Well, most of you know that I am a BIG fan of diesel power plants. My '86 Ford Diesel F-250 is just being too much of a hassle to keep alive. I have 3 Fords, and I am now going G.M.! The Ford transmissions can break the piggy bank, I am lucky to get 50-60 K out of them, and they are very unreliable!
I went out and got me a brand spankin' new '05, Chev 2500HD 6.6 Duramax with an Allison 5 speed auto tranny, Extended cab, 8' bed, 4X4 with most of the bells and whistles. All I can say is.....Sweeeeeet! Push that 4 WD button on the steepest launch ramp and know you got a good grab! The mirrors extend with a push of a button, Radio with CD and Cassete, but didn't want the XM option, can't see the expense for that. 2 weeks and 2K miles and it is sure quiet and smooth for a 4X4! Independant front suspension with electric lockers for the rear. That's all four wheels grabbing folks! 4 wheel disks stop ya in a hurry too! Speedo says 120, she has a govenor to keep her at 97 max though!
16 MPG, and 23+ when she breaks in. 500 HP and 1100 lbs of torque with a chip. Unbelievable off the line speed and power. Now I gotsta add a Greasel kit and run this puppy for free too!
So, what do you tow your Mac with out there?
Last edited by Tom Root on Wed Mar 23, 2005 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Congrats- sounds like a great truck. I have a 93 F-150 w/351W and 205k miles- same engine- second tranny. I special ordered a '05 Dodge Ram 2500 Quad Cab 4x4 SB w/5.9L Cummins Turbo Diesel and the NV5600 6spd Manual Tranny. It is scheduled to come off the line Jan 17th. I am looking forward to it- 325hp at 2900rpm and 610 ft-lbs of torque at 1600 rpm stock! With a chip- scary- but I am going to keep it stock for longevity, I think that will pull the Mac just fine! Plus it will get better mileage than my gas powered Ford! I like the Duramax as well- nice engine. The new 6.0L Powerstrokes have had a few troubles (friend has one- glow plugs and computer problems). I like the Ford and Chevy interior room. I eventually chose Dodge for the powertrain Cummins is a workhorse and the NV5600 6spd manual is bulletproof- will be able to idle the truck from a stop in second gear! The waiting is killing me, ordered it about 3 weeks ago to my specs.
Jeff,
Nice truck also, you can't go wrong with a Cummins either! The Allison behind it would be ultimate. I like the Dodge.....but they stopped making the extended cab in 1999, and I need an 8' bed for other toys, a 40' 5th wheel, 10 1/2' Cabover etc. So, the bowtie was the only option. Drove the Ford, but they couldn't compete with price for what I got, and yes, with Ford making the 6.o Powerstroke vice International Harvester in previous models makes me dubious. Again, the transmission problems I encountered made me skiddish. The only thing NOT giving me grief was the 6.9 Turbo Diesel, the rest of truck was falling apart around it!
We use the same truck for towing our Mac as we do for towing our triple-axle 34' Airstream, and 15' Boston Whaler. A 2002 Ford F250 XLT SuperCab/Long Bed, with 7.3L PSD, 4-speed 4R100 automatic, electric-shift 4WD, huge 4-wheel disk brakes, cruise, power windows and mirrors, off-road, towing and camper packages, cassette/CD radio, and most important of all, power adjustable pedals.
I've owned all three brands over the years, and my best luck was with Ford and GM, in that order, with Chrysler being the most problematic. This time, GM wasn't even in the running because they didn't have the power pedals. Dodge did, but once bitten twice shy plus they didn't have the HO Cummins out at the time, just the older, very noisy version.
I bought a left-over 2002 specifically to avoid the 6.0L, which was just released at the time. (BTW, it's also International, but made in Alabama vs Indianapolis) I won't buy any new engine in the first two years of its production, and as expected, it had some teething pains. We didn't really need the additional horsepower of the new motor. Our Airstream is only 10,000 lbs loaded. At only 9.5' to the top of the roof mount air-conditioner and aerodynamic as a silver bullet, it pulls orders of magnitude easier than a 12+ foot tall fifth wheel (I used to work on and deliver RVs for a living, so I've towed fivers).
I like having the peak torque at 1600 rpm also, which is about 58 mph in Overdrive, with the 3.73:1 limited slip axle and LT265/75R16 tires. We usually tow the AS at 60 mph, but I have had it up to about 90 mph (not quite 2600 rpm) for stability testing.
It's also nice that the 2,600 rpm horsepower peak is at 65 mph with OD off, in direct Drive, and with the torque converter still locked. I've pulled a 7% grade that way at 65 mph WOT, so the 250 HP at that rpm is enough for us.
