got into a good discusion on the pros and cons of RPM's, drive train etc. I would prefer to NOT see the quote of the other in responding threads, maybe just write a quick wording of re tranny gearing, instead of the whole 40 words or so in that paragragh, so the repsonse is shorter if possible quicker and easier to read etc.

I have deleted some 15+/- posts, that were off topic etc. Please note, I am trying to keep this at the top, as the ONLY gas/diesel thread in this area. So if one is trying to decide, we do not have to go thru this BS any more. As such, I will be deleting ANY future posts close to resembling this type of topic. I may have to change "this" title to a better one, if one has a better sounding title, to be more positive, better claification, let me know here, or in a PM/e-mail, what ever you feel most comfortible with.

Again thank you for all of you that are keeping responses positive, etc.

Also we could use a few more positive reasons to go gas, as many can see I have both gas and diesel, both have a place! Both have positive reasons to buy that fuel, lets keep the threads etc to that purpose only!

Marty

[Paul_Clancy]

I listen to the dpf whining pretty steady on these boards and find most of it to be from either owners of pre dpf trucks ("keepin mine forever!" etc), those who want to (or have)modify with tuners and exhausts or those who don't own a diesel and are scared off by the whole idea. I also have come to believe it is mostly internet FUD. I believe most manufacturers have the emissions bugs well worked out since implimented in 2007.5 -with computer updates now to where these trucks rarely have issues with either being a daily driver or hauler. Not to doubt your friend and edmunds -but talk with some actual owners of dpf trucks - there is no evil with smoke and stink free diesels. Practically speaking what IS true is the dpf and egr systems are something else to go wrong - that is the price of progress - same as adding a turbo to diesels years ago, same as a nav system or backup camera - another system to fail. Reality is they actually work for drivers of stock trucks. The rest is smoke and mirrors. Having said that if I didn't need a diesel why would I own one-cost wise that would be silly. Surely better to have a corolla for groceries and short commuting-but being a car guy it would be a new mustang for me.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Rich, my wife just said to think of hauling a load as the equivalent of kitty treats which keep your diesel from coughing up hairballs.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Rich,

My understanding of what my Army truck friend (actually a Defense Department procurement specialist assigned to inspect trucks delivered to the Army) and the buyer reviews/forum posts at Edmunds.com mean is that diesel trucks with emisisons controls in the Ford F-250/350 and Dodge Ram 2500/3500 range require a certain proportion of hauling use relative to other uses to work properly. The proportion varies depending on what the other uses are. This is almost certainly true for similar GM's, and probably true for the heavier duty trucks in the 450/550 and 4500/5500 classes.

An improperly working diesel emissions system does bad things to diesel trucks. Just what is bad, and how bad is bad, likewise varies, but you don't want to find out. Or go to Edmunds and read the complaints. As a general rule, the more stop & go driving you do, whatever load you are carrying, means three things - more oil changes, worse mpg, and the proportion of "keep the emissions system happy" hauling has to go up or the emissions system will get you.

Hauling basically means carrying a load in the truck, or hauling a load behind the truck, which somewhat stresses the engine (which is good, not bad, for a diesel) at a reasonably steady speed somewhere between 30 mph and 60 mph. I get this mostly from my friend. The truck doesn't care whether you are hauling an RV or have a load of bricks in the back as long as it is some appreciable proportion of its maximum rated load however that is computed.

The purpose of hauling a load is to make the emissions system work the way it is intended to work. They are designed to reduce emissions most effectively when the truck is working hard and steadily. If they are denied the opportunity to work the way they are designed to work, invisible gremlins hop out and do a number on the engine or something.

The only way to keep these invisible gremlins, all wearing Environmental Protection Agency uniforms, from doing a number on your truck is to give the emissions system enough of a workout hauling relative to other things you do with your truck. I suspect single-occupant no-cargo freeway driving is at least not injurious, while local driving is bad and stop & go driving is horrible. I.e., ya gotta haul a load and the more milage you do of that, the better.

[richfaa]

Well of the 34K miles on the 6.4L diesel 90/95% of it is hauling a heavy load.It is used for little else same with the V-10. These trucks were working hard most of the time. We are one of the lucky ones I guess folks reprot all kinds of problems with regenerations etc but we have had none. The V-10 was a fine motor if we could have only kept it on level ground or minimum grades.

