Help a Newbie, question about gas vs. diesel

blt2ski wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

blt2ski wrote:
Realistically, one needs to drive 20-30k miles a year to truly pay for a diesel these days in a reasonable time frame, IE 3-5 yrs.

I'll disagree with the conventional wisdom a bit here.
You don't pay the whole diesel premium every time you trade, it's mostly a 1 time hit.
If you stay diesel on every truck you get after the first the payback numbers change quite a bit.

Based on my numbers, and most other larger commercial users, one needs to drive 150K miles minimum to pay off ANY diesel vs gas. Used to be 60-80K miles. Most are wanting an ROI in the 3-5 year relm, so my 20-30K min mile useage is about on target. Where I work, we just switched off to gas rigs vs diesel rigs. We're doing 5 year leas turn arounds, with 30-40K miles a year useage. My paying for one personally is out the door. as I am not driving like I used to for business purposes, no depreciation etc. Takes a long time to payoff an $8K difference, even with an increase in trade. If you want one get one, reality, you will never get it paid for per say if you do not drive the wheels off of it! Even a gas one this is true.

marty