I agree with Tom on the 158" extended cab/long bed vs the 156" crew cab/short bed. We have two Harleys we'd like to be able to carry if needed. Plus the long bed has a 38 gallon tank vs 29 gallons in the short bed. Certainly, a crew cab/long bed is an option, but a 21' truck is already long enough.
And I agree with Jeff about keeping the motor stock. Most of the tranny, not to mention engine, failures reported on TheDieselStop.com (formerly FordDiesel.com) are from those who've chipped the truck and are now whining because Ford voided their warranty. It's covered under the 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, and if it goes out after that, I'll replace it with one of the heavy-duty BTS or SunCoast trannys.
As I said, the big thing was the power adjustable pedals for my 4'10" wife. With every other vehicle we've owned, she's had to slide the seat all the way forward and drive with the air bag right on her chest and in her face. Pedal blocks weren't practical with me driving the same vehicle. With the pedals fully up, she can drive this truck with the seat in the same position I use it, with the pedals fully down, and have a more normal distance to the air bag. She DOES sit on a cushion to be able to see out better (we didn't get power seat on the XLT).
The Dodge's have a 6.25' or an 8' bed option with the Quad cab, as Moe mentioned the LWB is LONG! 249.7' vice 227.7" overall for the quad cab with the 8' and 6.25' beds respectively, and it has 20" more wheelbase- which is why I didn't get the LB- my wife- she already balks at the size and a 20" greater WB and overall length she'd refuse to drive. I need her to be able to drive it (especially when I go on 6-12 month deployments!). I don't really need the extra bed much anyway-with 3 growing kids I need the quad cab much more than I need 2' of pickup bed! So it works perfectly for my family. I am not sure why Dodge got rid of the extended cab versions though, with a Longbed that would appeal to many folks who don't need the crew cab interior.
I think all 3 domestic truck makers build nice trucks- competition is a wonderful thing. I am glad GM finally put a real diesel in their trucks- now I would like to see a Duramax/Allison Suburban!! I sent an email to GM a few months ago asking about that, they were nice but wouldn't tell me anything for obvious reasons. I do like the 7.3L Powerstroke, nice engine. I really hope Ford gets the bugs worked out of the newer 6.0L PS, it is a good engine in terms of performance.
Wow, that is long! I guess I didn't realize the sizes were so much different. Ford has 5" extra leg room in the rear, not sure where the other 7" is on the Ford Crew Cab Long bed- front seat leg room is about the same, so it must be in the the engine compartment. The Dodge wheelbases are 140.5" (6.25' bed) and 160.5" (8' bed) for the quad cabs. That extra 12" of the Ford would be pretty significant in terms of turning and manuverability (I am happy with the 140" WB- long enough to tow what I need it to, and easy enough to maneuver, especially for the first mate)- Not sure about the Chevy sizes. My friend just brought home a Nissan Titan- nice truck- roomy (quad cab), and it has pretty good power.
Appears I was close, but wrong about the Ford ShortBed... it's 6'8" not 6.75' (6'9").
A SuperCab/ShortBed Ford is 231.4"/141.8", or 3.7" longer overall than the QuadCab. Given that the bed is 5" longer than the QuadCabs, that puts the rest of the truck, including cab, only 1.3" shorter than that of the QuadCab.
As to why the larger Fords are so much longer than the QuadCab:
The Ford CrewCab/ShortBed is 14.4" longer, both in overall length and wheelbase, compared to the SuperCab/ShortBed. That's all cab.
The Ford SuperCab/Long bed is 16.2" longer, both in overall length and wheelbase, compared to the SuperCab/ShortBed. That's all bed.
Moe wrote:Appears I was close, but wrong about the Ford ShortBed... it's 6'8" not 6.75' (6'9").
A SuperCab/ShortBed Ford is 231.4"/141.8", or 3.7" longer overall than the QuadCab. Given that the bed is 5" longer than the QuadCabs, that puts the rest of the truck, including cab, only 1.3" shorter than that of the QuadCab.
As to why the larger Fords are so much longer than the QuadCab:
The Ford CrewCab/ShortBed is 14.4" longer, both in overall length and wheelbase, compared to the SuperCab/ShortBed. That's all cab.
The Ford SuperCab/Long bed is 16.2" longer, both in overall length and wheelbase, compared to the SuperCab/ShortBed. That's all bed.
--
Moe
I was comparing the Ford to Dodge, not Ford to Ford- the Ford Crew Cab 8' bed is 12" longer overall than the Dodge Quad Cab 8' bed- 5" more rear leg room for the Ford(one of the things I like about the Ford Crew cab is that the rear seat room is impressive), Dodge has 0.5" more front leg room, so there is a 7.5" difference somewhere else- which I imagine is in the length of the engine compartment- the hood of the Dodge looks a little shorter than the Ford. The Chevy Extended cab looks bigger than the Ford extended cab- almost like a crew cab size- in fact the rear leg room on the Chevy extended cab is only 3" less than the Dodge quad cab.