[Tom_Holsinger]

Marty & Rich, check out the Edmunds.com reviews and forums for the Ford F-250, F-350, Dodge Ram 2500 and Dodge Ram 3500 for the model years from 2005 on (particularly for the diesel Dodges from 2007 on with the current Cummins diesel). There are non-stop complaints about the diesel emissions controls causing maintenance problems, often major maintenance problems, and that is almost always from not doing enough hauling.

One poor owner of a Ram diesel reported being told by his dealer that his engine problems were due to insufficient heavy load hauling as that resulted in the particulate emissions system not regenerating properly.

Basically the emissions controls necessary for reducing emissions when hauling heavy loads plain f***s heavy duty Ford & Dodge diesels when they are little used for not hauling heavy loads. Stop & go driving makes things worse, but what is really critical is getting enough driving time hauling a heavy load at a reasonably steady speed of some sort for a long enough period relative to other driving. 30%+ driving time hauling vs. non-hauling is probably a reasonable minimum.

My wife and I plan to use our tow vehicle to actually tow a load, before retirement, for maybe 50 hours a year, compared to 250 with just my wife in it, and 50 hours with both of us in it. That's 50 hours out of 350, which is only 14.3%. After retirement a clear majority of our pickup driving time will be hauling an RV, and that is when we'll switch to a diesel truck.

If we could afford to simply store a $27,000 diesel truck when we're not on vacation, we'd do it, but we can't take the chance of having to replace one of our existing commmute vehicles before retirement.

[richfaa]

"It's less hassle, and will be about $9000 cheaper, to get a V-10 gasser before we retire. Against that we have to weigh the inconvenience of not being able to RV to Mesa Verde and Yellowstone before we retire. I won't try to tow an RV with a gasser above 4000 - 5000 feet save maybe coming and going every other year through Donner Pass on the way to Utah."

We agree with your logic.We have towed way above 4/5K feet with the V-10 pulling @14K. It screamed and we were slow but we did OK.

Neither our V-10 or the 6.4 L diesel were daily drivers 95% of the time they had the 5th wheel behind them. The The V-10 had 30K Miles and the 6.4L now has 34K miles. We had zero problems with both.

There is no reason to spend $$ on a Diesel if your mode of travel does not require one.

[blt2ski]

Tom, Then get a gas rig, even the GM 6.0 with the 6 sp trans would pull fine. I have not looked at the pickup.com pulling comparison to see if they did gas rigs too. but a few yrs back, the 6.0/6sp was pretty close to the dmax as far as all pulling empty or loaded times etc goes. I recall that combo out did the V10. The hemi 6sp auto has some happy campers on this site too.

If you want to make a single trip to yellowstone, do it, so you go 25 as I did with my 88 454 at 15K lbs up hills, in 01 I pulled the hills at an easy 35 speed limit at 16K with a 12K rated GM 6.5td 5sp manual setup vs the 3.73 3 sp auto the TBI 454 had. The new ones are better off with the puter controls vs what I had. My next rig will probably be a 6.0 gas, 4.33 gears and the 6 sp auto if I can find those gears. The 3.73 would do most folks ample, but my general driving speeds are 50-55 and under many days never above 45, so lower gears will help my mpg some getting me to taller trans gears.

Marty

[Tom_Holsinger]

Rich & Marty,

The only highway miles we'd give a diesel tow vehicle before we retire would be 3-4 weeks a year on vacation towing and sight-seeing, plus maybe taking it on an otherwise useless freeway trip of an hour or so ever other weekend. We'd do the latter anyway just to keep the seals lubricated if we don't need to replace one of our existing vehicles, and store the tow vehicle with our RV.

The difference between Rich's school bus and Marty's Navistar vs. a 2005-2009 diesel dually is emissions control. School bus diesels are exempt from the emissions control laws and so don't got 'em. Marty's Navistar pre-dates emissions control. Even Ford & Dodge 2005-2006 diesel trucks in the 250/350 - 2500/3500 series have some emissions controls. It's horrid for Dodge Rams with of the 2007 - present model years, and for the 2011-on model Fords & GM's. You should compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and diesel engines with emissions controls to diesel engines with emissions controls.

It's less hassle, and will be about $9000 cheaper, to get a V-10 gasser before we retire. Against that we have to weigh the inconvenience of not being able to RV to Mesa Verde and Yellowstone before we retire. I won't try to tow an RV with a gasser above 4000 - 5000 feet save maybe coming and going every other year through Donner Pass on the way to Utah.

