wintersun wrote:
A diesel engine is a poor choice for a daily driver. A truck with a gas engine and 4.10 gears and a 5-speed transmission will be fine for towing and cost less to operate overall. Some people get lucky with diesel pickups but when something breaks it is a great deal more expensive to repair. A set of injectors will set you back about $5,000 and if a head gasket blows the repairs can be double that amount.
Forget anectdotal reports by an owner of a truck. There are agencies that collect repair history on diesel trucks from owner and from diesel repair shops and none of the pre 2010 diesel have a track record on par with gas engines.
My current truck has a diesel engine but I did not get it to save money on fuel or to have a more reliable vehicle. The higher price for diesel negates a great deal of any savings from higher MPG and when you add in maintenance costs the difference disappears. For trips averaging less than 45 minutes duration or for towing less than 13,000 lbs. the gas engine is a wiser choice.
You must own a Ford on the '04-'09 model year. They would put a bad taste in anyone's mouth.
My truck was a DD for my wife for a couple years and she works 15 minutes from the house. She still was able to turn out 19-19.5 mpg hand calculated.
When my daughter was in high school she was in the marching band . I pulled one of the band trailers to every competition. When were gone usually for 12-16 hrs every Saturday so we always took our two Pugs with us. From the time I started the truck that day it never shut off until we got home that night. When I wasn't driving, the truck idled with the air on for the dogs. So it would idle for 8-10 hrs every time and we did this for 4 years. My truck is 9 years old in January and has been turned up for 5 of these years. I have never had to turn a wrench on the motor or transmission in this time frame. The only thing I have HAD to do is front brakes and oil changes. I change the oil every 10,000 miles and use filters either from Napa or Wally World like I've done on every vehicle I've owned.