Now...about that Duramax powered Suburban- any takers?
Gotcha. "Legroom" has a vertical component, so I'm not sure how useful it would be in predicting cab length.
There is a tremendous demand for a diesel 2500 Suburban in the RV community. I believe the problem is that it is a short (130") version of the old 2500 (8600 lb GVWR) chassis, which these days is the 1500HD. The 2500HD is the old single-rear wheel 3500 (9200 lb GVWR). I haven't looked at the 2005 GMs though.
Since the beginning of the "SuperDuty" Ford has used the same chassis on the F250 and F350, including dually. The Excursion is built on a shortened (139") version of that.
My tow vehicle is a Tahoe. Boy do I live with the guilt!! How can I justify those liesurly afternoons sailing knowing I destroying the planet? Am I a hypocrite glaring at those gas guzzling super power boats as they speed by my serene sailboat?
San Franscico Cronicle - SFGate.com wrote:
Do SUVs Make You Stupid?
Pointless, dangerous and vain as ever, land tanks still sell millions. Only one explanation possible
Maybe stupid is too strong a word.
Maybe it's more like willful ignorance. More like intentional blindness. More like a calm and conscious denial in the face of a staggering stack of overwhelming facts that if you looked at for even one minute would prove that land tanks are some of the most overrated and silly and harmful and utterly pointless vehicles on the planet.
OK, maybe stupid is the right word.
Because there really is no other explanation for the still-roaring success of the land tank. Still no other explanation for their bizarre popularity, for the fact that, according to the Census Bureau and despite California's legendary rep for organics and environmentalism and concerns of health and body and air, our fine and heavily Schwarzeneggered state leads the nation in new registrations for SUVs.
Sad but true. Registrations for the huge lumps of bulbous steel jumped 39 percent between 1997 and 2002, from 1.9 million to 2.75 million, and overall there's been a whopping 56 percent jump in sales of the beasts in a mere eight years across the country, totaling nearly 25 million of the ugly tanks now lumbering across the American landscape and hogging all the parking and burning up most of the oil and sneering in the face of air quality and all rational thought and flipping over and bursting into flame after hitting a pinecone at 80 mph.
You can see it in the eyes of most every new SUV buyer as they stare, wide eyed and overwhelmed, at the massive vehicles in the showroom: some sort of veil drops over their eyes, some sort of weird opiate pumps into their brains and they lose all sense of reason or common sense or environmental concern and their ego balloons and their testosterone kicks up three notches and they go into some sort of spasm of denial about how purchasing one of these things will, in fact, contribute quite heartily to the overall ill health of their own bodies and the planet as a whole, not to mention the very reason we are so desperately, violently at war.
And the salesman sees that look and just smiles and licks his chops and points out how this 4-ton hunk of environmental devastation can seat nine and tow a large tractor or maybe 15 head of cattle, plus it has 27 cup holders and three DVD players and a built-in sense of false superiority, and the vaguely depressed regularly emasculated suburban dad or the gum-snapping Marina girl with way too much of her parents' money and way too little self-defined taste takes one look and goes, oooh.
What, too harsh? Not really. Most people know these facts to be true, but buy the tanks anyway in a mad collusion of wishful thinking and raw denial and false advertising, absolutely convinced the beasts are somehow safer and sturdier (they're neither) and that they absolutely must have 37 cubic feet of cargo space to haul their grocery bags and 4-wheel-drive traction to get over those little concrete barriers in the mall parking lot and just ignore the fact that the thing rides like a brick and handles like a block of lead and is about as attractive and beautifully designed as a jar of rocks.
Irony? The SUV drips with it. Fact is, most Americans consider themselves environmentally conscious and claim to care deeply about protecting natural resources and don't really want war and suffering or the insane BushCo-brand oil dependence that causes both.
But the truth is, if Americans really cared about energy and pollution and reducing reliance on foreign oil and getting us out from under the massive hypocritical terrorist-supportin' Saudi thumb, they'd buy smaller or more efficient vehicles. Period. But they don't.
Waiting for that hybrid SUV to make it all better? Good for you. Step in the right direction, truly, though of course improved gas mileage and reduced emissions do nothing to allay the fact that SUVs still roll and still can't maneuver to avoid accidents and still hog parking and still assault the eye and tread as lightly on the planet as Arnold Schwarzenegger in ski boots. But hey. It's a start.