Marty, we'll start RVing in the spring or early summer of 2012, and plan to retire in the summer of either 2016 or 2017. That's the longest we'd have a gasser. It will be traded in for a diesel dually whe we retire.

[blt2ski]

Cummins diesels, and tha navistar V8's were designed to go about 400K miles between rebuilds doing city driving. About 600-700K doing hwy work. At worst, you might get 250-300K doing pickup driving as TOm is talking about......The V10 will do about the same or a very small shade less. Still a long time to own a rig, not worth worrying about.

also, my dually, lately, the mowers are in the back, total wt, about 9500 lbs day in and out. navistar runs from just under 12K to upwards of 26K, last time I drove it was 1st of June, it'll get about 2 weeks of daily work, then sit for another 4-6 weeks. still going after 19 yrs, 130K miles, not sure how much longer it will go, hopefully awhile, some have gotten more miles, a few less, somewhere in that range. The more hwy miles you do, the longer the motor will last, more city stop and go, lower miles, same hrs as the higher mileage rig.

Marty

[richfaa]

Tom..What you are saying makes sense. That is what we did with our 05 V-10. At the time we were not yet long timing and the V-10 served us well. It was only when we went "on the road" and hit those steep grades on a regular basis that we went with the diesel. Very simply in 05 we did not need a diesel.

I am no expert at all but about this stop and start being bad for a diesel. after I retired I drove a school bus for @ 6 years. You don't get any more stop and start..short low speed trips than that and they did just fine????

[Tom_Holsinger]

Marty, your landscape maintenance driving does not involve a load of just one person. It includes your equipment. UPS trucks are rarely empty. 70%+ of our driving a pickup will entail only moving the driver with no load whatever, full stops every mile or so, and no freeway milage at all. That is about as deadly for a diesel as it gets.

[RFOneWatt]

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...

[blt2ski]

Tom,

Lets go another direction on the diesel. What does UPS/fed ex et al use in there rigs? Your driving does not sound any different than my driving doing landscape maintenance work.

Will a V10 pull a trailer or equal at 9000' in yellowstone? yes it will, but as mentioned, you will lose 2-3% of your HP in a rig be it gas or diesel that is naturally aspirated. Put a supercharger on the V10, no issues at 9K' in yellowstone, which is why folks like diesels with turbo's. no power loss until the 8-12K ft level depending upon make/model etc.

Reality is, The issue you have with stop and go, shorter trips, a diesel will still probably out last a gas rig overall, if you keep it 100K miles, pay for itself, if you trade every 2 yrs and 25-50Kmiles, not sure it does per say.

Get what you think will work best, do not look back, only forwards, as there could be a cliff you will go over if you keep looking back, second guessing etc.

Marty

[Tom_Holsinger]

Mike,

We checked out Cruiser Patriot editions yesterday. The wardrobe closet doesn't have the depth we want for part-timing in retirement, and we'd lose too much other clothes storage space for a washer-drier which we insist on for part-timing. The bathroom is too small, particularly the shower (36" would be OK but 34" isn't) and the bathroom sink counter isn't formica.

Also we want a rear kitchen for odor control when part-timing. Right now there are no Cruiser Patriot editons with a rear kitchen. Crossroads' Kingston has a nice one though (storage is enormous), as do Keystone's Montana and Carriage's Cameo. We ruled out the Crossroads Seville for lack of a rear kitchen, and because there isn't enough of a price difference between a Seville and the far superior Cameo.

But the Cruisers are perfect for vacation use. We plan on taking one three-week vacation out of state each summer until retirement, plus lots of shorter ones within California.

As for the V-10, consider what a 38-40 mile round-trip daily commute with 32 full stops will do to a diesel whose yearly hours of use would include only 15% hauling.

mgratner wrote:
Tom Hoisenger,

You might be fooled by your Cruiser. We have been fulltiming in one for over 5 years and we have been extremely pleased wioth its performance. We had one problem when it was 4 months old, which Crossroads promptly took care of. We have looked at a lot of so called full time units with their glitz and glitter. The Cruiser works, without issues, so we will stick with it.

In my opinion going with a gas engine, even a V10, just is false economy, not to mention the increase in power avaiable on a diesel in high country. 8000' feet, 24% loss in HP on any gasser.

Cigar Mike

[Tom_Holsinger]

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.