Used Diesel ?'s

Hey'all

I've been looking at used Dodge cummins and find a good amount of units available. It's seems that many are being traded at the

100-150K mark. Some a bit less miles. They look to be nice units,and being told that the power train is good for much more than 100k is there any real concerns on units of this vintage? Any known gremlins in these? Thinking auto transmission.

I need a heavy duty, reliable towing truck and have settled on the Dodge cummins, just not which one.

Tnk,

DE

Reply to
DE
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Avoid the automatics. The engine torque in combination with high load toasts the clutches. Even the standard clutch with the manual gear can be suspect under severe load. A dual disk clutch would resolve the problem, but they are grabby and harder to drive. The problem is exagerated with increased power with either the power chips or later model engines. However, they are still the best there is at the moment. Steve

Reply to
Steve Lusardi

A good, but expensive, solution to this would be to replace the transmission with an Allison, like a lot of medium duty trucks use. That would put an end to most of your transmission worries, but it would knock your wallet for a loop.

AP

Reply to
Alan Petrillo

Have you seen an Alison in a Dodge Ram?? Thats a combo I would LOVE to get!

Reply to
Trey

If you do find an Allison transmission in a Dodge Ram then it's been put there by a custom truck shop. The only light duty trucks I'm aware of that have them out of the factory are GM. Where you find them in other manufacturers' products is in medium duty trucks.

I work the ramp for Southwest Airlines, and a lot of our provisioning trucks are Ford F-650 truck bodies with Cummins engines and Allison transmissions.

If you want to install an Allison transmission in your Ram, I'm sure a good truck shop could do it for you, but expect to pay a fat stack of cash. The other side of that equasion is that with a Cummins engine and an Allison transmission you'd have the heart of a medium duty truck in your Ram pickup.

AP

Reply to
Alan Petrillo

increased

Or ... he could just go ahead and factor in the cost of a new tranny up front. All auto transmissions, (Ford, Dodge, Chevy) at some point are going to start having problems if they are used long term under stress ... even if they are well maintained.

For me, with Dallas traffic getting worse by the day, the auto tranny is worth the potential of future $$$ in repairs down the road.

I say that now ... I'll report back when I drop my first 3-5k on a new tranny. ;)

Craig C.

Reply to
craig

Sounds good to me! but yeah, talk about costly. Why doesnt Ford or Dodge use the Alison from the factory? I believe GM own's Alison, (or part of them) so that might be why they dont do it. but still a sale is a sale, I wouldnt think Alison would care who they sell them to.

Reply to
Trey

You hit the nail on the head. GM owns Allison. GM wants to keep factory installed Allison transmissions available only on GM manufactured light trucks so they can use them as a selling point. But they'll happily sell them for aftermarket customizers to use, and even provide adapter kits for mounting on other manufacturers' engines, Cummins in particular.

AP

Reply to
Alan Petrillo

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