Another big fallacy? SUV roominess. hull, ugly ol' minivans have far more storage and headroom, as do most sport wagons, PT Cruisers -- even large hatchbacks have more than enough overall storage (and often better headroom) for any but the largest of families and oh my God even this is a moot point because you well know that 97 percent of all SUVs on the road are single occupant and the only "cargo" is their purse or their gym bag, while the other 36 square feet is taken up by, well, ego and attitude and air.
Machismo? Well, yes. There's that. Big feeling of invincibility in an SUV, of a high and mighty driving position that gives you that commanding sensation, so strong and so powerful that you are willing to overlook that it's just an illusion, deceptive and harmful given how SUVs actually have more accidents, actually cause more accidents than passenger cars because they can't maneuver in emergency situations and can't stop in rain or snow and tend to flip over easier than Paris Hilton after a dozen Bacardi shooters.
And then you hear that, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, minivans are 10 times safer than SUVs in a crash. Whoops.
Truth is, small, nimble passenger cars may not survive a head-on collision with a Freightliner quite as well as your bigass Navigator, dude, but they do a hull of a lot better avoiding it in the first place. Which is why rates of serious accidents and incidents of death are actually lower for smaller cars than almost any lurching monster truck on the road. Period.
And sure you can be cheered slightly at the news that SUV sales are slightly sluggish lately, down 2 percent, and that Hummer sales are way off and Prius sales are way up and there's still a three-month waiting list for Mini Coopers.
Until you realize that 2 percent ain't much of nuthin' and until you read how the U.S. consumes 20 million barrels of oil each day, with passenger vehicles burning up three quarters of the total -- and SUVs alone burn half the total for all passenger cars, far more than their fair share and more petroleum than our entire country produces in a year.
And then you learn how that little pip-squeak tyrant Saddam was sitting on 10 percent of the world's oil reserves and that he might have once thought about threatening the nearby 60 percent owned by our buddies the terrorist-lovin', women-slappin' Saudis, and you realize that anyone who thinks we're in Iraq for democracy or humanity's sake is absolutely full of Rumsfeld.
Look. I know many people who own SUVs. Good people. Lovely people. Friends. Family. I know their arguments for owning them. I know that they know, deep down, that most of those arguments hold little sway and most are rather hollow and the result of slick marketing and just a little bit of fear.
And I know there is no accounting for taste and that a big part of the sad American ideology is a willful separation of cause and effect, a general ignorance of how our choices affect the world, and that there are worse atrocities in the world than owning a shiny black knobby-tired 5-ton Ford Expedition that never sees anything more rugged than a pothole in the Krispy Kreme drive-thru.
But, really, we have to just admit it: the SUV is hypocrisy incarnate. It is the perfect emblem for the American view, for our position in the world: gluttonous, vain, dangerous to almost everyone else on the road, mostly useless (over 85 percent of SUVs never see a dirt road, much less need 4-wheel drive), ugly as hull and as graceful or practical as a school bus on an ice-skating rink.
Just admit it. Maybe it will help. Maybe a tiny confession of guilt will put us back on the right track. After all, admission of the problem is the first step toward recovery, right? That, and placing your order now for the badass new VW GTI.
Jesus was a carpenter, and he had parents and 12 friends. He'd drive a 1-ton diesel 15 passenger van with ladder/lumber racks on top. Haul tools and materials during the week and family and friends on Sunday.
WOW, after looking at these websites you would think that I am as bad as some murderer or child molester for having a Honda CR-V (a "small" SUV) and for wanting one day to own a Larger SUV-Truck for towing my Mac. My prior job was with a company here in Ca that preformed stack testing at inductrial facility to document their exhaust rates of: NOx, CO, SO2, and CO2. We were a private company that had our testing whitnessed by the Local Air Districts in California and guess what, when the air district employee showed up to observe the test and make sure no funny business was going on, like a last minute leaning or riching up the combustion process just for the test, they arrived on site in their mini TRUCK! No government issue fuel sipper, but a truck!!!!! That tells you jsut about all you need to know about the seriousness of the California Environmental-wackos!
Oh and by the way the company I worked for made about 2 mill a year in doing these tests. We would typically show up the day prior to the official test (legal to do so) and make sure they would pass, and then as we were driving off site on test day you could hear the unit changing its firing conditions back to the optimal for combustion economics, and thus out of compliance for emmissions of NOX, which in 264 days we could get back into compliance next year just in time for the next sham rubber stamp source test. This is the dirty little secrete of source testing and why I got out of that field.
and before the panic starts, NO, I don't tow the mac with my Honda CRV, I just borrow a truck from my dad or sailing "friends" to take my boat over to the coast from Central California. When you have a cool boat, I have found no shortage of friends with a truck!
whatwouldjesusdrive.org wrote:Obeying Jesus in our transportation choices is one of the great Christian obligations and opportunities of the twenty-first century.
